Dear Writers, Happy Spring! After months of teaching sneezing, coughing kids at the library, I finally got sick. Last Wednesday, I came down with a sore throat and chills. I cancelled all my meetings—I didn’t want to make others sick—but thought, “I can still work.” And then I got worse. By Sunday, I was a...Read More
Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen. —John Steinbeck Last Tuesday at the library, we wrote noisy poetry. An eight-year-old girl whined, “But I don’t know what to write about!” I asked her questions: What interests you? What annoys you? What...Read More
As you may have read last week, I’ve signed up for the Idle Ironman at my Y. In the next month, I’ll bike 112 miles, run 26.2 miles, and—since I don’t swim—run an extra seven miles. The first year I did the Idle Ironman, I started a week late. But I figured it’d be easy:...Read More
All great things have small beginnings. —Peter Senge In yoga, I notice that the small shifts yield big rewards. Tiny movements create aha moments. When I relax my shoulders, shift the angle of my foot, or lift my chin—the correct pose emerges. It feels right. I’ve noticed the same phenomena in writing. Often, a client...Read More
Remember these things. Work with all your intelligence and love. Work freely and rollickingly as though they were talking to a friend who loves you. Mentally (at least three or four times a day) thumb your nose at all know-it-alls, jeerers. critics, doubters. —Brenda Ueland Doubt happens. Rejections pile up. Someone offers a not-so-kind remark...Read More
I met Paul Geenan several years ago and was immediately intrigued by his intellect and curiosity. When I heard about his new book, Civil Rights Activism in Milwaukee, I wanted to learn more about the book and Geenan’s writing process. Geenan was kind enough to offer an interview, and you can read it below. If you’d...Read More
Genius is finding the invisible link between things. —Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Nabokov, author of Lolita, wrote all of his novels on 3 x 5 index cards. Each day as he began his writing period, he would shuffle the cards until he found a scene that had energy for him and started writing from there. When...Read More
Dear Writers, Last week, Chuck Wendig wrote a great post on the quantity and quality of self-published books, Slushy Gut Slog: Why the Self-Publishing S$*t Volcano is a Problem. He said, “An author on Facebook the other day noted, quite correctly, that writing is a craft and as a craft it can be evaluated fairly...Read More
Writing without revising is the literary equivalent of waltzing gaily out of the house in your underwear. —Patricia Fuller Last week, my dogs went for their regular grooming session. I was amazed at what they were able to do for Muffin Man in just a few hours. Take a look. That’s kind of what I...Read More
I’m always curious about what writers read—so I started a blog series! In #WritersRead, authors share five books that have inspired or educated or nurtured them in some way. Today I’m delighted to welcome fellow blogger Sarah Allen to talk about five books with soul. Enjoy! #WritersRead: Five Books with Soul by Sarah Allen Writing...Read More
