In 1937, Sinclair Lewis shared his version of an often repeated and often reworded bit of writerly wisdom: And as the recipe for writing, all writing, I remember no high-flown counsel but always and only Mary Heaton Vorse’s jibe, delivered to a bunch of young and mostly incompetent hopefuls back in 1911: ‘The art of … More Do Writers Need to Keep Our Butts in the Chair?
When E. L. Doctorow observed that planning to write, outlining, researching or talking about you’re going to write is NOT writing, I think he meant we can’t just hope to write or dream about writing, we have to take action. Unfortunately, many of my students and clients have interpreted that mindset (wherever they know the … More Only Writing Is Writing, Right? Wrong!
Frustration is the hallmark of Incubation, the stage between active investigation/research (Saturation) and the aha moment/ flash of insight (Illumination). In the research stage, you had a pretty good idea what to do: go look for answers, look for related questions, look at what others have done. You knew whether you’re doing your research or … More How to Create While Doing Nothing or What to Do in Product Time When You’re Incubating
Bane of Your Resistance 