I’m usually not a big fan of pithy phrases to describe the human experience, but I make a pointed exception when it comes to the mental load. If you’ve never come across this phrase, it stems from an effort to define that condition so many primary caregivers suffer from; namely, … [Read more...]

In general, those of us who set out to write novels tend to be ever so slightly Type A. Maybe you think I’m making a gross overgeneralization here, but keep in mind that our idea of fun is create entire worlds in our heads and mold them into complex stories that require 80,000 … [Read more...]

It’s a crime that so many of us persist in evaluating our creative success along linear lines. I struggle regularly to remind myself that progress is not restricted to moving in one direction, but even though I’m pretty good at remembering that, I still feel ever so vaguely … [Read more...]

Editing is such a funny business, especially when it comes to parting ways with a line or paragraph or scene or book you once loved. I actually had to find an extremely low-tech, remedial way to manage this in my own life – I made a "Good Leftovers" file for what I wanted to lose … [Read more...]

There’s a huge psychic oppression that comes with assuming that progress only goes in one direction. In my life and in my work, the most substantive progress I’ve ever made looks much less like steps taken along a line than it does a waltz, or a samba – and, in all honesty, there … [Read more...]

On a very basic level, shaping emotion is a fundamental aspect of anything an artist does. A dancer does this with her body, a painter with her paints, a singer with her voice. But as technically savvy as any artist must be to do this work, I think it presents unique challenges … [Read more...]

There’s an important distinction to be made between what we do when we write something down and what I like to think of writing up – so important, in fact, that I frequently find it frustrating that the same verb is used to describe both processes. My son reminded me of this … [Read more...]

Once upon a time, before there was every form of immediate gratification available to us in the entertainment realm, we used to have to bring much more to the table in order to make something interesting. My kids have approximately eight gazillion computer games available at the … [Read more...]

You know you have to do it. It’s just not working anymore, and you’re in need of a clean break. Maybe it’s that novel you’ve toiled over for the past seven(teen) years, or that short story no one but you understands, or that poem an English professor once told you had promise. … [Read more...]