Transform your writing life.
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 …
…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 …
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. …
Guess what the writer’s #1 roadblock is! It isn’t lack of time. That might be on the list, but it’s not #1. It ain’t lack of resources. Lots of people have written books despite lacking external resources. It’s not lack of money. Money can buy you time, coaches, and feedback, but it can’t help you actually write the book. …
I’m supposed to go somewhere tonight (by “supposed to” I mean I said I would). This morning I diagnosed myself with intercostal muscle strain, which came on suddenly during a weightlifting workout 11 days ago and sent me to emergency with what I (and the ambulance crew! I’m not a hypochondriac!) thought might be heart attack. Even 11 …
Sometimes the fridge in my new domicile oozes water. This fridge is gigantic, I’m not sure how old it is, and I don’t know why it cries in the night. I’m torn between investigating it and replacing it. Both would take time and money. When you’re faced with something that you have to deal with, whether it’s a grieving …