As those of you following along know, I began writing a novel a couple of months ago. It’s my first attempt at fiction. The process started off with a gleeful bang (see A Puzzled Thanks), a phenomenon all the more personally delightful because of the fact that I was suffering through what seemed to be…
Last night I said, “If anyone spills their milk, I am going to cry.” I was absolutely serious. Only moments before, in the frenzied aftermath of unloading two children, two bikes, two backpacks, a pink reusable grocery sack full of fresh-from-the-Earth produce, my purse, my work notebook and a handful of smashed crackers from the…
…and a little hint about my book-in-progress. 🙂 who can name the event? (and for you entrepreneurial sorts, check out that last photo. She’s holding a typewriter, and it’s labeled “poem store”. That’s what I call extreme freelancing.)
An experiment conducted in the 1960s by Stanford psychologist Walter Mischel tested children’s ability to delay gratification. A child was left alone in a room with a plate of marshmallows, cookies and pretzels. She was told that she could either eat one treat right away or wait until after the adult left the room for…
I fear speaking too soon. Four weeks. 13,500 words. 35 pages. Five chapters. And my dominant emotion? Bafflement. At how easy it feels. I know enough by now to realize that initial creation is always the fun and easy part of writing. And I know that I am just beginning even that. Finishing…
My writing group friends agree: there is such a thing as a “good” rejection letter. As I have reported in the past (Boomerang), an unfortunately much-too-common rejection letter in the publishing industry is no rejection letter—no response at all, which has the result of making one feel like pond scum, or worse, invisible pond scum.…