After a two-month break from working on my novel manuscript, I’m getting ready to dive in again. I’ve been assessing my toolkit and habits so I can work more efficiently and effectively. Two key issues for me have been organizing all of the text I produce in drafts, notes, and journals, and striking a […]
My Writer’s Toolkit, For Now Read More »
I’ve been trying to write a poem about a palm reader for three years and nine months. Actually, I’ve been working on the poem itself for about a week but the particulars about the palm reader and her predictions have been swirling in my head since July 2008. The palm reader was the (late) poet
Hands On: by Devi Laskar Read More »
“. . . or you write a book and while you write it you are ashamed for every one must think you a silly or a crazy one and yet you write it and you are ashamed, you know you will be laughed at or pitied by every one and you have a queer feeling
I’ve been thinking about food lately. I am a fan, you could say. I like to cook, I like to experiment with strange ingredients; I like to fuse Indian cooking with other cultures and taste new things. I have a family that groans and grumbles when I try “new stuff” but in general eats what
Potluck: by Devi Laskar Read More »
So, I was a little stuck as to what I was going to write today. I asked my four-year old what I should write about. “Nana and Grandpa,” he answered. That helped. I could feel the edge of an idea percolating, but I needed more — something to whittle down all of the possibilities and
Limiting Ideas: by Angie Powers Read More »
Sometimes you just have to think and think and think, and daydream and daydream and daydream. And wonder and make mental lists and cross off items from the mental list and then read, read, and read more. All this flurry of thought on a single seed of an idea. This is called percolating. And one
Percolating and Brainstorming: by Devi Laskar Read More »
There’s a period between handing over the latest iteration of a work and hearing what the reader makes of it that I think of as a sort of Zen torture. Someone once told me that not knowing was a state of grace. In that case, most of us are in a state of grace about
A State of Grace: Writing, Dancing and Torture: by Elizabeth Stark Read More »
I’ve recently discovered “Brain Pickings” and it is just wonderful. Maria Popova authors a writing blog and there are several pieces that I just discovered today that are informative and exciting and speak to the writer and the writer in training. My two favorites thus far: 1. Writing advice from John Steinbeck. Yet, after winning
Pneumonia: by Devi Laskar Read More »
Lexicon of Love My relationship with words: It’s complicated. I’ve lived with words for so long, lived with them intimately, really worked to deepen what we have. I’ve exploited them, sure, but we have an understanding. Words get it, get me, get what all of this is about, regardless of what they say. “Complicated” isn’t
Effing Around with Words: by James Black Read More »
When I graduated from my MFA program, I had a couple of hundred pages and no better idea how to write a book than I did going in. I didn’t understand structure, I didn’t understand my process. I didn’t know how to go back and shape something out of the pile of pages I had
The Flow of Structure: by Angie Powers Read More »
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