I think I’ve just proved the value of practicing small–in an inadvertent experiment, with one subject only. Over the past few months, I’ve reverted to my former instinctual negative thinking. I gave a talk in Sacramento last Thursday, and when I realized the next morning, […]
Although I’ve led hundreds of writing workshops, I’ve never joined a writing group. The reason: I don’t care what six, or eight, or ten other writers think of what I’ve written. Over the years, I’ve learned that each writer in a workshop will find at […]
Many of the writers I work with fuss with their current story, poem, or essay forever, before moving on to the next story, poem, or essay they want to write. “I just want to read through one more time,” more than a few of […]
Most people who struggle with writing are intense self-questioners: is this the best topic, is this the best way to open, am I asking the right questions, speaking to the right audience? No wonder these people have such a hard time writing. Can you imagine […]
I recently checked in with Amazon, and was astounded at the number of books on happiness. So many experts and so many methods of achieving this ideal state. Where does small fit in to this universe, I asked myself? And with all these books and […]
I had hoped to write during my month in France, but was too busy and distracted to focus. So I was relieved when an idea for a new essay came to me a few days after returning home. I wanted to write about how speaking […]
I just spent a month in France, where I didn’t think about small at all. Not once. When I returned home, I felt completely disconnected from the practice that had been central to my life. The disconnect is understandable. I hadn’t felt the need for […]
At the end of the day, the participants in the “Jumpstarting Your Writing” workshop I taught several weeks ago, agreed to settle on a small amount of time—15 minutes to a half hour–Writing and Starting a to write, at least five times a week, and […]
Last night as I was falling asleep, I felt a strong desire to work on, not in, my office. I pictured myself vacuuming, dusting, emptying and rearranging shelves, then finally re-curating the photos on the walls and the collection of objets I have displayed over […]
We are all so busy these days. I know many people who rush from appointment to appointment, engagement to engagement, without, it seems, a clear sense of just what their priorities are, or what they would most like to be doing. I’m sometimes tempted to […]