I don’t mean handwriting. What I mean is the journey my story makes from brain to page/screen. The process, rather than the actual act — well the act, too. Perhaps I should explain. When a non-writer hears that I’m going to be spending the day writing, I think they envision me in front of my computer or hunched over my desk with pencil and paper. That would be the truth — sort of. Here’s the reality. When I decided to … Read More »

In 1939, The New Yorker published James Thurber’s wonderful short story, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.” If you’ve read it, you the better for it. If you haven’t, shame on you. The story opens with a bang: “We’re going through!” The Commander’s voice was like thin ice breaking. He wore his full-dress uniform, with the heavily braided white cap pulled down rakishly over one cold gray eye. “We can’t make it, sir. It’s spoiling for a hurricane, if you … Read More »

Writers all start off as readers. The way written words transform into a story that seems visual as we read, that shows us that we aren’t alone in our thoughts, that makes us react both physically and emotionally, draws us into the writing life. But as writers, we hear conflicting advice regarding the very medium we seek to master. Read every day vs. Don’t read while you’re writing The thought process behind “read every day” is that reading as a … Read More »

The image of the peddler with the stacks of hats in Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina seems to ring true for me these days. I’m not selling hats, but I am wearing a lot of them (figuratively speaking). They’re not colored, like the peddler’s checked, gray, brown, blue, and red. I guess they could be, but these hats represent the roles I fill at any given time as a writer. The stack started with my writer’s hat. My naïve, … Read More »

Do you yearn for a better way to organize your writing projects? Do you have a big one to manage, such as a novel or memoir? Does publishing your work seem like an impossible dream? Let me share a method that helped me. A few years ago, while I was writing my memoir, a friend told me about a little book, The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller with Jay Papasan. The book includes … Read More »

Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Outliers, suggests that practice is more meaningful than underlying talent. He theorizes that it takes about 10,000 hours of doing something—deliberately, not casually—to become good at it. Other thinkers have since attacked that idea, but in general outline it certainly makes sense. The more time I spend playing a game or baking pies, the more opportunity I have to find out for myself what is the best way to do it. When it comes to … Read More »