Things that feel like a waste of time, like taking a shower or exercising or folding the laundry, can be put to good use as times of creative incubation. Try This Don’t waste your shower by taking it first thing in the morning. Instead, get to work on your creative project right away. Your decision-tank …
Category Archives: The Writing Life
Coming Out about Obsession
I am obsessed with Sherlock Holmes. You probably already knew that, so why do I feel the need to “come out” about it? (I say “come out,” because this feels really similar to having a non-assumed sexual orientation.) I recently saw a colleague’s Facebook post about rereading “The Six Napoleons” in preparation for watching Series …
Accept the Magic of Imagination
Ringing the Bell When I was a kid at Saint Lucy’s Catholic Church, the altar boys used to ring a little golden bell when the priest raised the host. I watched from my wooden pew and wondered if that was the moment when the miracle happened, when the host changed from bread to flesh. …
Please Finish Your Story
Remember that story you started last week? (Or maybe it was last month, or a few years ago.) We want to hear the rest of it. In fact, we would like to purchase a publication that contains it and read it in print. But you haven’t finished it, have you? That’s okay, I understand. I …
Watson Loves Me
Dr. Watson loves me. I know because he treats me so kindly, explains things so clearly, never sends a harsh word in my direction. I know because he’s willing to be vulnerable, to share his potentially embarrassing thoughts and feelings with me. He is a gentleman narrator; he is warm and welcoming; he takes me …
No Enterprise
Warning: This essay contains a very minor spoiler (not plot significant) for the third book in the Bloody Jack series. I’m in the movie theater watching Star Trek: Beyond. I haven’t gone in blind, and I’m finding much to complain about. But although my mind is churning on dialogue problems and weird plot choices, my …
We Welcome All Writing
At Write to the End, we do two main activities: We write, and we welcome all writing. These two activities are the foundation of our group. Welcome. I welcome you, and I welcome your writing. All of your writing, not just the parts you think are worth welcoming. I use Natalie Goldberg’s method of writing …
Don’t Show Your Work to Your Friends
What’s the right thing to say to someone who has just shown you a manuscript of the worst prose you’ve ever seen, which they say is a story, but you can hardly even find a character let alone discern a plot? Wait, I’ll make it worse: They’re looking at you expectantly, as innocent as a …
Colorless Green Ideas Crashed My Car
or
Your Right to Say Things that Don’t Make Sense
Syntax gives us the power to say things that don’t make sense: Ideas can’t have color (or crash a car), and something colorless can’t also be green, but I can say “colorless green ideas crashed my car,” and you can understand me, even if you’re quite not sure what I mean. The structure of a …
(The Cure For) Fiction Deficiency Syndrome
I’ve been reading stories from the Golden Age of science fiction (most recently “Tunesmith” by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.), and it is like being hooked up to an IV. Have you ever been pretty dehydrated and then gotten an IV? A few hours after I gave birth to my first child, I passed out. The doctors …
Continue reading “(The Cure For) Fiction Deficiency Syndrome”