AS THE END OF THE YEAR APPROACHES, I like to spend time reflecting on what happened during the year. Typically, I review my goals for the year and assess how I did in relationship to my intentions; I read past blog posts to help remember what happened and refresh my […]
Guest Post by Ainsley Lawrence YOU’VE GOT MULTIPLE PROJECTS, a full personal life, and hardly any energy or enthusiasm to tackle either. Sound familiar? When you have so much going on in your life but feel like you have nothing to give, you may be stretching yourself too thin. And […]
“A person who chases two rabbits catches neither.” ~ Confucious I DON’T KNOW if my brain has become more scattered over time, or if it’s a result of too much digital communication and attempted multitasking, but it sure seems more challenging than ever to get focused when I sit […]
WRITING A NEW CHAPTER of a long story, even when you have a solid outline, is always a challenge. To keep your audience engaged, the chapter needs to contain all the elements of the larger work: an inciting incident; conflict; drama; perhaps some humor; and, most of all, the events […]
ON A WHIM, and in a desperate attempt to revive my regular writing practice, I joined a 28-day, 20-minute per day writing challenge starting January 2nd and running through the end of the month. The challenge is sponsored and organized by Story Circle Network, an organization for women writers, which […]
HERE WE ARE AGAIN. It’s the start of a new year and it’s time to establish your new year’s writing goals. Everyone knows that writing is an addictive habit that, once firmly established, takes over your life. It’s also the gateway to even darker habits, like self-publishing and buying pay-per-click […]
ON THE FIRST of each year, I set aside several hours for reflection before setting my goals for the year. This time of reflection is a grounding ritual I’ve come to love and rely on, as it allows me to perform a “reset.” By reset, I mean that I evaluate […]
THERE’S MORE THAN ONE WAY to escape a pandemic. You can shelter in place, go nowhere, see no one, exercise indoors. You can catch up on home-improvement projects, learn how to cook, start painting, read that pile of books that’s been gathering dust on your nightstand. You can finally write […]
HAVE YOU EVER had an insensitive editor rake you and your work over the coals? Most writers have had to deal with a situation like that from time to time. For many of us, that means finding an editor that has a better “bedside manner.” But what do you do […]
IF IT’S BEEN A WHILE since you sat down to write, I can relate. Like many other writers I know, I have what I call “fallow periods” during which I don’t write. Times when my writing energy or motivation is low and I flounder, feeling at a loss for creative […]
A RECENT New York Times article on language and gender caught my attention, because its first sentence, which I paraphrase here, immediately rang true: Americans are resistant to use the word “she” when describing a hypothetical president. Not because Americans don’t believe a woman could be president, but because our […]
This is Part 3 of an exploration of Atomic Habits, by James Clear, and how habits change the way we think and perceive ourselves to be. How they can make or break our ability to succeed. And, in particular, how we can apply these principles to our writing life. If […]
