You’ve heard of Management By Walking Around, the MBWA? Today, I practiced the not as well known WBWA, Writing By Walking Around. No words were actually put on paper, but I considered it a good work day nonetheless. I spent a glorious two hours in the fiction stacks of my local library. I had no […]
Distraction Time-Bench DIY
I’ve been mulling over the responses to my article in The Millions (see previous post) and feel another post coming on regarding that, but in the meantime, I decided to busy my hands with a little DIY project this weekend.I’m slowly learning to follow my creative impulses, wherever they lead, even when they don’t lead […]
Friends and Fodder
Well, it’s happened. I’ve finally been caught writing about people I know in a non-fictional way, and now I’m hiding in my closet in case anyone’s mad at me. I was sitting around a few weeks ago, compiling the 2013 recommendations for my book club when I had an essay idea. Two days later (record […]
This Design Trend Must Go!
As you probably know by now, one of my (not so guilty) pleasures is interior design. I’m an HGTV junkie with a love of old homes in need of a little TLC. I have stacks of decorating magazines by the bed and subscribe to various design round-ups that are delivered to my email box each week. There’s […]
Everything You Never Knew You Wanted to Know About Sestinas
So, some exciting news from the closet today. I’ve been published in McSweeneys! The piece is a quirky little letter, written in the form of a sestina, from a resident of the fictional Fox Hills neighborhood to the homeowner’s association regarding the type of bow residents are allowed to affix to their mailboxes at the holidays.I wrote the piece many […]
This is Where the Magic Happens
Please try not to be jealous…this is my current workspace, a bedroom closet. Notice the window, however! It looks out over our front yard. The branches of two maple trees hang very close to the window, providing me with ample opportunity for nature watching. Cardinals, titmice, house finches–all have made recent visits. I’ve watched squirrels perform death-defying […]
Redesigning my writing, my life, and my closet
For the past year, I’ve been rewriting my debut novel, “Come As You Are.” And I do mean re-writing. I had completed many surface revisions in the years prior, had pursued agents thinking that, the next one I contacted would be the one, all the while pushing down the nagging thought that my book might […]
Hitting Bottom
I gave up on my debut novel sometime over the summer. I’d written, re-written, queried agents, gotten requests for fulls, but no offers of representation, only scant comments alluding to how nicely it was written (Then, why don’t you want it? Arrrghhh!) and brief, sometimes confusing, allusions to what wasn’t working. I cut scenes I […]