A friend who lives in the Midwest recently sent me a note: “Today I can see the very first snowdrops bloom near my back door. And the winter aconites (small buttercup-like flowers) are starting to show their tiny yellow buds, jutting barely above the dead […]
Last night, lying in bed next to my seven-year-old granddaughter Amelie, waiting for her to fall asleep, I began concentrating on the music playing on her boom box. It was a disc titled “Chill with Chopin,” and as I listened to what I think was […]
It’s the first weeks into the new year, and a perfect time to make one resolution about your writing practice. Remember, only one. Begin by thinking about your writing. How often do you come to the page? For how long? How many pieces have you […]
Driving home after dark last night, I turned onto a block festooned for Christmas. With all the colored lights twinkling at me, I realized that, this year, I wanted to help writers give themselves the gift of writingfor Christmas. It’s actually an easy gift to give–and it’s […]
Trusting the writing process is an ongoing practice. Once you’ve learned to trust enough to complete a draft of whatever you set out to write, you then have to practice trusting the revision process, which includes several stages. Most important here, is to remember that […]
Once you’ve trusted your imagination enough to sit down and begin writing, next, you have to learn to trust the writing process. So many of the writers I’ve worked with forget—or have never known—that fine writing doesn’t happen all at once; it takes place step […]
Have you ever gotten an idea for a story or an essay and dismissed it immediately? Too complicated, too ordinary, uninspired, already been done are some of the condemnations my clients toss at their ideas. “But how do you know without even starting?” I ask. […]
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 […]