Guest Blogger Karen Handyside Ely writes about life while sheltering in place. 2020 has been the longest year of my life, and it’s only April. I really can’t complain (although that has never stopped me before). My adult children, who live in New York City, are healthy and still employed. My husband and I are well, and since I started hoarding toilet paper back in the ‘80s (that is an OCD story for another day) we are literally “good to go.” I’ve noticed as the days drag by, that I’m slowly getting used to this new reality. Getting used to it, and getting fat. In the very beginning, back in “aught March,” I decided that this was an opportunity to actively pursue FINALLY becoming skinny. I’ve now failed four diets in four weeks. It doesn’t help to have a husband who loves to bake. In the best of times, his sourdough…
Category: Guest Bloggers
Write during stressful times.
“We need people who are taking the stress of this time and turning it into art, even if it’s solely for the effect it has on the artist.” — Nathan Bransford Guest Blogger Nathan Bransford shares tips about how to write during stressful times. Writing is one of the best ways we have to turn darkness into light. Here are some tips that have worked for me [Nathan] when I needed to write and life circumstances were interfering in a big way: ~If you have the means and ability to write during this time, you have it really good. Recognize your luck. Let that privilege sink in. Let it guide you toward being a better and more generous person. ~Self-quarantining and working from home might free up time, which could feel like a huge opportunity that you don’t want to pass up. But paradoxically, having a lot of time to write can actually…
Uneasy? You’re not alone.
Today’s Guest Blogger Lara Zielin: I often have the feeling I’m in trouble. It’s this pervasive unease, like I’m doing something wrong. The problem is, I don’t know WHAT I’m doing wrong. Which means that if or when I get in trouble, it’s going to be a terrible surprise. Because of this, I have my antennae up all day, scanning, looking, wondering what I could be doing that’s awful. I mind my P’s and Q’s and I try so hard to do everything right. I try to stay busy. I try to be so, so good. But some part of me knows it won’t be enough. Trouble is still a-comin’. Which means by the time I get to the end of the day, there is this exhausted part of me that is BEYOND…
Fertile Ground
Guest Blogger Brenda Bellinger offers inspiration to write: In these quiet days of sheltering at home, I’m grateful to be able to sink my ungloved hands into the moist soil of our vegetable garden and ready it for planting. I welcome the dirt under my fingernails and even the resistance of the weeds. There is so much uncertainty right now about what will happen in the next few months when, I’m hoping, our vegetables will be ready to harvest. There is fertile ground here, too, for us as writers. We are the ones who will be compelled to document what is happening all around us right now in response to the Covid-19 virus and its global effects. Some of us will craft poems to capture the historical significance of this pandemic, its devastation and how it already has, and will likely forever, change some of our behaviors. Others may write…
Bartenders make the best allies
Guest Blogger David Templeton’s tips for successful writing. I gave a talk as part of the monthly Writers Forum series sponsored by The Write Spot and Copperfield’s Books in Petaluma, California. Specifically, I was asked to talk about the craft of writing plays, and to share any tips and suggestions I may have picked up along the way. I have learned a few things over the years, which I happily shared Thursday night with the assembled crowd. But later that night, as I was chatting with some friends, it dawned on me that I’d completely failed to mention one tip that I meant to share. I’d even written it in my notes, and then somehow skipped over it during the actual talk. It’s one of the most important things I’ve ever learned as a writer. It is this: Bartenders make the best allies. It doesn’t have to be bartenders, of…
Crissi Langwell shares her Facebook Expertise
A guide for authors just starting out with a Facebook business page. Guest blogger Crissi Langwell gives us a crash course on using your Author Facebook Page as effectively as you can, even if you feel awkward in the beginning. What Should Authors Post on Their Facebook Page? If you’re a newly published author, or striving to be one, congratulations! You’ve done the hard work of writing a book! Now it’s time to get word out about your book, which is where social media comes in. But before you start spamming your friends with posts to buy your book, let’s take a step back and make a plan, starting specifically with Facebook. If you don’t have a Facebook business page, it’s easy to create one, this tutorial will help. Once you have a FB page, then what? I’m sure it’s daunting to look at that blank page, the status bar…
On Top Of Your Game
My dear friend, Nancy Julien Kopp blogs at Writer Granny’s World by Nancy Julien Kopp. Last year, Nancy posted: In mid-November, I posted a review of The Write Spot: Possibilities. The anthology consists of stories, essays, and poems by several writers. At the end of each offering is a prompt that might have inspired what they wrote and also a paragraph or two of advice for writers. Ahhh, advice. It can be given, but is it always accepted? Not by a longshot. Sometimes, we read the advice of other writers with a shield in front of us. The attitude can be Go ahead, teach me something I don’t already know. At other times, we’re wide open to any advice given. We want to soak it up like water in a sponge. I’ve been skimming through the book again looking at the advice the writers offered. I consider it a gift to us,…
Lara Zielin: The World Needs Your Stories
Today’s Guest Post spotlight shines on Lara Zielin. When I first read her post (below), my hand went to my chest. I recognized those feelings. I felt those feelings. Last summer I experienced a similar situation that Lara describes. The difference though, is that while giving my presentation, I knew I was “off” and I couldn’t get back “on.” I felt like a runaway train took off with me barely hanging onto the caboose. I so wanted to do a great job. Someone recommended me to this group as a presenter. I wanted to make her proud. At the end, I was afraid I embarrassed her and I certainly embarrassed myself. And when I read what happened to Lara, I took a deep breath. Lara wrote: Several years ago, a colleague and I gave a presentation to the board of a national museum. In the moment, the presentation felt amazing….
Understanding 4 C’s: Being a Successful Author
Guest Blogger Joan Gelfand writes: I never set out to write a novel. I mean, really? I had cut my literary teeth on Simone de Beauvoir, Virginia Woolf, Willa Cather, Kurt Vonnegut, Gunter Grass and Wallace Stegner. I was satisfied being a poet, known to my local community. Writing a novel seemed terribly pretentious, a misguided idea. No. I did not start out to write a novel. I started out with a story that, after two years, and much encouragement from my writing instructor, grew into three hundred pages. I had written my first novel without planning to do so. It was with that first novel that I began to understand that becoming a successful writer wasn’t just about writing. It was several years after my first attempt to find a publisher for that first novel that I understood the business of writing. I learned that the letter I got…
Rachel Macy Stafford: Live Love Now
I recently started following Rachel Macy Stafford’s blog, “Hands Free Mama.” If you are looking for wise words about life, I recommend “Hands Free Mama.” An excerpt from Rachel’s February 29 blog post: I can’t quite forget the publisher’s words: “We love the concept of the book, but the title needs work.” The title that encompassed the message of hope contained inside the book was rejected. Rejected. It is a harsh word, but it is the truth. Suddenly, it comes to me; I will take the most powerful word of my rejected three-word title and I will write it on every blank slate in front of me. Through tears of determination, I see a pattern: Write your fears on green notes. Write your triumphs on pink slips. Write your rejections on blank slates. Put the notes in a jar. The question I asked young people at the end of my classroom…