I haven’t done a round-up of “best writing articles on the web” in a long time. So, with that in mind, here’s what I’ve been reading lately. I think you’ll find these four articles helpful too. In The Seven Stages of Creativity: A New Perspective on Writing a Book, I discovered that I didn’t actually understand […]
Month: August 2014
Undo-It-Yourself Projects
(Due to illness, I am re-posting a popular article from a few years ago.) “A bad habit never disappears miraculously; it’s an undo-it-yourself project.”~~Abigail Van Buren We all have some self-defeating behaviors, and sometimes these behaviors can cause our writing dreams to be grounded. Through my years of writing, I certainly developed some bad habits […]
The Best YES
One of my friends is a writing coach. She spots things in my writing life when I can’t see “the writing forest for the trees.” She recently asked how the writing was going with my new contracted mysteries, the ones with firm deadlines that are longer than anything I’ve ever written before. How many chapters […]
No Motivation or Willpower? A Simple Solution
Motivation is a great thing to have, but note this: it’s unreliable. And because it’s unreliable, motivation is NOT a good strategy for making change in your writing life. Motivation to write comes and goes. I love when it’s there. I love that “can’t wait to get to the keyboard” feeling about telling a story. […]
First, You Gotta Write!
As I mentioned in Tuesday’s post, one of my goals for the sabbatical was to regain my love of writing. It had become such a chore, and I wasn’t sure why. I hoped it was because I had contracted for a couple of educational books in topics I wasn’t interested in. Don’t get me wrong. […]
Regaining Your Love of Writing
Before my three-month sabbatical started, I printed out a few articles that struck a chord and that I wanted to take time to ponder. One such article was “When the Thrill is Gone.” Here’s a bit of what it said, and I hope you’ll read the whole article. In recent weeks, I have had conversations […]
Making Creativity "Work"
It’s good to be back to the blog! It’s been a wonderful “learning time” during the three-month sabbatical. I won’t repeat what most of you received in my August newsletter. [Sign-up to the right.] Instead, today I want to talk about the nuts and bolts of creativity. Specifically, a writer’s creativity. Creativity is a mysterious […]