Guest Blogger Victoria Zackheim writes: How many of us are beset by that nagging voice that tells us we’re not good enough, not thin enough, not smart, tall, educated, talented enough? I don’t know about you, but I face this every day. It used to run my life . . . now it’s a tiny slice of annoyance that I can easily push away. It took years—decades, to be honest—but those demons are silenced. When they try to reappear, they’re quickly vanquished. Not dead and gone, but shoved aside where they can do no harm. It wasn’t always like that . . . and for many women, and those of us who spend our lives not only writing, but putting our words into the world for everyone to read . . . and judge . . . fear is often the rule, whereas a sense of security is the exception….
Category: Guest Bloggers
Guest Blogger Maria Victoria: My novels are not for free.
Guest Blogger Maria Victoria: My novels are not for free. Give away your stories for free, suggests the book marketing “expert.” He insists that if I follow his advice, readers will immediately download my novels on their reading tablets and once they read my work, they will be so enamored with my pen that they will buy everything else I publish from here on out. His logic reminds me a little of the slogan for Lay’s Potato Chips, “you can’t eat just one.” The problem is that I’m not a potato chip. And if I don’t eat now (even a bag of Lay’s) how will I survive to write more novels? Moreover, this guy forgets that I’m paying for his advice and if I give my work away, how am I going to pay him? Of course I understand the marketing strategy of “giving a taste,” like when we get…
Guest Blogger Susan Hagen: What I want to tell you…
Guest Blogger Susan Hagen wants to tell you something… After a long weekend together, I wrote this to honor the courage and heart of the students at my fall writing retreat. I offer it again here to all of you: What I want to tell you is that you are not like most people. Most people would not be awakened at dawn by the beating of a drum and feel happy about it. Most people would not hurry through their yogurt and bacon to climb a hill and sit all day on a threadbare couch. Most people would not spend four days putting words in a notebook or listening deeply to the words other people spent four days putting in a notebook – and pay for the privilege. They would not weep in front of strangers, or talk about their sex lives, or say truth be told, I’m glad my…
Guest Blogger Amanda Socci: Getting Inspired by Food Boxes!
Guest Blogger Amanda Socci: Getting Inspired by Food Boxes! If there is one thing that writers thirst for, it is inspiration. We have a constant need for things to speak to us, create magic for us, and fill our souls with ideas and information that will make us burst out of our skin and onto the paper. Inspiration is everywhere, but sometimes, writers tend to overlook the obvious, hoping to find deeper meanings in things. Today, I’d like to take this opportunity to lighten things up a bit by talking to you about an unlikely source of inspiration that appears to be boring or meaningless, but really, is just the opposite. That’s right, I’m here to tell you that food packaging is a friend to writers. All kinds of food packaging is interesting, but most specifically, I’d like to chat about cereal boxes. When you go grocery shopping, are you…
Guest Blogger Patti Trimble asks, “Who cares . . .”
Guest Blogger Patti Trimble asks, and answers, “Who cares if I write?” Sometimes I ask myself, “Who cares if I write, who basically gives a damn anyway?” Then I remember this is a real question that should be asked with a radical change of voice. Who DOES care if I write? Exactly who am I writing for? Writing is a mode of conversation: If I don’t know who I’m talking to, it hardly makes sense to speak. Once, on a beach, not in this country, I watched twenty men pull in a surf net. At least that’s what I thought they were doing. For several hours I watched them pull—knee-deep in surf, hauling in two fat ropes that disappeared into the sea. As they inched backwards up the slope, one man jumped up; then some young people ran down to help pull. The town was into it because it was…
Guest Blogger Bella Andre couldn’t stand it anymore, so she . . .
Guest Blogger Bella Andre shares what it takes to get writing. In the workshops I give to writers, I talk a lot about blocking out the white noise (email, Facebook, phone calls, prolonged internet searches for information you don’t really need to know to write your first draft, etc.) and putting on blinders so you can really give your focus to your book. This advice is a lesson I personally relearn with every single book I write. That’s the quick and pretty version, but if you pull back the glossy cover, the past 30 months actually look like this: * Decide to start my new book. * Do everything but start the book. * Make more big plans to start the book, for real this time. * Freak out about not starting the book. * Tell myself that tackling the non-writing items on my enormous to-do list is important, necessary…
Guest Blogger Rachael Herron talks about the biggest failure . . .
Guest Blogger Rachael Herron talks about the biggest failure. . . Last night I went out with (as I think of her) my Young Writer friend. My favorite barista at my beloved but now defunct cafe, she has stars in her eyes about writing, and is applying to MFA programs all over the country. We ate sushi and talked about writing, and I remembered myself in her. When I was 25 — her age — I packed up my tiny Ford Festiva with its roller-skate wheels and headed to Mills for my MFA. I was going to light the world on fire with my prose. Or at least, I was going to write. And I lit a lot of things on fire, namely the cigarettes I was still smoking back then. I was giving myself two years in the ivory tower, two years to really focus on craft. Then, for…
Guest Blogger Frances Lefkowitz – “Are your parents still speaking to you?” The Dangers of Memoir
“Are your parents still speaking to you?” This question—a darn good one—comes up pretty much every time I do a Q&A. The short answer is “Yes.” My parents and siblings are all still talking to me; we still get together for holidays and birthdays and no blood gets shed. But this is not the case for other memoirists; I know several who are estranged from their families. Discussing family matters, revealing secrets, shining light on our most vulnerable and tragic moments including bad behavior or naive mistakes, and getting just our version into print, so it sounds like the official word on the subject: If this is what we do when we write memoir, then offending the people in our lives is one of our occupational hazards. The long answer is that this question is a great opportunity to discuss the distinction between the process of writing a memoir or…
Guest Blogger Ted Moreno – Commitment and Success
Today’s guest blogger is Ted Moreno, success performance coach and certified hypnotherapist. One of my favorite movie quotes comes from “Unforgiven” starring Clint Eastwood. William Munny (Eastwood), is a former murderer and outlaw. He’s got his shotgun aimed at the sadistic town sheriff, on the ground, already shot. The sheriff begs “I don’t deserve this. I was building a house. ” Munny replies “Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it.” You can probably guess what happens next, if you know anything about Clint Eastwood films. It’s a harsh reality. What you feel you deserve has little to do with what you actually get. Because what you feel you deserve is only that: what you feel. And what you think and feel isn’t truth. It’s just what you think and feel. There were many times I didn’t feel like writing my book. Or editing it. Or re-writing parts that needed it. But…
The Truth About Fiction — Guest Blogger L. Avery Brown
Guest Blogger L. Avery Brown writes about The Truth About Fiction. “It’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.” – Mark Twain Smart fellow, that Mark Twain. He really understood the difference between storytelling via the written word as opposed to the tradition of oral storytelling. Case in point . . . my father was a master storyteller. And any little thing could trigger one of the stories in his ginormous mental Rolodex of memories. Every time he told a story it was slightly different and yet it was always the same. The people, the setting, the ending – they were always fairly consistent even if he left out little details. But that was fine, because his storytelling did what it was supposed to do . . . it planted the seeds of memories I didn’t realize had even taken root until years later when…