13 May 2014 Note From Rochelle Dear Writers, This past weekend, I ran my first 5K, Run Like a Mother. I didn’t burn up the route but I finished, beating my best training time. The cool part: I had fun. Really. I enjoyed running and cheering on so many amazing athletes! And in honor of...Read More

Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up.  –Jane Yolen Since January, I’ve been exploring art journaling—thanks to an Oprah’s Lifeclass given by Brené Brown. It’s been...Read More

Many of my friends talk about the Target effect. Has it happened to you? It’s like this: we go in with a plan to purchase a specific item, usually something practical like hand soap. Somewhere in the middle of the trip, deep in the store, we notice that our cart is overflowing, and we can’t...Read More

I probably should have guessed that starting an online meditation program during spring break would be challenging. But I’d set aside Monday to finish up work, so I believed I could sneak in the meditation between tasks. I pressed play, and the dogs barked. I couldn’t hear a word, so I stopped until the teenager...Read More

Writing is not a matter of time, but a matter or of space. If you don’t keep space in your head for writing, you won’t write even if you have the time. ― Katerina Stoykova Klemer For weeks before the spinning beach ball of death took control of my computer, locking me out from everything, it...Read More

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