Category Archive

TOP-TEN TIME-WASTING STRATEGIES When you’re not in a go-get-’em writing mode, the most important thing to do is keep your creative engine warm and running. The following list of possibilities is designed to help you keep your head in the game by doing things that indirectly benefit your writing life and can quickly create a feeling of either relaxation or … Read More

PROCRASTINATE PRODUCTIVELY “I told a friend that I was writing two romance novels simultaneously, as well as an erotic serial, and a couple of short stories, all at once (not to mention my baseball blog, tea blog, et cetera…) and she told me her head would explode if she tried to do that. I pointed out, reasonably, that she did … Read More

YOU HAVE THE REST OF YOUR LIFE My computer monitor looks like a root system for sticky notes; it has become host to the layers and layers of pastel-posted ideas and to-dos that I scribble and stick as they flit through my mind while working. The accumulation of such notes creates a feeling of clutter, but more uncomfortably a sinking … Read More

Time. A writer’s greatest gift. A writer’s greatest challenge. How are you spending yours? How could you be spending it better? Here are a few tips to help. HONOR YOUR RHYTHMS Honor your biorhythms by planning your writing time for the part of the day you’re most capable of doing it. For example, my friend Chloe De Segonzac just wrote … Read More

The universal chorus of complaint from writers of all stripes seems to be: not enough time. The truth is, writers make time for writing. And everyone does it her own way. Your job is to find your way. Every Tuesday for the next, six weeks I’ll be offering suggestions to help you investigate how your relationship with time is moving … Read More

YES, THAT SUCCESS COUNTS I often find myself arguing with students and friends who have a whole litany of reasons why their various successes “don’t count.” These folks always have a persuasive story about how they could have done better—published in a more reputable magazine or presented to a more prestigious crowd. Of course, there are always opportunities to do … Read More

You’re already doing it! “I always wanted to be a creative writer but was never brave enough to really do it. The cost of failure seemed too great. So I pursued a number of other things—photography, art history, Asian studies. At some point in my mid-twenties, I quit my job in art history and found a writing job. One where … Read More

Try another way When we set our sights on a goal and don’t succeed, it’s easy to tell ourselves a story that keeps us chained to this so-called failure. “I’m not [fill in the blanks with your own favorite insult here] enough to accomplish that,” we may tell ourselves, then beat ourselves up with that story over and over and … Read More