• take care: UPDATED

    Do you take care of yourself? It’s important no matter who you are or what you do, but it’s also important for the writing itself. Your writing will do better if you the writer get enough sleep, some exercise, some snuggles or hugs, and time to daydream and ‘refill the well’ as Julia Cameron put…

  • Routine and resistance

    Don’t writers hate routine? Not if they want to get serious writing done. After time away, removed from the U.S., the internet, social media and my daily routine, I’m back into it. There’s a lot to be said for getting completely away. But getting back, getting over jetlag and catching up on sleep also reminded…

  • Happy New Year, new you, new writing

    Do you make resolutions? There’s a lot of snark (enough with the snark already) out there especially about how resolutions are useless and meaningless, but I say they are a sign of hope and hope is a good thing. I don’t know how you have perseverance as a writer without hope. Hope that you will…

  • all in all you’ve hit the wall

    What are some of the reasons for stopping? In his book (which I recommend) on writing, IMMEDIATE FICTION, Jerry Cleaver makes the case for conflict and continually raising the stakes: “Happy lives make lousy novels…. If the characters are having a good time, the reader is not.” What if, on the other hand, it’s about you…

  • Expansion

    Some of the people at school (see below) read Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art. I find it interesting to look at what authors are doing besides writing. Pressfield, who wrote Bagger Vance, Gates of Fire, and so on has taken his research on Alexander the Great’s Afghan campaign and looked at Afghanistan. He doesn’t pretend…

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