A treasured colleague recently told me, "I usually like it when I got a crisis moment...it energizes me." I won't disagree; crisis or rifts can mean upcoming change, though not always positive and productive. But even after the storm, we do eventually experience a calm, a reprieve. But it's been raining in my writing life …
Tag: creative writing
“It Was a Creative Shut Up”
I was sitting in our senior capstone course under the direction of our program's director. It was the course to help guide us towards our capstone presentations to showcase either a research paper or creative project based upon our knowledge and showmanship of what we had gained at Oklahoma City University. It was an easy …
“I’ll Write It When I’m Ready” And Other Lies We Say
There's that one story that you've had in a drawer at the back of your mind for ages. It's going to be the greatest project ever. It may get you that agent who hasn't bitten the hook yet, shoot your print to the front of every bookstore across the globe, and make that startling collision …
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You’ve Got To Read To Write
Want to know a secret, writer? If you want to be a great writer, you must discipline yourself to be a great reader as well. It's never surprising that a writer was once an avid reader in their younger days. That's how many get their start, but what many neglect to learn or practice is …
People Are Strange, Characters Can Be Too
Working in retail, I've had many experiences with unusual people, coworkers and customers alike. Some weren't bad, just odd. This one guy who worked at the second store I went to while attending school, let's call him Todd, was an odd duck of his own unusual category. He was underweight, so much his belt struggled …
Nobody’s Perfect, Neither Are Characters
Remember when Disney princesses set the highest of standards for little girls everywhere? I honestly didn't mind Aurora, for instance, when I was little, but it bothered me getting older when my voice deepened in pitch rather than raised and became a bird and woodland creature lull. How was her skin so perfect for a …
Too Many Burners Going: Writing Multiple Projects
Every writer is guilty of cluttering their work space with notes, pages, and manuscripts of several different projects. It happens; life happens. We are inspired by one story line that our inner muse promises will be the best we've ever written, but then that fickle lady promises us the same for this next idea, and …
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My Bloody Shinebox: Dealing With Unfair Critics
Every writer has dreaded yet anticipated the unstoppable times when we are bunched up with other writers, sometimes in desks or table arranged in a circle, led by a teacher, mentor, or volunteer instructor who have us go around, one by one, and we offer our personal work or projects to the group, like a …
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