I spent almost two hours yesterday procrastinating on a short story I’ve been writing and, instead, tried to figure out how I could write for money. I have a talent—the old saying goes—and they have a need. I’m good at this thing, so I should make money at it. It’s the thing we all buy [...]
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When I put my son to bed each night, we read a book. He looks at the pictures; I look at the words. He almost always asks about the illustrations. “How do they draw so good?” I say, “They practice. For years and years and years.” He looks a little sad. He’d like to draw [...]
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Part One: The Imagination It was going to be hard, but it wasn’t going to be that hard. There were women who had orgasms. Orgasmic labor. Okay, maybe I wouldn’t have an orgasm. But it would be quick. A couple of hours at most, maybe an orgasm or two, and then my beautiful, wailing baby [...]
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For most of my life, I’ve had my head buried in a book. Things just never felt right if I didn’t have another world to escape to. Last summer, though, on my journey through Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, I got out of my comfort zone and put myself through a week of reading deprivation. [...]
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So I didn’t win NPR’s Three-Minute-Fiction contest. If you haven’t heard of it, the goal is to write a dynamic story in 600 words, which is three minutes on air. For each round, a famous author selects a premise—this time, writer Danielle Evans proposed that one character come to town and another leave town—and chooses [...]
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As a teacher, I try to find poetry and prose that will really resonate with students. It’s a skill not unlike writing, in which you have to know your audience, use cultural references to persuade them and connect with them. I often turn to the poet Anne Sexton to help me do this, since her [...]
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The Maladjusted Book Club September pick is the wonderful short story collection from Robin Black, titled If I Loved You, I’d Tell You This. It’s by far one of the best books I read in a long time, full of characters and circumstances that continue to linger in my head long after I’ve closed the [...]
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When I started college, I didn’t have a computer. I had never been on the internet, either, so when someone told me I should check it out, I had to write down the steps it took to insert a “URL” into a “tool bar.” What was this “world wide web” business? In pencil on yellow [...]
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This week, I am on a reading diet. I am skipping all reading—whether it be blogs I love (sorry!), novels, articles, news stories (meh!), Facebook and Twitter statuses…you name it. It’s a challenge, for sure. But I am ready, and willing and eager to see where it takes me. (Actually, to be blunt, I’m hoping [...]
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I’ve been trying to keep up with Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, though my old, familiar guilt would tell you that I am not living up in a number of ways. Each chapter, or “week,” is filled with philosophy of how to bring out your inner artist, as well as tasks to help you get [...]
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