21 July 2014 4 Comments

The Confessional

Perhaps I need to make a public declaration so that I can come fully back into the light of a literary life. Maybe I should finally openly admit that I haven’t written properly in a year. That, after my sister passed away in 2012, my writing died a slow death. Maybe it happened because there […]

12 August 2012 0 Comments

Learning About Writing From Olympic Gymnasts

I don’t know about you, but performances by artistic gymnasts mesmerize me. I love to see them fly off the vault, soar from one uneven bar to another, and tumble with forceful assuredness in the floor exercise. What really gets me, though, is the balance beam. How does anybody stand on a four-inch piece of […]

1 November 2011 8 Comments

Writing With Abandon

During the last six months, I’ve been feeling more overwhelmed and unnerved by the blank page than usual. When I have written, I’ve spent much more time thinking about how the work fails than how it succeeds. I’ve found it far easier to totally avoid writing than to do it, even though writing stands as […]

19 May 2011 2 Comments

Timing: It’s Everything

Now that my book’s written, I need to move on to the next project. But what should that be? When I first started writing, I thought I’d have trouble coming up with ideas to pursue. Instead, it turns out that I suffer from TMI Syndrome–too many ideas. Probably like many of you, I see the […]