This is what writers do, out themselves on paper. We struggle with what should be private and what should be said. When is it ranting on paper (or on blogs) or when is it being honest and open about our life, and maybe connecting to people who need to hear our stories? These were some…
Lots of wonderful stuff in the New York Times Sunday edition yesterday. Including an essay by Katie Crouch on “The Grandchildren of Divorce”, “Poet vs. Novelist” in the column Draft by Philip Schultz, and in the Book Review, essays about the less than fabulous parts of being a published author. “Please Turn to the Chapter…
We’ve sold our place in Montana and are up here this week packing. Since we’re leaving the house furnished you’d think there wouldn’t be too much to deal with. But as I sort through the stuff of fifteen summers in Montana, I realize it’s a lot like editing your writing. The expression ‘kill your darlings’…
This is one of my favorite quotes for writers: “We don’t tell ourselves, ‘I’m never going to write my symphony.’ Instead we say, ‘I am going to write my symphony; I’m just going to start tomorrow.’” – Steven Pressfield, The War of Art I use this quote a lot in my writing workshops. I even…
Dear Readers, (Below is the final post on my WritingTime blog at Typepad. From now on it will appear on this website. I hope you’ll join us or if you’re already a reader that you’ll subscribe again.) I started WritingTime on Typepad eight years ago with the help and insistence of my daughter Brooke who…
You know those Christmas card pictures with three generations of family all dressed in coordinated clothes and standing in some beautiful spot looking relaxed? This is not one of them. This is my family (one grandson and a boyfriend missing) just before Thanksgiving dinner and if I look a little crazed it’s cause there’s a…
Dear WritingTime Readers, My new blog is launched this week. Here’s the link: www.TheIntimidatedCook.com If you know me you might be thinking that cooking is a hilarious subject for me to write about since I am not a cook, know nothing about it, and up until now did just about anything to stay out of the…
I’ve been meaning to post these photos ever since my UCLA Writers’ Program class ended last month. Everybody broke out dancing at the last class to Sara Bareilles’s “Brave”: “Don’t run, stop holding your tongue/Maybe there’s a way out of the cage where you live/Maybe one of these days you can let the light in/Show…
The mess in my office always feels like a metaphor. As I write my office gets more chaotic, then when I finish a draft I organize the mess and start all over again. Actually I’m still in the middle of two drafts, one for an essay and another for a novel, but my new blog…
Life has gotten in the way of this blog and my writing. A family illness, and then – astonishingly and horribly – two violent deaths this week of people I know. One, the suicide of a much beloved and respected teacher in the Writers’ Program, Les Plesko. Some of you may have taken his classes…
