I’m on a roll here with the blog. I have been meaning to “complete” the lists of Best Books for years, and I am almost there! I have two more lists left (religion and plays), but they are in sight, during this stay-at-home order. I am an avid list maker, and I will admit that…
Is a writing residency worth it? For me, it has been the lifeblood to a career that is crowded out by life as a mother, wife, hobbyist, home school educator, and middle class American (Lord, help us). This is, true, only my second writing residency. It is also the same residency as the one I…
As you might already know, I am currently nearing the end of my first ever writing residency. I am taking a break from writing (ha!) and thought I would check in with some other part of my brain for a minute. While I keep typing. It is my fate. I feel like I could display…
I am in the middle of a blog-blast, reading a book a day (read: one-two days) and blogging about the books. I took a day off because I was using up my whole evening to attend a local reading, and I figured that had to count for something. Plus, I couldn’t reach my house without…
Dictionary.com defines writer’s block as “a usually temporary condition in which a writer finds it impossible to proceed with the writing of a novel, play, or other work.” Wikipedia defines it as “a condition, primarily associated with writing, in which an author loses the ability to produce new work or experiences a creative slowdown. The…
I am real good at literature. I read it well. I write it well. I thoroughly enjoy it. I intuit it well. I went to school for English literature. I was editor-in-chief of my college literary magazine. I was an assistant editor for a big publishing company. I was a freelance editor. I’m a writer,…
The Life of Charlotte Bronte, by Elizabeth Gaskell. First published in 1857 in two volumes. The version I read, bought gently used, is the 2005 Barnes & Noble Classics edition. I read this book for two reasons: one, I am in the middle of a Bronte project for Owl and Zebra Press, and two, it…
I have a secret I would like to share with you. Turns out self publishing isn’t so new. In fact, it’s older than “traditional” publishing. Say what?! Maybe you’re not totally surprised. Personally, I had been coming to this conclusion slowly, over time. And in no way do I have great knowledge of the history…
It does seem like I am always mentioning NaNoWriMo, doesn’t it? There are two reasons for that. First, NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) now comes around three times per year. Sort of. There’s always the official month in November, but they now offer Camp NaNoWriMo, which can be attended in either (or both) April and…
What has happened to time? (Despite the fact that it is now flying by at exponential speeds (which I am told gets worse and worse as you age)?) I don’t know about you, but time here has busted right up. You see, I have ADHD. (Surprise! Just kidding. I write about this like once every…
Later this week, I am going to write a bummer of a post on how moms are almost excluded from a work-and-write lifestyle. Next week, I plan on reviewing Conan Doyle and sharing how I am mad at the internet. So I thought we should have a bit of uplifting, first, and talk about the…
I rarely write a blog telling you to go read a different article. But I noticed this article was full of things that I would tell you, anyways. So here it is: “How Not to Write a Novel” by James Scott Bell on Writer’s Digest online. I don’t remember how I came across this 2012…
Recently I witnessed a most miraculous transformation, as a self-proclaimed political poet showed up to a local reading group and read what was his “first attempt” at a short story. It was so decent (read: better than decent) that I was further in awe when he shared offhandedly that it was completely not autobiographical. Besides…
When I was a kid, I was labeled “not sporty.” I was also never described as “adventurous,” that I can recall. Ideas of sporty and adventurous in my culture were limited to things like basketball and Lewis and Clark. As I got older, I realized a few things about that: one, sports are not limited…
I know that many of the people who follow my blog are not writers or publishers. I also know that, as a writer, I often get in a discussion (about being a writer) with people who have a very hard time understanding what I am talking about. This is because of the revolution you didn’t…
In the writing world, much of our advice becomes trite. Partly, I think, this is because it is true and therefore gets batted around so much it becomes tattered and, at times, useless. For example, my last post was about Write what you know. I have the feeling I could have written the first two…
I am no stranger to the forced pause. I am a migraine patient (aka migraneur) and have been since I was five years old. I have what used to be called classic migraine, which means my symptoms include blindness or partial blindness, confusion, disrupted speech, etc. on top of the usual pain, nausea, sensitivity to…
They all said to make a plan. I even chirped the same advice to my writing friends: October should be NaNoPlaMo, National Novel Planning Month, we said. Because if you want to succeed at the 50,000 words demanded of you to conquer National Novel Writing Month in November, you want to have all guns blazing…
I have started in a writing group, this month. (See “It Could Have Been Worse.”) I have entered another contest. I have been rejected by the establishment as a self-publisher. (To be addressed in a future blog, titled “The Rejection of the Nuances.”) I have signed up for NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month. (See the…
My intention was to find a writing group to join sometime this year. It was still sitting there on my list of Owl and Zebra goals when I was thrilled to find myself, one evening last spring, in a conversation with a new acquaintance about a burgeoning writing group which would happily include me, if…
