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…
It’s time to . . . .
It’s time to leave behind the beliefs that limit us and embrace the creative beings we truly are. —Suzanne Murray Join Suzanne in one of her many fabulous writing workshops, or personal coaching, or EFT. Yosemite Spring Retreat April 4 – April 6 Journey to the west of Ireland The Heart of Writing – a four week coaching package EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) Check out Suzanne’s Blog for ideas on writing, creativity and life coaching.
Twelve years old . . . Prompt #34
Write about your favorite thing to do when you were twelve years old. You can respond from your personal experience, or answer as your fictional character would answer.
What surprises me . . . Prompt #33
What surprises me . . .
Blood Lotus online literary journal publishes gray area . . .
Blood Lotus is an online literary quarterly established in 2006 and run by editors who refuse to believe everything has already been written, and who want to promote your best writing as proof. Blood Lotus accepts poetry, fiction and gray area. Every other Monday, we’ll post a poem/group of poems or a short story by a featured author for a two-week period. We hope this format will cast more of a spotlight on our deserving authors and generate more conversation on our blog. To that end, we’ll also offer commentary on every published piece: what we love about it and why it was chosen, directly from the co-editor who discovered and accepted it. Click here for guidelines.
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…
“I began these pages for myself . . .” Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Excerpt from Gift From the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. I began these pages for myself in order to think out my own particular pattern of living, my own individual balance of life, work and human relationships. And since I think best with a pencil in my hand, I started naturally to write. I had the feeling, when the thoughts first clarified on paper, that my experience was very different from other people’s. (Are we all under this illusion?) My situation had, in certain ways, more freedom than that of most people, and in certain other ways, much less. . . . And so gradually, these chapters, fed by conversations, arguments and revelations from men and women of all groups, became more than my individual story, until I decided in the end to give them back to the people who had shared and stimulated many of these thoughts. Here, then,…
What games did you play? Prompt #32
Today’s prompt is from To Have Not, a fascinating memoir by Frances Lefkowitz. When us kids used to walk down 16th Street to the schoolyard or across Sanchez to the corner store, we’d keep a lookout for cool cars. When one drove by – a red mustang convertible, a tiny MG, a black Jag with the silver cat ready to pounce off the hood – whoever saw it first would point and say, “That’s my car!” We could play this game anywhere, my brothers and their buddies and I, shouting the words loud and fast to drown out anyone else who might be thinking about claiming the same car. You could even play it alone, whispering the three magic words while walking home from school or sitting in a window seat on the bus, leaning your drowsy head against the sun-warmed glass. Then the car would speed through traffic, carrying…
Flash Fiction Online
Frances Lefkowitz has been published in Flash Fiction. Here’s what Flash Fiction has to say: Every month, Flash Fiction Online is proud to publish what we think is some of the best darn flash fiction (500 to 1000 words) there is. Each issue includes three original stories by both new and seasoned authors. Although many on our staff have a fondness for the speculative, we enjoy and select fiction in any genre. Founded by Jake Freivald in 2007, Flash Fiction Online has been published by Anna Yeatts since September 2013. We believe good stories should be free to readers—our goal is to help foster appreciation for short fiction. At the same time, we’re eager to support writers. We offer pro-rate payment for stories (as defined by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, $0.05/ word). All our stories are read blind, with the author names and other identifying material…