Thoughts about writing, and the universe.
We have had a brilliant week of weather, with sunny days and clear nights, temperatures just approaching where you can be out in the day without a jacket. We hear it will grow cold again next week, so we've been trying to be outside when we can. Evening at low tide. My motivation for writing... Continue Reading →
Over these last couple of years, I have learned the power of goal setting to push my writing forward. In 2021, I set goals for monthly word count, submissions, and publications, and as I could have foreseen, met only the two goals I had meaningful control over. That was a good lesson learned. In 2022,... Continue Reading →
We arrived back in Norway to an incredible winter pageant. A couple inches of snow was encrusted everywhere by the most overwhelming display of ice crystals I have ever seen. Half and inch to an inch long, flat and shiny, sparkling, brilliant blue, the whole world was growing these crystal shards somehow like metallic mushrooms,... Continue Reading →
Can a non-writer learn the tools of the trade, or are great writers born with something different? Is writing a gift--the kind of thing you either have or lack--or is writing a learned skill that any person can develop? Questions of this ilk have sometimes plagued me, as an aspiring writer first, later as a... Continue Reading →
In late October, I set myself a writing goal of 12,000 words, which is certainly more than I had written in quite some time before that. As November has marched on, I have chipped away dependably. Setting this goal really had an impact on my volume. We're entering the final week of term, and the... Continue Reading →
When has life ever been so busy? Fall semester is always the hardest here--major assessments in most subjects, a full-on calendar of events, letters of recommendation to write, lessons to keep planning. This year, changes in school procedures, a round of oral exams, hybrid lessons for students still off-campus or those feeling ill, and a... Continue Reading →
This summer and fall, my reading list has been conscripted. I inherited two literature classes from a colleague, and in short order I had a list of thirteen books to be prepared to teach, about half of which I had read before, about half of which were new. Among them were a few wonderful new... Continue Reading →
I woke Saturday morning to the news that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had died. Oh no. Oh, oh no. Not now. I closed Facebook and that flood of posts. I opened it again. Channel grief into action, I read. I looked away. I have these elder heroes, people of those earlier generations whom I've imagined... Continue Reading →
This week's post forms part of the monthly Author Toolbox Blog Hop, in which writers at all stages of their careers come together to share knowledge. It's a good group. Check out the posts of others here. In this second week of school this year, our student creative writing group commenced. Two budding student leaders... Continue Reading →
I'm starting to think that anything can be a story. My husband tells me about his job search after college. What a story! I am eating chicken surrounded by forty of the loudest teenagers on the planet. Story! It keeps raining and the pumpkin plant keeps blooming all the same. Story. Quarantined students are roaming... Continue Reading →
Words like trees 