By Rosanne Bane A fellow writer, who wants to remain anonymous, introduced me to the idea of catching the Alleluia. She in turn caught the idea from a choral director who, as she recalls, “told his students there is always an ‘Alleluia’ going on in the Universe and when you make your music right, you … More Have You Caught the Writer’s Alleluia Lately?
By Rosanne Bane Today is the sixth day of National Novel Writing Month, which means that those of you who are NaNoWriMoing should be about 10,000 words into your novel. I think NaNoWriMo can be a great way to get past resistance and I applaud the emphasis on letting go of unreasonably high expectations so … More NaNoWriMo Random Scene Generator: 10 Steps to Solving the “I don’t know what to write” Problem
By Rosanne Bane Like so many scientific breakthroughs, mirror neurons were discovered by accident. Daniel Goleman describes the fortuitous accident in Social Intelligence: Neuroscientists stumbled on this neural WiFi by accident in 1992. They were mapping the sensiomotor area of monkey’s brains by using electrodes so laser-thin they could be transplanted in single brain cells, … More Monkey See, Monkey Do
By Rosanne Bane So there I was, with a piece of marble cake – the piece with the most frosting – in my cart, headed for the checkout just the way my Saboteur wanted. I may as well have laid down on a railroad track and invited Snidely Whiplash to tie me up. I’m not … More Writer vs. Cake Part 2: Invite the Whole Choir to Sing
By Rosanne Bane At 8:00 last night, I stood in the bakery department at Cub, debating a piece of marble cake. What does that have to do with writing or writing resistance? Bear with me and you’ll see that how I got there and I got myself out of there is a great metaphor for … More Writer vs. Cake
By Rosanne Bane What’s GEMO? a) Tickle Me Elmo’s cousin b) a command for sled dogs meaning go right (Gee) even more (Mo) c) a motto that will get your writing unstuck and keep you moving If you answered c, you’re correct. If you answered a, you’re going to have a hard … More Do You GEMO?
By Rosanne Bane A prime source of writing resistance is the desire to write good stuff. And the demand to produce perfect writing is a guaranteed, one-way trip to Resistance City. So how we do write good stuff, if just wanting it means we’ll trigger our resistance? We sidle up to it. We surrender the … More Want to Be a Good Writer?
By Rosanne Bane Thanks to all of you who have commented so far on the Outline-and-Order vs. Draft-and-Discover debate (either here or in emails to me). I’m still gathering info, so if you’re thinking about commenting and haven’t gotten around to it yet, please do. If you read Larry’s comment to my last post, you … More Outline-and-Order vs. Draft-and-Discover: Learning to Fly
By Rosanne Bane Writers have to read. Most of what we know as writers, we learned through absorption, by immersing ourselves in good fiction. Unfortunately, learning to read and write has seriously impaired your creativity. I’m not kidding about this. We’d all be more imaginative, creative writers if we’d never learned to read and write. … More Learning to See Again
I couldn’t see what was there, because I was so busy looking for something that wasn’t there and wasn’t going to be there. I assumed there would be another box. My assumptions and expectations made it impossible for me to see reality.
Talk about needing to think outside the box! … More Learning Not to See Part 2: Assumptions Trump Reality
Bane of Your Resistance 