About a month ago, Sara, a coaching client, and I talked about how she could set target dates as she drafted her novel. She decided to set a target for so many words per week and target dates for reaching specified total number of words. We talked about the potential emotional hazards this posed for … More New Book Update: Are Targets Dangerous for Writers?
Writer’s block consists of exerting an excruciating amount of energy to accomplish nothing. I suggest you skip the painful part, and do nothing right from the start. Writers need plenty of time to do nothing and do it well. Brenda Ueland intuited the value of time to do nothing back in 1938 when she wrote … More Nothing Beats Writer’s Block Like Doing Nothing
Pain is Tuition for Compassion, Fear is Tuition for Bravery A Sufi adage tells us, “Pain is the tuition for compassion.” Until you’ve experienced deep pain yourself, you are incapable of the compassion that calls forth the best parts of human beings and allows us to connect heart to heart, deep below the surface of … More Learn to Be Brave, Not Blocked
Every once in a while, I meet former students and we chat about their writing. A few months back, one woman told me she’ll always remember what I said in class years ago. “What was that?” I’m always curious about what bit of wisdom or nonsense filtered through my mind, came out of my mouth, … More Maybe You Don’t have Writer’s Block: Maybe Writing Is Just Hard
Can’t get the words on the page? Try putting pictures there first. Sometimes you need to back away, not just from the keyboard, but from words themselves. Cut pictures, not words,and paste them into a new creation. Collage-making puts me in a different state of consciousness, one where my perspective is more fluid and creative … More Cut and Paste Your Way Through Writing Resistance: It’s Not What You’re Thinking
Bane of Your Resistance 