I get it. I really do. So few of us have the time to write. It’s enough of a struggle to get the kids into bed/lie convincingly to your boss/make a deal with your partner so that you can carve out a few minutes of time with your work in progress. Sometimes, opening the precious … [Read more...]

There’s a certain ‘tude hard to miss if you spend any time in writing circles. It usually crops up after a writer who is not handling criticism very well that day shuts down and throws down the following equally defensive and offensive statement: “Well, it [your critiques/how my … [Read more...]

Many writers find the challenge of writing dialogue particularly baffling. After all, most of us are exposed to numerous voices on a regular basis. Wouldn’t it follow that we have, on hand, a bottomless wealth of experience to draw upon? Yet writers at all levels balk when it … [Read more...]

  It’s a simple enough question, but I’m not sure the answer is always that obvious. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that oftentimes, when we get stuck, it’s because we’ve gone too far down the path of telling someone else’s story. As fiction writers, it may seem like … [Read more...]

Talent is one of those words that’s thrown around writing circles like a great, mythical, white whale. It’s the commodity that we all revere and can rarely define, yet this doesn’t stop us from seeking and identifying it. It’s hard, in fact, to read the blurb on the back of a … [Read more...]

Attempting to get published is a special purgatory of its own. More often than not, writers are not prepared for exactly how grueling – and long – the process can be from final manuscript to bound book. Even when they gird themselves with the occasional anecdote that gets … [Read more...]

When I first expressed an interest in writing, lots of people gave me what I thought was great advice. Develop a regular practice, they said. Try to write at the same time every day. Don’t leave your chair until you have 1,000 words on the page. Tell your loved ones your writing … [Read more...]

The summer I turned twelve, my parents enrolled me in an early morning swim class. Like the simple creature that I am, my eyes typically shoot open when the sun rises and droop when it sets, so I didn’t mind the early hour so much. The problem was, the swim class was on the north … [Read more...]

When I first started out as a writer, I attended a few writing workshops. They were pretty typical: we were assigned readings, discussed them in class, and each week one of us would present our work for the others to “workshop.” Sometimes, this worked out rather well. There were … [Read more...]