I love mornings. I wake up early and press the start button on the coffee, then slide back into bed to see who has visited me overnight and I respond right then because I’m all about “in the moment”. I go to pour some coffee, slide back into bed yet again and open Scrivener. It […]
While I was being chased by pugilistic geese and frightened by hoof-pounding Percherons back on our farm in 1955, I was almost totally unaware of the world that existed at the end of the road beyond our mailbox. Sure, there were those Sunday afternoon drives to my grandmother’s cottage for our weekly shampoo in the […]
When I was in fifth grade I read a book with a vivid salt-sprayed setting on the coast of Maine, a mysterious place a few hours drive from where we lived in inland Massachusetts. The author’s words described it in great detail and I entered her world vicariously. The marsh grass swept the tips of […]
My memoir has a musical current running through it that begins with the energetic rhythms of the Charleston and ends with a sentimental Van Morrison tune. Blog posts on this page frequently have their beginnings in my musical memories, and many of them are gathered during my aerobic dance class. I’m used to writing with […]
Publishing News is continuing to be somewhat grim. After the Booktrope fiasco, it appears that a lot of us have been talking about being more proactive about our futures, and checking around for similar writing on the wall. A. C. Fuller posted a link to the publishing nightmare that writer Claire Cook (author of Must […]
After the collapse of Booktrope last week, what do we know about the future of alternative publishing methods? If you’re a writer who has been exploring how and where to submit your manuscript, you know that the publishing business has been changing at warp speed in recent years. Traditional publishing? Self-publishing? Book packagers? Team publishers? […]
May 3 is National Teacher Day. In Kindergarten, we were asked what we wanted to be when we grew up. Girls were given the choice of mother, nun, nurse, or teacher—not necessarily in that order. We had to say our choice aloud. I knew that mother—from what I had witnessed thus far—was not a very […]
Today I listened to an interview in which it was suggested that we look inward for the metaphor of who we are and what we do in the world… what’s going on in our life. My metaphor popped up instantly. I am a conch shell. A conch shell may be empty but it once was […]
“Show, Don’t Tell” is the closest thing I know to a writer’s mantra. For every sentence that I write, I’m constantly berating myself—Did I “show”? Or did I “tell”? Did I remain “in scene”? Remaining “in scene” is my nemesis write now. Yes, write now. You read that write. Writing is all I care about, […]
The scent of writing is all around me this morning in the form of a bouquet of lilacs. Yesterday, I placed the Mason jar bouquet on the shelf next to my bed, where I begin my morning reading and writing with my first cups of coffee. The scent of lilacs. How that returns me to […]
