Recently, a member of one of the many writing groups on Facebook posted this: “I dont mean this in a rude way at all…..but why do you people say their characters “speak” to them, like they have convestations with them?? Your writing about a fake person…. Maybe I just dont get it” I …
In my April 2 blog post (“So Many Fears”), I suggested a brief process for acknowledging writing fears that will allow the writer to move past them. Fears seem to be fed by darkness, so bringing them into the light can short-circuit their energy supply and allow us to move forward with our work. …
So Many Fears! I taught college composition for years (and loved it, by the way). Students would come to the first class either excited (because this was their first quarter of college and everything was exciting) or, more often, anxiety-ridden over having to take yet another writing class. I mean, seriously? They’d been …
So much writing advice talks about mapping and outlining and following a proven formula and writing for the reader and (for fiction) completing extensive character questionnaires (Who are their friends? What do they eat? What are their politics? Where did they go to school?). But aside from all this worrying and planning and stressing …
I recently began working with a woman who was suffering from a crippling case of writer’s block. A semi-retired addictions counselor, she (I’ll call her Jan) had been trying to write a memoir about her approach to treating addiction as a family illness. Speaking with her about her project, I could hear her passion. Jan …
“The scariest moment is always just before you start.” – Stephen King You’re a writer, so you know what King is talking about. We writers would rather scrub the kitchen floor, reorganize the garage, try one more time to get through to the cable company, walk the dog in the pouring rain . …