When my son, Nick, was in high school, his English teacher asked the class to write a brief essay about their summer vacations. Reading aloud, one of Nick’s friends ended his paper with, “I had a lot of fun.” His teacher asked the student if he could think of a better word or phrase to express “a lot.”…
An Attitude on Platitudes
Recently, my father, reading a piece of my short fiction, questioned my proclivity for unresolved, unsettling, and often sad endings. He requested that I tie things up with a nice bow and let someone in my next story live happily ever after.…
Fill the Chairs: How to Elevate Local Authors
“Fairytales can come true,” Frank Sinatra croons, then promises, “it can happen to you,” but does it? An author sets up a table piled with copies of her latest novel and assembles rows of chairs for the scads of people surely lining up outside the bookstore to hear her read and get her well-practiced “scrawl” on crisp title pages.…
So, I Listen: How Music Alleviates Writer’s Block
Hanging out on “Story Street,” my writing compadres and I were bemoaning writer’s block and how to dodge, nudge, or obliterate it. For me, short of divine intervention, the only cure is going for a long drive and listening to music.…
Take Them Shopping: How to Spend Time With Your Characters Off the Page
More than a few years ago, when mobile technology didn’t interfere with healthy posture and relationships, my mom regularly took me shopping on Saturday afternoons. Most of the time, we weren’t in dire need of anything in particular (except reliable air conditioning—it was Florida—and Chick-fil-A sandwiches), but we’d wander around the mall people watching, gagging from one-too-many perfume testers, and trying mystery meat samples at a weird German deli next to the Gap.…
Zen and The Pen: How to Apply Yoga Principles to Your Writing Practice
“Yoga begins right where I am—not where I was yesterday or where I long to be.”
–Linda Sparrowe
When training to become a yoga teacher, one of the first lessons I learned was to stress the value of “just showing up on your mat.”…