Posted in On Writing, Picture Book on Sep 12th, 2007 2 Comments »
The rhythm of discipline is producing the fruit of patience and tenacity. I earned every word I put together today, every paragraph and thought. I spent three hours on one essay, and was not discouraged or frustrated - I was pressing in to make it beautiful. I was creating, letting the inspiration [...]
Posted in On Writing on Aug 22nd, 2007 1 Comment »
For the last few weeks I’ve been spending a lot of time writing in the evenings. Aside from a couple blog posts I’ve made, I’m mostly working on drafts of other essays to clean them up for third parties. I thought this would be tedious and frustrating, but I’ve actually found it to be [...]
Posted in On Writing on Aug 14th, 2007 No Comments »
I read another great essay by Scott Berkun on Creative Thinking Hacks. He makes the great point that most ideas are a combination of other ideas:
Every amazing creative thing you’ve ever seen, or idea you’ve ever heard can be broken down into smaller ideas that existed before. An automobile? An engine + wheels. A [...]
Posted in On Writing on Aug 7th, 2007 No Comments »
I’m sitting in the wine bar editing some essays for a new writing gig I can’t talk about yet. It’s exciting, but maddeningly filled with red tape, so I am practicing a significant amount of patience. Humility, patience, and submission are not everybody’s favorite topics to discuss or experience, yet I seem to [...]
Posted in Friendship, On Writing on Jul 17th, 2007 No Comments »
I was invited by my friend Julie to attend a writer’s workshop tonight on Bainbridge Island (put on by Field’s End), where I enjoyed a taste of small town quaintness. We packed into a little room in the library - where suspendered old men shuffled noisily about the room as they refilled their coffee [...]
Posted in On Writing on Jul 11th, 2007 1 Comment »
Recently I missed four weeks of my dedicated writing time due to travel and the busyness of transitioning into summer, and I’ve had a difficult time getting back into it. There is something to be said for practicing the discipline of something, as being out of practice has caused my writing muscles to grow [...]
Posted in On Writing on Jul 11th, 2007 1 Comment »
I’m sitting in my favorite wine bar for my weekly afternoon of writing, sipping on a chilled Rose and feeling extremely grateful that it is air conditioned on this, the hottest day of the summer. The timing couldn’t have been better, in my opinion.
And lest you think I’m a bitch for leaving my [...]
Posted in On Writing on May 1st, 2007 5 Comments »
I’ve been simply DYING for my writing afternoon all weekend, only to find complete writer’s block once I get here. I had several thoughts brewing, and now, of course, I can’t seem to grasp a coherent thought.
Must be the wine.
I guess I can start with this: I feel like I need to put blogging [...]
Posted in On Writing, Rage Against The Pile on Mar 13th, 2007 5 Comments »
My babysitter is sick today (poor thing, she’s fighting something ugly), so I am without my afternoon of writing. I hate how this makes me feel, and I’m still trying to figure out how to deal with lost expectations. I’ve had many meaty things in my head this week, and I was really looking [...]
Posted in On Writing on Feb 6th, 2007 1 Comment »
Today at the wine bar, where I spend my weekly time writing, I began collecting essays together that I felt would be relevant to a larger project. It is something I’ve wanted to do, but felt it was a chicken-egg dilemma: do I figure out where this train is going before I let the [...]
Posted in Getting Things Done, On Writing on Jan 18th, 2007 3 Comments »
I haven’t written much about any New Year’s Resolutions, mostly because I haven’t had time to, which is actually a result of one of my goals. If you’ve been following along with me for awhile, you’ll know that I’ve been working my way back from depression and incapacitation, trying to get my household into [...]
Posted in Learning, On Writing on Dec 5th, 2006 No Comments »
I lived in New York for two years in the mid ninties, about 45 minutes North of Manhattan on the Hudson River. I lived there alone – as in, I didn’t bring any friends or family with me. I ventured out on my own to a new land. An opportunity opened up [...]
Posted in Books, On Writing on Nov 26th, 2006 2 Comments »
Posted in Living In Community, On Writing on Nov 14th, 2006 3 Comments »
This is what I love the most about living in a walkable community – being The Regular. I walk into the Coffee/Wine Bar near my house and Charlie the Customer greets me, asking me how the book is coming along. He says he admires me for my consistency in setting aside time to write.
The [...]
Posted in On Writing on Oct 31st, 2006 1 Comment »
Given my post from this afternoon and my general trend of blogging about not writing, I found this passage of my current book quite entertaining:
“Every hour you spend writing is an hour not spent fretting about your writing. Every day you produce pages is a day you didn’t spend sitting at a coffee shop, bitching [...]