People sometimes ask authors if they have a favorite book they’ve written. I always say that my books are like my kids, or grandkids, I don’t have favorites. Mostly because (unlike your kids and grandkids) you get really, really sick of a book, especially a novel, after you’ve finished it finally. You’ve lived with the…
So I bought a new iPhone today and the guy said just plug in the old one to your computer and blah blah blah and then download it to blah blah blah. Then plug in the new one and blah blah blah. I came home and immediately texted my friend/all-things-electronic guru Rob Daly that OMG…
I moved this week. I can’t find my running shoes so I hiked in flip flops this morning. For awhile I couldn’t find the charger for this computer and watched that little power percentage number up in the right hand corner dwindling with the feeling of my life fading away. I have bags and plastic…
This is a post I wrote before the holidays and apparently it was never published. I have an update to it because last week I taught the four day Writers Studio at UCLA Extension, and this week I started a new course “Kicking in the Wall”. So let me just add that I’ve…
This is the only real concern of the artist, to recreate out of the disorder of life that order which is art. – James Baldwin I find that if I don’t give shape to my experience in language, if I don’t spend time in the crafting and honing of that experience in words,…
Sometimes the universe delivers you the perfect poem. That’s what www.poets.org did for me this morning. As you’ve been hearing for lo these many years, I have been rewriting a novel I couldn’t let go of. Last week I let go of it and sent it to my ever patient and wonderful agent. Then this…
Writers need to walk every day – not only for exercise but to clear their heads. (Actually this is true for everybody of course.) Nelson and I walk about three miles every morning on the beach very early and lately the dawn sky has been amazing. Also amazing are some bits of conversation I…
A space has opened up in the November 13-15th Lake Arrowhead Writer’s Retreat. If you’re interested please email me and I’ll send you an application. The cost is $820 and this includes room and board (fabulous meals! plus wine at dinner), workshops, one on ones with me, tips, everything. All you have to do is show…
This seems to be all anyone talks about in L.A. this week.The heat. Everybody’s hot and cranky. I’ve lived in Southern California a long time, years and years, and this is the first time I can remember it being this hot at the beach in October. At noon today it’s going to be 91 degrees…
It occurred to me this past weekend during my Writers Retreat at the UCLA Conference Center in Lake Arrowhead that this is how I’d like to live. Surrounded by other writers, working every day in a cosy room with a fireplace and a view of trees, coffee delivered all day, three amazing meals you don’t…
This is the name of the course (also a book I wrote) that I’m teaching in The Writers’ Program at UCLA Extension starting in two weeks. I’ve taught a course called Writing the Healing Story for years and it suddenly dawned on me that it sounded awfully pretentious. Both courses are actually the same –…
Someone just had to drop out of the next Writers Retreat in Lake Arrowhead three weeks from now. (October 2 – 4) If anyone is interested in taking her place please let me know as soon as possible. The retreat begins Friday at 1:00 and ends Sunday after lunch. Lodging, fantastic meals, workshops, one-on-ones with…
