Looking at the Forest

Looking at the Forest

Saving Annabelle has now been put through four drafts. Most of the chapters have been through way more than four drafts, but the book as a whole has been through four drafts. Yesterday I turned in that fourth draft manuscript to my thesis advisor, and let me tell you,...

On Workshops

I spent last week at a writers’ workshop. Hamline University runs a Summer Writers’ Workshop every year, and while students in the MFA program get first shot at registering, there are always some non-student participants. Hamline calls this an “intensive residential...

Smut and Alice Munro

That story I mentioned in my last post, “Challenges (yoga, writing, sex),” the one that is about a sexual encounter, is still a work in progress. For now I am calling it “Gwen’s Window.” I asked my boyfriend to read it–he reads...

Challenges (yoga, writing, sex)

I have been thinking about challenges lately. Different varieties of challenges, but challenges each in their way. When life gets challenging, complicated and messy, the first thing to lapse is whatever I do for myself. When we are only responsible to ourselves for a...

Separation Anxiety

I was talking with fellow writer and friend, Nico Taranovsky, about separation between the writer and the character. Sometimes there isn’t a lot of it. The closer we are to our character, the harder it becomes to write that character. It is like self-marketing. A lot...

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