“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.” Every writer I know loves this quote from writer Annie LaMott. We do own our experiences and we absolutely write about them, at least in my genre, which is . . .
If you feel guilty because you're a writer who isn't writing, an artist who isn't making art--let it go. You are creating the time and space that will spark ideas and inspire new directions. You're "gathering data." Our traditional work ethic says we have to be "doing something" every minute or . . .
Read this one slowly because each nugget is profound: Freedom is a heavy load, a great strange burden for the spirit to undertake. It is not easy. It is not a gift given but a choice made, and the choice made made may be a hard one. The road goes upwards towards the light, but the latent traveler . . .
When you're looking for any kind of inspiration, you need go further than yourself. That's what my friend, blogger Jennifer Rochette Koshak believes and she shares some inspiration with us today: The Universe is Not Outside By Jennifer Rochette Koshak of UnfoldandBegin.com Did you ever sit down to . . .
There's good writing advice and there's bad writing advice. So let's talk about that. I know a lot of bloggers and some writers who quote writer Anne LaMott, who famously wrote: "You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they . . .
Don't let fear keep you quiet. You have a voice. So use it. Speak up. Raise your hands. Shout your answers Make yourself heard. Whatever it takes, just find your voice. And when you do fill the damn silence. ~Meredith on Grey's Anatomy Some of us are still afraid to find our voice. Others . . .
If you're not a blogger, you probably don't know that your comments are blogger GOLD. Whether it's because we like to promote discussion or we want to show reader engagement to our sponsors, we love your comments. But there are a few easy-to-fix mistakes bloggers make that get in the way of reader . . .
John McPhee's books got my attention in the early 1970s and I've been a reader of his since then. Of course, he's often in the The New Yorker magazine, that bastion of great writing and especially great creative nonfiction. So when I saw his latest essay about writing in the Sept. 14, 2015 issue, I . . .
It started when I was approached for a blog campaign to tout wearing no underpants. That's right: going commando. The post was sponsored by a toilet paper company that wanted to tout the cleaning power of their product. No, I'm not kidding. The idea of blogging about this made me squirm. It . . .
I was 16 when I had my first professional editor, on a weekly column about my high school in my town's weekly newspaper. I was paid $2 for each column, probably about the hourly rate for freelance writing today, thanks to the glut of writers who will take slave wages. But this post isn't about pay. . . .
