Transform your writing life.
Pat Dobie 
I am messing around with the opening of my current novel (I have 8,000 words or so, but I wouldn’t call any of them useable yet, haha!). Wish I could tell you what the novel’s about, assuming you’re curious! Not just for fun, but because it’s good practice to write or speak what you’re working …
…The Weird Get Going How’s your writing project going? Do you have one? It’s been a weird time for me lately, what with my mom being diagnosed with dementia (that explains a few things!), my income gradually crawling up from its summer dip in the cold lake of WTF, and a stream of daily small complications …
A theory, with a case study (n=1) Here’s a silly situation! I started A Writer’s Roadmap (AWR) in 2019 as a subtitle for what I pictured as a few nonfiction e-books in the how-to genre, specifically how to write and publish a book. I obtained the URL and made a website for it with no real …
I’m sitting in what feels like the dark (my office / flexspace, which is in fact a large closet), still riding a bit of a high from the International 3-Day Novel contest (3DN for short), which ran over the Labour Day weekend. Everyone I know who’s tried the 3DN either does it once and goes, “not …
I’m not a big fan of artists who complain about parenthood as an obstacle to creating. In a 2009 essay in Poetry magazine entitled “As if Nature Talked Back to Me,” poet Ange Mlinko writes: “…the plethora of conferences and grants and brief residencies by which cvs—and social networks, and reputations—are built, are no less restrictive to the poet-mother who …
The Summer Olympics are on TV! And they’re happening in real life, too, OF COURSE…over in Europe, over in Paris, over where baguettes grow on trees et le fromage, c’est magnifique. I was going to write a bracing postcard about how Olympic athletes get their stuff done. Ability + decision + dedication + support in …
The road leading to a goal does not separate you from the destination; it is essentially a part of it. —Roman Saying, quoted in Charles de Lint, Dreams Underfoot, 1993 Yesterday I met a goal six months in the making–my podcast buddy James Buchanan and I “soft launched” Gifted Underachievers, a podcast for midlevel creatives with delusional ambitions. We “gentle launched” …
…And Why You’d Want To Maybe I should qualify that: How to fake your own death if you’re stifled / frustrated / stuck in your creative life. Here’s a four-stage process I recommend: 1. Before the how, consider the why 2. Rate your days, alien-style 3. Analyze & prioritize 4. Remove & replace Stage 1: Before …
Quote attributed to either John F Kennedy (1917-1963) or Gail Devers (1966-). In the last Postcard I was all over the idea of having a creative ecosystem for yourself, so you can make the thing you want to make. Brace yourself for some possibly weird suggestions on how to set one up! Personally, I used to …
Who do you hang out with, and how do you feel afterward? This is a question I’ve been asking myself after I read a quote attributed to the late great Nipsey Hussle: “If you look at the people in your circle and you don’t get inspired, you don’t have a circle. You have a cage.” The people …
Do you ever go through a phase where something you’re doing feels like it might be a mistake, and you genuinely don’t know if it is or it isn’t? Or even if you’re sure it’s not a mistake…for example, if it’s something you’re lucky to have the opportunity to do…have you ever gotten the feeling that you might be screwing up BIG-TIME? Like you’re driving …
I just found the rough draft of a piece I wrote a piece for a local writer’s magazine . It proposed 8 steps for writing a novel, to wit: #1: Start with Character Plot might seem to be the most important thing in a novel, but consider a plot like “Joe goes to the store for a loaf of …
Let’s blether about the ether. I’m not going to sugarcoat this. Writing can be hard.You’re taking little black marks and making an experience for someone you don’t know. You can’t really see it objectively for a long time. In fact you can’t see it, period, for most of its creation. Knitters have wool, sculptors have clay …
Now that we are one-twelfth of the way through 2024 and all the shenanigans about New Year Resolutions is over, it’s time to talk about how to create something you love and send it out into the world. Forty-plus years ago, the band DEVO made an album that took them from near-obscurity to the top of the music charts. In …
I had a writing teacher named Benjamin Percy who, according to Wikipedia, is “an American author of novels and short stories, essayist, comic book writer, and screenwriter.” I am old enough to have been Ben’s babysitter. By that, I mean I was sixteen when he was born. I met him when I was forty-six and he was thirty. …
My friend Doug, whom I met in a writing class about eighteen years ago, asked, “How long can you put aside a story and still return to it, legitimately? 10 20 30 years? When to burn shit?” A brilliant musician and writer, Doug is a very creative guy. Probably quite prolific. I don’t know how many stories he’s got …