Blog
Blog
Blah Happens. It’s Part of the Process.
Blah isn’t a commentary about our unworthiness or lack of talent. It doesn’t signify that we’re on the wrong path. It is just part of the deal.
Listen to Your Work
Can we get quiet enough to hear the still small voice of the houseplant? Or of our undernourished muse? Of our not-yet-ready creative work?
Rest and Downtime – Two Creative Tools
Support your creativity with rest and downtime. Consider the possibility that you have some opportunities right now to add more rest and downtime to your life, perhaps in small increments.
No-Cost Gifts for the Creative People in Your Life
For the year-end holidays, I offer you two meaningful gifts you can give to the creative people in your life, and with nary a ding to your wallet.
Halfway Through Nanowrimo
I don’t need to write in a straight line. I can draft a chapter from later in the sequence, with some confidence that it won’t all be headed for the compost heap.
Use Your Words Your Way
Just like parents comparing themselves to Instagram-perfect mommy bloggers, writers do themselves harm comparing themselves to the stars-du-jour in their genre.
Get Yourself Ready for Nano 2022
Nano’s annual energy surge is available to writers of many stripes. You don’t have to be starting a novel (and you don’t even need to be a novelist).
Support Your Creativity with Lists
There is satisfaction in finishing a list item, and it’s too easy to hurry past that moment without enjoying it and taking it in. It’s worthwhile to pause.
New Habits for Old People
Changing habits is hard because of our default neurology. Change can happen, though, and more easily if we’re changing in the direction of a better life.
The Critique Group: A Cure for Writerly Isolation
A proven antidote to that creative isolation is a well-functioning writer group. Its sustaining, regular rhythms – drafting and sharing your pages, then reading and critiquing your group members’ pages, then gathering together and scheduling the next month’s due date and meeting – become essential and welcome elements of everyday life.