We’re all so busy – and if not busy with our personal life and work, there’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram et al; we can plug ourselves right into music or have movies and tv instantly appear on our computer screens.There’s so much noise and news and fun to be had that we never…
My 10 week advanced non-fiction course in the Writers’ Program at UCLA Extension begins tomorrow and I’m going to post part of it every week on this blog. I’ve been teaching the course forever so I decided to come up with new subjects/themes for each week to keep the course fresh not only for me…
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 write to discover. I write to uncover. I write to meet my ghosts…I write because it is dangerous, a bloody risk, like love, to form the words.” – Terry Tempest Williams Come write with us – there are two spaces left in my October 20-22 Writers Retreat in Lake Arrowhead. It’s a…
So there’s a lot of stuff going on right now – the disasters in this country, both natural and political, and then personal things – a trip to New York soon and getting my next retreat lined up for October, going through applications for the fall class at UCLA, etc. and now it’s Labor…
I discovered this poster (created by Courtney E. Martin & Wendy MacNaughton) on Maria Popalov’s amazing newsletter ‘BrainPickings’ months ago and when I rediscovered it in my journal this morning it was like a gift. The words have become even more important during these past few weeks: This is your assignment. Feel all the things.…
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…
To write, a retreat is needed – whether it’s going into a room in your own house and closing the door for an hour, or finding space at Starbucks for your computer, or driving up to the mountains and leaving your daily life behind. People who don’t write (usually your family) can have a hard…
I like to read multiple books at the same time so that when I finish one that I love I’m not bereft and can just continue reading another book I’m already into. This month I’m really in luck. I feel like I’m hanging out with some of the most interesting people on the planet…
The best way to get Trump out of your head is to read the smart, inspiring, eloquent website called Brain Pickings written by Maria Popova. Her piece on the new memoir by Bill Hayes about his relationship to Oliver Sacks and New York caused me to order it instantly. (Insomniac City: New York, Oliver, and…
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…
