There are iconic writing craft books—think Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird or Stephen King’s On Writing. And then there are many “also rans,” books that may not have garnered the acclaim or audience of such bestsellers. But wait! These are gems. They may hide in the shadows because the craft book shelf is crowded to…
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Choices, Choices…Er, Um…Options
Could you take your work in progress, change every single word—and still tell the same story? Is it possible to write a novel without one familiar, cliché phrase? Or description? Or scene? How do you guard against overusing tried and true verbiage? Stale descriptions? How do you turn a stereotype on its head? Do you…
How Do You Juggle?
I’m not the most coordinated person, so juggling physical objects would be an exercise in futility, and if they were sharp or heavy objects, probably a lot worse. But I’ve also found that juggling all the parts and pieces of my life can be just as hazardous to my health in this semi-post-pandemic time. We…
The Social Dilemma
The Social Dilemma: Better Late than Never? When I told my friends and family I was going to write for a blog, they laughed. As a career performing artist, playwright and director, my aversion to all things tech was no secret. “I embrace the live, the real,” I would snap at anyone who dared suggest…
Grab Back Control
There’s nothing worse than feeling as though your writing career is out of your control, that others are in charge of your fate. For many of us writing is our second career. In “real life” we’re lawyers, accountants, police officers, teachers, entrepreneurs, retailers, and scientists. For myself, I spent years as the CEO of a…