I usually alternate monthly writing goals between actual writing and planning/plotting projects. April was Camp Nanowrimo and I managed my goal of 10,000 words – but it became clear I needed to make some decisions. May therefore became “brainstorm and decide” month. Some of the questions on the table included: What exactly is the religion? […]

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This post has been on my ‘to do’ list for a while but I just kept pushing it out, because my level of productivity has rapidly declined since my working days. These days, if I manage to go for a walk, meditate, and knock one thing off my list, I consider it a good day. […]

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A long list of questions, things to research or brainstorm, somewhat fewer words than when you started, and far fewer answers than you’d hoped for. April was editing month and I actually printed out all 243 words of my main WIP (aka The Witch Novel) in hopes of getting a new perspective. Some thoughts: this […]

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I’d mentioned in an earlier post that I’ve recorded seven short readings and that my husband has been composing background music for them. Now he’s discovered imovie and has made the jump to adding moody and evocative visuals to his compositions. I don’t know that we’re going to be able to come up with the […]

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Just put the (almost) finishing touches on the new material being added to the upcoming reissue of my Discovering Japan short story collection, due out in December. This new version features a new cover, one additional unpublished short story, and THREE (count ’em, three!) sections from the Work In Progress, aka “The Witch Novel”. Stay […]

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I’m 475 words away from hitting 30,000 this year and, at the risk of invoking the displeasure of the gods, I’m relatively certain that I can manage that before midnight on December 31st. Roughly half of them will be for the Witch Novel, bringing me to almost 62,000 for that project. I had some breakthroughs […]

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I’ve been feeling stuck on the Witch Thing in Progress (see avoidance behaviour post) and so I thought “why not try writing something fun? Something silly and frothy and maybe a wee bit fanfic-ish and romantic and without world-building or pressure or magic systems or any of those things that scare you.” I dutifully hauled […]

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To clarify, the avoidance is all on my side.  The teachers on the Masterclass site are doing their jobs.  My husband decided to sign up for a year’s access to the online learning site, Masterclass, which features lectures from such luminaries as Ron Howard, Steve Martin, and Annie Leibowitz.  It’s not cheap but we figured […]

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A number of year’s ago, after reading Sarah Susanka’s book The Not-So-Big Life, I adopted a year-end ritual that involves asking myself some questions from the book about what I learned, achieved, and failed to do in the previous year.  I’d then set out my goals for the new year.  I now have over ten […]

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I saw yet another writer saying “there’s no such thing as writer’s block” on Twitter today.  I almost replied … but I mostly just lurk on social media and so I thought I’d write this post instead. I’m not sure how all these other writers define writer’s block.  Mostly they seem to assume that it’s […]

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