Jul 24, 2024 | On Writing
In the beginning, pen and paper were touted as the writer’s best friend. With the advent of the typewriter, writers took up writing by machine, and in the wake of computers, many authors—and the public at large—abandoned handwriting altogether. Typing has replaced...
Nov 22, 2023 | On Writing
Persistence counts. In the film A Million Miles Away, Jose Hernandez’s teacher tells the migrant workers’ kid who dreams of being an astronaut that “persistence is your superpower.” (If you haven’t seen this film, based on Hernandez’s real-life story, do. It’s a...
Feb 15, 2023 | On Writing
Setting and meeting your goals for your life as a career author doesn’t have to be a SMART formula that smacks of the Human Resources Department. If SMART works for you, then great. But if such a linear, corporate approach leaves you cold (as it does me), here are...
Jul 27, 2022 | On Mindfulness, On Writing
Everyone always talks about how hard it is to write. And it is hard. There’s the terror of the blank page, the three steps forward, two steps back torture of plotting, the trial and error of character development—not to mention the tyranny of the impossible...
Jan 26, 2022 | On Writing
It’s been a rough couple of years and many of us are simply exhausted. Outrage fatigue, pandemic fatigue, crisis fatigue—all manner of fatigue has besieged us. To the point where all we feel lately is numb. At least that’s how I’ve been feeling. And then I watched two...