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A SPACE FOR TELLING TRUE STORIES.
The Doggy Dog Truth
Here’s the doggy dog truth. It’s Thursday night and for practically a whole week, when I haven’t been teaching – which I do every morning – or going to the gym for a run, I’ve been sitting in this chair in my living room trying to write a piece on family, which someone has asked me to write. I’ve come at it from every angle, trying to find a way in, a great first line or an anecdote. I thought I had it at one point, but two smart writer friends sent me back to the drawing board. It’s due in a couple of days and I can’t say that I’ve gotten any closer to moving into the heart of the piece
No Can-Can Do
A palm reader once told me that as a writer, I would never be as popular as Danielle Steel. “But,” he said, “ if I wanted to continue my navel gazing, I was free to.” I didn’t really mind that he put me and Danielle Steel in the same sentence, but the phrase “navel gazing,” did make me wince. Was that all I was doing? Was I not contributing anything?
Telling Them a Story
I wonder which stories I’ll remember? That my ex-husband, their father, wrote prayers on little pieces of paper and stuck them into the walls of our house 9 years ago when we were remodeling? That when we ask for prayers we sometimes don’t get exactly what we asked for in the way we asked for it, but get something different, something even better. And so if the prayer said something like, “look after the people in this house
Where Do Our Stories Come From?
Over the years I've met a lot of people who wonder if their lives are interesting enough to write about. Maybe you came from a nice family where your parents spent time with you and told you what a stellar individual you were. Maybe you married the love of your...
A Calm, Open Walk Through a Dark & Tangled Mess
For the last couple of weeks I’ve been gearing up for Four Uninterrupted Days of Writing, the four-day workshop I’m running here at 27 Powers with the inimitable Jen Louden. 17 brave souls showed up here this morning and mostly what I’ve been thinking about for these...
How To Get Your Writing Mojo On
Dear Writers and Creative Friends, If I’m about anything, it’s helping writers to take the lead out and get some ink on the page. I’m a process person – I believe Mo is Bettah when it comes to writing – which is to say, let’s get a lot of words on...
Anything Worth Doing is Worth Doing Badly
“I’m nervous,” my Cousin Tom said as I greeted him in front of the synagogue in Boulder, Colorado last week. We were walking into my nephew Jonah’s Bar Mitzvah, and Tom, a rabbi who was visiting from Tucson – a man who can, incidentally do a headstand at the snap of a...
True Stories Series: Maya Stein
Maya Stein is one of my very favorite writers in the whole world. She's also one of my dearest friends - which shouldn't preclude you from checking out this interview, but it might help you understand why I was able to ask her questions ranging from the see-through...
Burrs, rough edges & tangled mats of hair
Today’s blog post comes to you from an island of burrs, rough edges, tangled mats of hair, and seaweed clumps. Seriously, I wish I’d strung those words together myself, but I was just as glad to find them in a book called Writing Open the Mind, by Andy Couturier....
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