Life happens. And sometimes life happens in the big middle of your best writerly intentions. A work project explodes and takes all your spare time with it. A family crisis turns you inside out emotionally. Your kid finally makes that traveling hockey…
As I got older, I thought life would get simpler. I’d go to work. I’d come home. I’d read away the hours. In my thirties, I discovered writing (well, rediscovered it after a particularly unhelpful, James Joyce-loving professor told me…
How Not to Write I used to keep a book on my shelf to remind myself how not to write. The book, call it Stricken, consisted of a collection of essays on the author’s recent widowhood. She had written it perhaps…
You’ve just published your first book. You’re brimming with happiness, ready to send your darling out into the world. You know that publishers don’t have time to devote their full attention to each and every book they publish, or perhaps…
Last weekend, I was moping around my kitchen. The whole house seemed dreary and disorganized, with unopened mail on the table and dishes in the sink. But even though I knew they were things that needed to be done, my arms…
I hated to even utter the word. I would not say it aloud. I couldn’t even write it down. I thought it, briefly, but in my one successful meditation moment, I let the word go. It would not overtake me….