Outline Love

I’m a little in love with my own outline. Is that weird? I am just INTENSELY excited to write, to really really write the rest of this book at long last!

My Own Worst Enemy

…is sitting right here, her hands on my keyboard. She thinks she’s helping me write my novel. But what she’s really doing is spewing out the longest so-called outline in the history of the world, saying it’s the only way she knows how to write this novel, though she knows it’s completely unnecessary and she’s [...]

Intentions

There are so many things I want to write! So many things half-done, partly done, started, stopped… and if only I had the time to give to them. I’m having a hard time focusing during my time off—how do other people do it? Yes, yes, I know everyone says “don’t quit your day job,” so [...]

Personal Disclaimer

I wonder if I should walk around during the day wearing a sign that says:
I don’t really feel like talking.
Topics I do not want to talk about include: my writing, your writing, writing in the past, writing in the future, my progress with my outline, the beautiful state of California, lunch and what to eat [...]

Who Is . . . ?

Who is Steven Millhauser? I was first introduced to his fiction when I was 22 and in graduate school; the book was Martin Dressler, the city New York, and if you write a dreamy, magical-realist take of Manhattan a century ago, you’ve got me at the first page, even way back then.
Then, years later, I [...]

The Downer Post

I don’t know how many posts I’ve deleted instead of publishing them this week. I’m in the part of the downward spiral where you try to explain it to yourself, to others, and then you see there’s no real reason for what you’re feeling, any excuse pathetic, but you’ve got all this motion going and [...]

Submitting Stories While Blindfolded

So I wonder if I should include a little disclaimer on my cover note when I send out my next batch of story submissions:
If you’ve already seen a version of this story—or, worse, have it in your slush pile and haven’t gotten around to rejecting it yet—please forgive me. My hard-drive died and I lost [...]

Don’t Wanna Get Up?

Here are my Tried-and-True Tips for How to Wake Yourself Up When It’s Saturday Morning and You’re Drifting on the Couch and the Clock is Ticking and You Have Just Two Days to Write and Sleep Is Not an Option:

Keep a lamp on, shining down directly in your face; it’s extremely uncomfortable, and hot in [...]

One Day, Two Lives

I spent two hours in another life yesterday. I had a long lunch with my editor in the middle of my workday, as if I were a real author. At the restaurant, for a short time, it felt like I was. We talked about what the head of the imprint had to say about my [...]

My Painfully Slow Progress

I am plotting out my book in great detail, scene by scene by scene, a method I’ve only really used for work-for-hire novels (because I had to, under the contract), but I guess for my own stuff it could be helpful, too. I don’t have to stick to it exactly when I’m writing… But as [...]

Bug in Your Eye

I was walking east toward Broadway—a light wind, a rising sun, just minding both my own business and the occasional garden hose washing the beer off the sidewalks—when I turned the corner and had this uplifting moment of clarity. It was about writing, and not. About life, and more. A perfect moment, really, in which [...]

Writing Superstition

In honor of Friday the 13th, here’s one of mine:
If I don’t get up early every single morning, if I don’t write every single day, if I spend a night hanging out with a friend, if I skip a day because I’m tired, if I watch too much TV, if I can’t get up the [...]

Positive Feedback, Please, Thank You!

I love positive feedback, especially random and unsolicited. The editor of my last work-for-hire novel emailed me yesterday to say that the copyediting person at her office stopped by to tell her how much she liked my manuscript, and as the editor said, it was: “totally unprompted!”
I was thrilled, of course, though after some seconds [...]

Maybe Tomorrow

I keep getting pulled in new directions. I’ll be sitting at my desk doing whatever it is I do all day and I’ll look up and think, Wow, I’ve really got to get rid of all my old clothes and books and papers and rearrange the bedroom and maybe I should get to that tomorrow. [...]

Reject

It’s hard not to feel like a top-notch reject on a muggy Monday after a day at work when you got only a third of the things done you wanted to get done and you want chocolate ice cream but refrain and get healthier (?) fruit sorbet instead and you part the soupy air to [...]

One Last Bite

My other half, who knows me better than I know myself, has pointed out that I have this quirk while eating—cute? wasteful? just plain annoying?—in which I never finish what is on my plate. I always leave a piece of lettuce, a fallen bit of broccoli, one last bite. It’s just something I do, I [...]

Hooks

I was told by a literary agent (not this one, another) that my short story collection, once finished, would need a bigger hook in order to sell. Story collections do these days, she said sadly, which made me wonder if I needed to be a one-armed orphaned albino circus freak from Macedonia who writes all [...]

Momentary Burst of Motivation

I hit a moment yesterday morning in the minutes before I had to leave my writing spot for the subway that sent me flying high with motivation, making plans, assuring the good half of me that I would not let the bad half give up. I have flirted with giving up on things over the [...]

Story Salvaged, Workshop Awaits

The story found its way—I feel sure that the revision I ultimately came to is far better than what I lost when my computer died and ate it. Does that mean my computer was meant to die and eat the story so I could write an even better one? Let’s hope not. I don’t want [...]

More About Short Stories? Always

I admitted before to my near-obsession with short stories. Now I just randomly happened upon this thread about stories that “blew you away” on the Poets & Writers Speakeasy (I think you have to sign in to read it). There are so many stories mentioned that I haven’t even read!
But this comment about children’s books [...]