For the decades that I’ve been writing, I’ve often wondered why writers wait so much. We wait for inspiration, we wait for writing time, and excruciatingly, we wait for responses from publishers and agents. Sometimes I’ve waited months for a reply to an agent query or a literary journal. Is it just me and my writing? What makes them hesitate and delay? Or is the publishing industry so clogged with writers pitching their writing that…
The skies here in northern California are still a crazy shade of apricot, and sunlight has a reddish tinge, so I was moved to write a rain dance for California, a poem to the rains we desperately need. Once, in Hawaii, I learned an ancient hula dance said to bring rain. And the rains came, for three days! More than 20 fires are still burning, but rain is in the forecast for next week.
Hooray for finishing my DIY writing retreat! Balloons rising into the air!! I’m celebrating that I now have a full draft of Novel #2 – better known as The Romantics. After nearly full week of making this new book my primary focus, every morning, noon, and night, I met my goal. How I Did It The goal was to give myself a week of StayWriCation (see earlier post) and finish a first full draft of…
Here I am on a weeklong stay-at-home, self-designed week of working on my new novel — my DIY writing retreat — and I’m thinking, “What do you do on a writing retreat during breaks? You talk to other writers!” So here I am, kibbitzing with you, fellow writer. I hope you’ve had an hour or more of writing today — possibly you’re even on your own DIY writing retreat — and that it’s going well.…
I’ve decided to launch from my Rocket Kid Writing blog into a newly titled blog, which will be integrated with my new website (stay tuned!) as The Writing Path. It’s not an easy path, involves some hard pulling at times, some days of feeling lost in the woods, but for me, it’s a compelling path of self-discovery. I have to keep going forward. And though it often feels solitary, I’m surrounded by writer friends, whether…
One obvious way to find good writing podcasts is to go to the major magazines and papers. They all have writing and reading related podcasts. But I want to hear from people like me, novelists in the trenches of a first or second book, writers suffering through querying, plotting, character development, point-of-view decisions. Authors working to publicize their indie books or books out from smaller book publishers. I want to know how they’re doing it,…
I’m thrilled and honored to be the Featured Poet in the September Issue of Blue Heron Speaks. This wonderful online poetry journal has a goal of presenting “messages of inspiration, support, and nourishment for the soul.”And they really do offer heart-centered poems that speak to seekers after beauty and peace. My three poems include the title poem from my forthcoming collection, Arabesque. An excerpt from the poem treats the word “arabesque” in its other meaning,…
By Writing Holiday, I of course mean Writing ON a Holiday. Holidays are better known as Writer’s Retreats, for all writers truly addicted to their art seize on the first amount of free time to face the blank page. Or the written page that desperately needs revising. Novel writing occurs over an extended period of a year or more. Long form story writing requires you to visit your work as often as possible — that’s…
Becoming a novelist is a major amount of fun, but it’s also very hard work. The unexpected challenges are the ones that come after it’s been accepted for publication. One of the big challenges is to write a short persuasive summary of your book, if your publisher requires you to write it, or you’re self-publishing. Wonderful writers have been known to tear out their hair over this. But because these blurbs or book descriptions are…
Someone in one of my writing groups asked what makes a great first page. It’s an excellent question, and no two answers will be alike, despite what the bestseller lists and books on writing “the breakout novel” tell us. Character always draws me into a book. I don’t read many thrillers or fast-paced stories. Someone reported the advice that a first line of a novel should make you nervous. I think that works well for…