Book Coaching & Editing Services for Writers of Fiction & Creative Nonfiction
Last week, I wrote about The War of Art, a book by Steven Pressfield, the author of The Legend of Bagger Vance. The book was recommended to me at just the right time in my life. I finished my MFA last year and came out of it tired, but promptly enrolled in two more year-long … Read More
I just finished reading Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles (2012). At the risk of oversimplifying, the book’s advice boils down to this: Pressfield: “Do the work.” Writer: “But–“ Pressfield: “Do the work.” I enjoyed the foreword by Robert McKee immensely. McKee is an author, lecturer, and … Read More
When I was 19, I was way into AC/DC. I wouldn’t date a guy who didn’t own Highway to Hell on vinyl or cassette. Not because I was a spoiled brat, although I suppose I was at 19. But because the album meant so much to me. If we didn’t connect on this most basic level, … Read More
I consider myself a professional writer now, but it took me a long time to get there. And it took me a long time to decide what being a “professional writer” meant or what it looked like to earn the right to call myself a writer at all. In another lifetime, I studied English Literature … Read More
I’ve written stories and poems and essays since I first learned to write in first grade. If you’re reading this, I’m guessing you’ve written all your life, too. I wrote throughout elementary school and throughout my teens. I slowed a little but kept writing throughout my twenties. I wrote sporadically in my thirties and early … Read More
Feature art and image courtesy of Christopher Wiley. Leo Tolstoy played chess. Madeleine L’Engle played the piano. Jane Austen played cards. Mark Twain was into scrapbooking and inventing–he combined these two hobbies to invent the scrapbook with adhesive pages. This week, I want to encourage you to get away from your desk and out of … Read More
Please enjoy this guest post by writer and runner Collin Mitchell. Much has been written about the relationship between running and the successful writing life: there are the obvious comparisons between the slog of marathon training and producing a novel, the way fresh air and exertion clears fog from the brain, and the age-old idea … Read More
Feature image courtesy of Mackenzie Kram. Sylvia Plath kept bees. Madeleine L’Engle played the piano. Flannery O’Connor raised peacocks. Emily Dickinson was an award-winning baker. Franz Kafka collected porn. I can’t remember what triggered it. I think it may have been a book I was reading, The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp. Whatever it was, … Read More
Feature image of writer & aerialist Chih Wang courtesy of Brandi Cooper. I got such a great response to my request for the ways my writer friends’ pastimes inform their writing that I thought I’d share a half dozen more this week … and a half dozen more next week! Here’s part two of writers … Read More
Feature image “Morning Star” courtesy of Trey Burnette. I’ve been fascinated lately with the way our creative interests and hobbies play into or support our writing. Nearly all of my writer friends have other interests. Some are creative, some are just for fun, some are more grounding. I asked a half dozen writers to tell … Read More