The Challenge of Writing True Stories

When my friend + long time student, Lisa Sadikman asked me if I wanted to participate in a blog hop where writers get a chance to write about their writing process I said sure, then immediately regretted it because I had just promised myself that I wouldn’t say yes to anything more until I’d completed the pile of projects on my desk. But if I’m anything, I’m a girl who stands by her commitments — which isn’t always smart, but in terms of commitments, writing is probably the best thing you could say yes to because everyone knows that those deadlines are everything to getting ink onto the page. So thank you Lisa.  Below are my answers to the four questions traveling from blog to blog. Next week, two wonderful friends of mine and writers — Sherry Richert Belul and Jill Salahub will share their thoughts on writing via their blogs. What am I working on/writing? Most of my writing these days happens in the Wild Writing classes I teach each week here in the Bay Area. For two hours, five mornings a week, I have the pleasure of sitting around a table with 8 other women writing really quickly and really badly. That’s one of the tenants of the class — to write as poorly as possible. It’s not a joke — it’s a totally freeing way of getting past our ingrained attempts at looking good, smart and clever — which is pretty much what we’re trying to do most of the time — on the page and off. It’s unconscious, a throw-back from the days when it was dance or...