Thoughts about writing, and the universe.
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 →
I'm forever more a planner when I write. Perhaps not down to the minute detail, and certainly my plans change as I go along, but I like to have a basic outline of plot events and thematic points that I expect the story to take up. I make long documents for planning, pages and paragraphs... Continue Reading →
"Happily ever after" is an age-old trope, and we know that reality is subtler than that. The ending of a story does not mean the rest of life will run smoothly. But a happily-ever-after ending makes sense in fiction: because the story at some point has to end, and an ending that reads, "And life... Continue Reading →
On Friday, I received this package in the mail. Somehow, brilliantly, two beautiful contributor copies of Hunger Mountain, published by the Vermont College of Fine Arts had made their way across the ocean. I slid them from their paper wrapping. They were heavy. They were large. I cradled a copy in my hands, opened it,... Continue Reading →
Just shy of a month ago, I sat down and set myself a few writing goals. I set a goal for word count and a goal for submissions. A perhaps foolhardy goal for publications too I set. During January, I chipped away at these. Let's make an update of where things stand. I'll share some... Continue Reading →
I've slowed down. I'm typing a few lines this morning, with vague direction. I've written little this last week--a few brief edits to a short story, an idle look at upcoming submissions windows. What do I have today that I can blog about? Perhaps only that very hitch in my routine: the slowing down, the... Continue Reading →
This week's post is part of the monthly Author Toolbox Blog Hop. Check out others' great posts about the craft and business of writing! I first encountered Haruki Murakami through his short story collection The Elephant Vanishes. These stories of middle-class life in Japan were bizarre, esoteric, often difficult to get my mind around. The... Continue Reading →
A week ago, just as I was finalizing last week's blog post, I received an email letting me know that a magazine wanted to publish a short piece I had submitted to them. Oh? They do? Oh! Oh my. My that feels good. It has taken me some time, some grief, and lots of effort.... Continue Reading →
When a story gets stuck, I try to see it as an invitation. Amid the frustration, I seek what I have missed. What central element have I bypassed in this story that makes it tick slower, slower, slow until it halts? Often for me, the culprit is the undeveloped character. I plan the story and... Continue Reading →
This week's post is part of the monthly Author Toolbox Blog Hop. Check out other participants' posts here. The #AuthorToolboxBlogHop is a great way to connect with other writers and build our own repertoire of craft knowledge alongside. Check it out! A wonderful professor of mine, Deborah Appleman, once told me that life is a... Continue Reading →
Words like trees 