Incorporating the full range of senses into your fiction can transform it from flat to multi-dimensional, impenetrable to immersive. Writers who set their stories in contemporary locations are often able to experience the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and tactile sensations of their setting firsthand simply by visiting the location. But what about those of us… Read more »
To write anything is to know that it can be rejected. It’s the unspoken oath you take as a food writer. There will be people who aren’t sold on what you can deliver, so you’ll have to refresh your work or find someone else who gets it. The hard part is you don’t always get… Read more »
Have You Accepted the Challenge? I challenged you in April to embark on a 2021 Virtual Writers Sabbatical, which is a build your own adventure focused on you and your writing craft. If you’ve already joined, I’m glad to have you along for the tour. If not, it’s never too late to break out of… Read more »
It’s every writer’s worst nightmare—staring at a blank notebook page or computer screen with no motivation or inspiration. Feeling completely stuck. Writer’s block is more than just a joke or some kind of “fluke” thing. In fact, some of the most well-known writers in the world have to deal with it from time to time. … Read more »
As a full-time poet I work on my own poetry at least eight hours each day. This work includes raw creation from scratch and revision. In the past, I also counted literary translation of poetry but I am focusing on my own work now. Many of my writer friends (and all the poets) ask, “How… Read more »
Whenever I think of investments and, by extension, returns on investments, words like appreciation, capital, and risk usually come to mind. For most of my life, investments seemed a foreign concept. As someone who lives paycheck-to-paycheck, is perpetually broke, and can never seem to have more than a $13.00 balance in their checking account after… Read more »
I’ve always believed that a story idea is a magical butterfly that flutters around and lands on the one person that has the magnificence—that perfect combination of experience, perspective, emotions, heart, mind, and desire—to bring the story to life in such a way that reflects the writer’s soul and captures the reader’s heart. If a… Read more »
Toni Morrison once said, “If there’s a book you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” This is my absolute favorite quote about writing because it empowers me with the courage to try anything. It’s an awesome feeling, this surge of courage, but let us back up a… Read more »
When you are writing a memoir, you spend a lot of your time excavating a past that is often elusive. To bring a memory to life on the page, you have to call up all the myriad details that filled it with emotion and meaning at the time, and the full force of any memory… Read more »
As writers, we spend a lot of time thinking about our story and our characters. We agonize over plot points and think about how to create heroes and heroines that our readers will love. We meticulously review the structure of our scenes, trying to keep our readers surprised and engaged. But we often skip right… Read more »
