Category: The Writing Life

Ordinary Time

“First Sunday in Ordinary Time…” Saturday evening. Five-o’clock mass. I am eight. Squished into a pew between one of my brothers and my mother. Half-listening to the priest while I watch the last of the slush drop off the rubber…

Hearing Voices

I’m sure you’ve all heard the advice to put your manuscript in a drawer for a few months before tackling the next revision. Getting some distance allows you to see things you otherwise can’t because you’re too close to it….

Friday Feast: To Motivate and To Finish

Earlier this week, I yelled out loud to my empty living room, “I hate everything that I’ve written!” Yesterday, I broke out some junior high dance moves to celebrate the completion of another first (shitty) draft. Such is the up-down life of…

How Nothing Helped My Writing

I have difficulty sitting, a condition I treat with an ever-present pillow and an unusual form of therapy — one I find instructive as a writer. I practice doing nothing. I was turned onto this ‘nothing’ therapy by Dr. David…

Envy and Gratitude

It’s the end of another calendar year, the time before Christmas, when people scramble to buy gifts. It’s the time when book lists appear, summarizing the best and brightest, the funniest, the biggest breakthrough titles published during the same year….