Whenever I do an event and talk about my writing process, I get a question about how I deal with writer’s block. And I never know what to say. I tend to agree with Sarah Ruhl, who wrote in Poets & Writers magazine, “Writer’s block, I have always maintained, is not real. It is an — Read More
Tag: poets and writers magazine
Writing: Art and craft
I’m late to the 2014 party and just finished (and loved) Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. As usually happens when I finish a novel I love, I Googled the author for insights into her writing process and found this interesting snippet on The Millions: “I took a lot of notes as I was — Read More
Writing beyond fear
I’ve started working on a new thing (I’m hesitant to call it a novel yet) and I had a mini breakdown about it this weekend. I’m having all these “Can I pull this off?” thoughts. I’m overwhelmed by the task of piecing together the story, which has come to me in disjointed segments. It’s like a — Read More
On finding time to write…and my next book
I’ve written a version of this post a few other times in the past couple years. Why? Because finding time to write is always an issue for me. I assume it’s an issue for most writers. Most of us have a full-time job or kids or both (yikes). I work in advertising, which is fairly — Read More
Writer envy
The latest issue of Poets & Writers magazine features an article about Judy Blume. She just released a new, for-adults book called In the Unlikely Event (which is currently sitting in my Amazon cart). A particularly intriguing part of the article: Blume suffered an existential funk in the early 1980s after reading Dad (Knopf, 1981) by — Read More
Writing for control
Sometimes when I read Poets & Writers magazine, I come across an article that is so good that I must tear it out for safe keeping. I put it in a folder labeled “writing stuff.” In the latest issue, I tore out “Quieting the Mind” by Sarah Herrington. And then I promptly followed her on Twitter. In — Read More
On rejection
If someone told me they wanted to be a writer, I would say, “Ok, I hope you’re good with rejection.” It’s funny how writers are some of the most sensitive people and publishing is such a harsh, brutally blunt industry. Some fun facts: Robert M. Pirsig received 121 rejections of his book Zen and the Art — Read More
Just keep swimming
That’s what I think of when I’m struggling with writing–just keep swimming, just keep swimming. You know, from “Finding Nemo.” If you don’t know, you should watch that movie. That one little phrase has helped me get through hard weeks at work, a week-long trek through the High Sierras, half marathons, and now this book — Read More
On time
In this epically long phase of editing my novel, my biggest stumbling block has been figuring out how to deal with time in my book. Yes, time. My story takes place over several decades and, obviously, I’m not going to show every moment of those decades. I’m not even going to show a snippet of — Read More