“One does not find solitude, one creates it,” wrote Marguerite Duras when she moved from Trouville to her new house in Neauphle, France. She’s one of my favorite writers and now in my almost-finished new house in Pasadena I’m rereading her: “Finding yourself in a hole, at the bottom of a hole, in almost…
This blog has been silent for awhile because I’ve once again plunged into renovating a house. And once again the similarities to writing a book strike me. With both a fixer upper and a book I can see the transformation so clearly – the mess of life into a published book, the1925 house into home.…
I have just murdered, torn apart and dismembered, the most perfect chapter I’ve ever written. I cannot tell you how marvelous the details were, the emotion, the wild energy, the use of metaphor. I read it at Lit Salon, I showed it to my reader posse –…
Dorothea Lange said that a camera teaches you to see. I love this idea, so the other morning on my walk with Nelson I had my iPhone at the ready to take pictures of stuff that I usually don’t look at. Just thinking of doing this made me look harder at the world. I’m always…
Last week I taught my Courage & Craft class at the Writers Studio at UCLA Extension. This was part of four days of intensive workshops – ten courses in creative writing and screen/tv writing. Classes started at 10:00 in the morning and went to 6:00 in the evening. It was boot camp. Students began to…
I’m not quite clear how it got to be 2017, but here we are. Another year and a clean slate ahead of us.(Many of you may be relieved to hear that I’m not going to waste one more ounce of energy ranting about politics this year.) What will you write in 2017? Are you…
The spring Writers Retreat in Lake Arrowhead is coming up in March. A few spaces are still open. It’s limited to ten. Here’s the info: Come join us at the Writers Retreat in Lake Arrowhead March 17 -19th. Maybe you have a final draft to complete and need a quiet place to focus, or…
So let me tell you what’s been going on in my life. November was not wonderful. First of all there was the election that still makes me want to bang my head on my desk. Why, how? And I can’t move to Mexico – my original plan – because I’ve got these grandchildren I…
New York is like an old lover you go back to briefly. You know it can’t last, but oh my God – the old buzz is still there, the memories. I will always be in love with this city. The jazz-like rhythm walking down the streets, the smells, the sounds, the crazy energy, the wild…
I realize I haven’t posted on my blog for over a month and I have the best reason in the world – I’ve been writing. And reading. I suddenly got very sick of the sound of my own voice talking or writing about writing. Or saying anything about me me me via social media.(Though…
