Drum roll, please… I finished rewriting my novel on August 15, 2017!...
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Waiting to Be Inspired to Write? You’ve Got It Backwards!
How would you feel if you were playing hide-and-seek and no one came to find you? What if it turned out you were “It” and everyone else was waiting for you to find them? Are you playing a backwards game of hide-and-seek with your writing? Are you hiding, waiting for inspiration to find you when […]
Let Your Writing Scare You
I have a miserable cold. Actually, the cold virus is probably quite content; I’m miserable. Creative cognition seems beyond me, so I invite you to appreciate this video. George Saunders will assure you that “It’s scary to not know where a story is going.” How is that reassuring? Because writing should be scary. Settle in […]
Top 10 Routes thru Writer’s Resistance: Guest Post by C. L. Blacke
When I read C. L. Blacke’s blog about cultivating a writing practice, I knew you’d want to learn more about her routes around, over and through resistance. C.L. reports that, in the early years, trying to overcome writing resistance “felt like smashing my head against a wall and expecting it to move.” When she finally […]
Writers’ Brains Require Random Input
“Where did that come from?” Usually I’m so enthralled by fresh ideas, images, insights and plot points, I immediately focus on weaving them into the story. I’m so busy figuring out where to go with those ideas and images, I don’t notice where they came from. For example, I couldn’t tell you why the leaves […]
What Writers Need Even More than Creative Leaps
We all seek the next big “A-ha” moment. We yearn for grand and glorious creative leaps. Those flashes of inspiration reassure us that we’re on the right path. And they feel so good. A flash of creative insight might look like a huge, spontaneous leap of intuition, but that big, gratifying “A-ha!” is always preceded […]
Do Writers Have to Polish the Occasional Turd?
“I’ve been polishing turds,” I confessed to my co-coach Laura. “I spent weeks revising and tweaking and polishing the last five chapters. Then I realized I don’t even need two of them.” “Could you have gotten here without polishing those chapters?” Laura asked. I didn’t answer right away. I grudgingly admitted that I probably could […]
When Research Blocks Your Writing, Questions are the Answer
Writers who resist research often have only a vague idea of what they’re looking for, so they don’t know how to start, where to go, or when to stop. Overwhelmed by the idea of research or hoping to not have to bother with it, their writing grinds to a halt. Writers who get in stuck […]
Love it or Hate it, Research Can Block Your Writing
Writers who don’t like research often don’t know how to start. Writers who love research often don’t know when to stop. Paradoxically, the solution is the same for both types. Stuck in the Research Some writers say they get stuck in the research because they love it. Whether they know it or not, many writers […]
Kill the Darlings in Your Writing Practice
In my last post, I suggested that in addition to darlings that appear in our writing – sections we are inordinately proud of that simply don’t serve the whole of the piece – we have darlings in how we show up to write. Process darlings are the things you believe you must have, do or […]
Kill Your Darlings — But First You Have to Find the Little Buggers
Nearly every writer has darlings — both in what we write and how we write. “Kill your darlings” is great advice. The difficulty is figuring out what your darlings are. Traditionally, a darling is anything you’ve written that you are overly attached to and is not essential to the piece you’re writing. But knowing what […]
