• Being a Writer

    The Long Process of Writing (and living)

    Tweet I am taking another class from brilliant teacher and author Natalie Goldberg. She shared a teaching about enlightenment as seeing something through to the end. This is what I have always grappled with. When one thing isn’t working, the temptation to move on to something new is so palpable. But even listening to her talk all the way through, without stopping to eat or while scrolling Facebook, is hard. It got me thinking about the entire writing process and life itself. How do we see through all of it, even the difficult parts to its very end? I started…

  • Writer Issues Solved

    How to Get Unstuck In Your Story

    Tweet Ever since I transitioned into a fiction writer, I’ve run into these insane walls. It’s the kind of blocks that make you doubt your abilities as a writer. You question whether this story’s dead-end is a sign it’s time to burn it. Maybe this story isn’t meant to be, you think to yourself. Maybe you don’t have the chops to be a fiction writer. It’s not like this didn’t happen when writing nonfiction. But I was able to research might way out of it. And I had an editor with a deadline, which are good incentives. But as I’ve…

  • Rejection - Writer Challenges - Writing Topics

    Why Scrappiness & Grit Are Essential to Successful Writing

    Tweet I’m going to confess something I’ve never told another soul, except my husband. My entrance into being a columnist for The Writer magazine happened in a weird, kind of embarrassing and surprising way. My gateway wasn’t my writing. It was through cartooning. I’m not a cartoonist, as you can see in the cartoon I submitted below. Here are a few reasons why I think I wasn’t jilted for my lack of obvious talent. The editor at the time was kind and open to receiving cartoon submission from a non-illustrator. I was persistent. In fact, I didn’t stop at that first…