2023 Review and 2024 Writer Resolutions
It’s New Year’s Eve, so I’m taking a look back at some writing highlights from 2023. I also list what these opportunities have taught me for 2024. Making your New Year’s writing resolutions? Read my top three resolutions for 2024.
Write Your Way Through a Blue Christmas or Winter Blues
Yesterday, on the winter Solstice, my essay, “Blue Christmas? You’re Not Alone” was published at “The Wisdom Daily.”
The piece is about how, for many of us, this time of year is more about loss than celebration.
Be Independent: Own and Drive Your Own Writing Career
I’m a bit of a Grinch when it comes to holidays, but this July 4, American Independence Day, it feels like we have some things to reflect on. Also, as we still grapple with the losses and unknowns of our COVID pandemic, there are many things to celebrate.
How Much Money Do Writers Earn or Make?
Before we get into money and numbers here, here’s one writer’s response to the earning-a-living-from-writing thing:
“A couple of years ago I went to a writer’s conference, and speaker after speaker basically said, ‘I always wanted to write, but I had to work, but then I married a rich guy and quit my job and now I can write.’
Several of us wondered how to sign up for the ‘find a rich guy’ break-out session.”
In-Person or Online? Which Writing Workshop Is Best for You?
In late spring 2020, as we all adjusted to the COVID-19 lockdown, I moved most of my creative and wellness-writing workshops online.
Two months later, by mid summer, I had learned this: It’s not enough to be a talking head blathering away on that screen.
On Halloween: How To Face Down Your Writing Fears
Last year, the best gift under my tree was a packet of black, ball-point pens from one of those office supply mega stores. I mean “best,” as in, this was the gift that got me really excited, that I couldn’t wait to open up and use.
How to Write in a Café or Coffee Shop
This is my local coffee shop, Chococoa Baking Company. It’s locally owned, and I love sitting on their patio—yes, even in winter.
During our 2020 COVID pandemic lockdown, this bore true for me, and the thing I missed most from my “normal” life was … no, not dining in restaurants, not outdoor barbecues, not shopping centers (yuck), not bars and certainly not gyms (yuck again).
How Do I Do A Great Author Reading or Event? 5 Tips for Doing Great Author Events, Readings and Presentations
How do I do a great author reading or book launch?
Begin with ‘thank you.’ Event managers have invested time and resources to host you, the author. Equally, the audience members have taken the time to attend. So ‘thank you’ is a really good place to start. And finish.
How Much Can We Write About Our Families (as non-fiction writers)?
Should we tell all truths in personal essays or creative nonfiction?
As a creative writing teacher, students sometimes ask about how to write a personal essay without bashing or trashing the real-life characters (family, friends, employers, ex partners) therein.
Why I Read Other Immigrant Writers
6 Favorite Books by Immigrant Writers
Isn’t it strange how you can spend an afternoon writing something and then, years or months later, completely forget that you wrote it?
How to Get the Most Out of Your Next Virtual Writing Workshop
Should I take a virtual writing workshop? How to get the most out of Zoom or other virtual writing courses.
Last year, 2020, our COVID year, many of our group celebrations and classes got canceled or moved online—including creative writers workshops and author events.
Why You Deserve to Write
Do I find time or make time to write? Even on the busiest days? Days when I have to work? Pick up kids? Take care of parents?
Nine years ago, after the release of my how-to writing book, “Writer with a Day Job” (Harper Collins/Writers Digest Books, 2011), I got a note from a woman who said that her personal takeaway from the book was that we deserve to write.
How Writing Helps Us Through Hard Times and Life Changes
Can writing help us through tough times? Or to cope with life changes, like a new job or college?
1. “Why do you write?
2. In writing, what is your greater purpose?”
What to Write When You Just Can't Write
Few of us live in a single-occupancy, write-all-day bubble. Most of us balance writing with a day job, a household, a host of deadlines. Many of us balance writing with a job and family responsibilities and volunteer work.
Add to this that, at least here in New England, there are winter days when it's hard to get out of our own way--let alone get creative.
What Can You Give Up to Keep Writing?
How can you carve time out of your busy life to write?
Sometimes when I'm lying awake at night, I play little 'what-if' games in which I present myself with a set of tough choices.
In one fictitious scenario, I ask myself if I would give up creative writing if my paycheck-earning job flat out demanded it?
Writing and Speaking on Immigration
This spring, I was invited to give an evening presentation that was partly craft (writing nonfiction) and partly thematic (writing about immigration). Specifically, we were going to chat about short-form nonfiction, and how and why I wrote and collected the personal essays in my just-released book, Green Card & Other Essays.
Half-way through the evening, and long before our Q & A discussion, a woman in the audience interrupted to ask about my current immigration status.
Writer, Keep a Personal Journal
Journal writing for writers
Recently I started and abandoned a novel by a popular British (male) author. It was a well-plotted and witty story. But it was un-finishable and, afterward, un-memorable.
Writing and Courage
This weekend, I found myself writing in my journal that, among all my mid-life regrets (and there are many), most or all of my slip ups can be traced back to a failure of personal courage.
Sure, at the time, it felt more comfortable to take the easy road, the less scary or daring choice. But now, in hindsight, I see this was a mistake.
I'm a 'Successful' Writer. Really?
Yesterday in my local newspaper, I read this piece, "External Success Can be a Mirage," from Dr. Jim Manganiello, a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist.
Though he appears to live less than 10 miles from me, I've never met Dr. Manganiello, and his wellness column wasn't specifically about creative writing.
Hey, Writers! Can You Come Out To Play?
I love when I find a class or presentation on a topic that's dear to my heart and that links my working and creative lives.
So, a few weeks ago, imagine my joy when I landed on a six-week course, "Medicine and The Arts," presented by the University of Cape Town.