Today I listened to an interview in which it was suggested that we look inward for the metaphor of who we are and what we do in the world… what’s going on in our life. My metaphor popped up instantly. I am a conch shell. A conch shell may be empty but it once was […]
Posts in the writing category:
Show, Don’t Tell
“Show, Don’t Tell” is the closest thing I know to a writer’s mantra. For every sentence that I write, I’m constantly berating myself—Did I “show”? Or did I “tell”? Did I remain “in scene”? Remaining “in scene” is my nemesis write now. Yes, write now. You read that write. Writing is all I care about, […]
The Scent of Writing
The scent of writing is all around me this morning in the form of a bouquet of lilacs. Yesterday, I placed the Mason jar bouquet on the shelf next to my bed, where I begin my morning reading and writing with my first cups of coffee. The scent of lilacs. How that returns me to […]
More Editing
Three days after creating my chapter and scene notecards, I’m making sense of my category and themes, ready to continue editing. The category is Coming of Age. The themes were not so obvious to me. However, when you simplify the contents of your childhood into a patchwork pattern on a table, suddenly the themes that […]
Write Now
Do you put pressure on yourself to produce X number of pages or X number of words per day? When you fail, do you beat yourself up? It’s no wonder. Writers are constantly being directed to produce, produce, produce! Never mind the quality. Just spit it out! Quantity is what they want. Preferably 80,000 words […]
Two Birthdays
This is a re-write of my earlier chapter “I Am Born”. Two Birthdays It was a few days before Memorial Day 1929, the last week in May. My maternal grandparents were out on the town, partying in the rumble seat of their best friends’ Buick Coupe. Mémère loved to dance and sing, personifying the quintessential […]
Belize Day 2
It’s been less than 12 hours since arrival in Belize and, already, I’m back in the groove. Any thoughts I had of maybe going elsewhere next winter are slowly getting squashed by the synchronicity that I always experience here. syn·chro·nic·i·ty1 /ˌsiNGkrəˈnisitē/ noun the simultaneous occurrence of events that appear significantly related but have no discernible […]
Perfection is Overrated
Is Perfection overrated? I think so. A writer friend just sent me a download on the importance of being “Good Enough,” as opposed to being “Perfect.” Long Story Short: If we fall victim to the whims of the Perfectionist in ourselves, we can damage the expression of our Creativity. Example: You write a stream-of-consciousness response […]
The Dream, Climbing Back to Creativity
The Dream, Climbing Back To Creativity Yesterday I arrived at my destination just as dark fell upon a tiny beach village on the U.S. side of the Canadian border at British Columbia. I had driven north on a grey day (or a gray day or a grey dey- I was already contemplating poetry and prose- […]
Writer 2.0 Podcast
When is listening to a writer podcast as important as sitting down to write? When it’s A. C. Fuller’s Writer 2.0, a podcast dedicated to writing, publishing and the space between. I met A. C. Fuller at the 2015 Pacific Northwest Writers Association conference by attending his presentation on editing, and later, at his book […]