The Long Journey Home

It’s the journey, not the destination—I keep reminding myself. And it’s a long journey, or at least I’m making it one. It was about a year ago that I decided to re-write the novel that I’d already written seven times. I was going back to scratch. I’d hoped it would take me three months, but now I’m hoping I’ll be done before the end of this year.

In that year, I got wrapped up in a bit too much volunteer work, over-extending myself. Of course, the writing got squeezed, but I still wrote something almost every day, just not always my novel. That’s been sporadic, at best. (I’ve been using Pacemaker so I now have a visual graph of my bad writing habits.) Read more

Travel for Inspiration

It was a balmy twenty seven degrees centigrade in late October in Venice, Italy; birthplace of Casanova and often referred to as the most beautiful and romantic city in the world. I was lounging in a café, sipping cappuccino and watching the world go by. Gondolas and river taxis glided past and the canal water gently lapped at the edge of the patio, a scant three feet away. Tourists stopped to pose for photos on the iconic Rialto Bridge.

Traveling can provide endless inspiration if you pay close attention. Immersion in new surroundings while being unplugged from the normal distractions of busy lives invites creativity. Travel really is all about living in the present, relaxing and focusing on the myriad of sights, sounds and people in front of you. Read more

Food for the Writer’s Soul

Tanya Neumeyer performs at Words Aloud

I have a confession to make, I haven’t been writing much at all. I was, once again, making progress on my novel re-write after my last writing lull. I even had a moment of epiphany on how to make a nice transition between scenes. This is why it’s important to always make note of your scene ideas, or any ideas: You never know when life will happen and you can’t get back to it as soon as you’d like. Which is me, I’m in the gap and I hope I can pick-up where I left off.

I’ve had a few life events to deal with, like we all do, but my two major distractions have been politics and Words Aloud. Politics has just kept growing in intensity as every moment feels like history is being made.  It’s like a big story unfolding in front of us. The only good thing I have to say is, at least it’s all being laid to bare. And it’s pretty darn ugly. And I can’t look away. Somehow I feel I have to bear witness to what is happening. And a part of me always longs to understand–so I read more. Read more

A Writer’s Confession

I confess.

I failed at my goal. In my last blog, I discussed how I had started a new habit of writing for 15 minutes every day.  I did it faithfully for about four weeks and then I missed a day, then a second day. I felt miserable and reminded myself to restart but it didn’t happen. Another month went by and I did not write once.  A failure. And it seemed like such a good idea!

I have long admired those people who tackle a huge project by taking small steps every day.  It seems like such a sensible method to complete a big project – whether it is renovating a room, weeding a garden or writing a novel.  But I fail at this method every time I try.  Instead, I lurch from binge tackling of a project to long periods of stagnation until I pop into another binge round.

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Summertime And The Livin’ Is…Easy?

I hear constantly from fellow writers that they have trouble carving out time to write. Or they have the time, but they’re often swamped by writer’s block.

I seem to be the opposite. I have lots of time (in theory at least) to write and I rarely have writer’s block (too many years of being a writer, both as a newspaper journalist and as a published author, have mostly inoculated me against this).

At the moment, I’m trying to give myself a writing break, mostly because the timing is perfect. I handed in my latest manuscript to my publisher in late May and there’s no rush to start another novel. I busied myself this spring with a sizable freelance writing project and other paid work. Summer is here now and, well, that’s the perfect time to kick back and enjoy, right? Read more

Breaking your Writing Resolutions

Writing Resolutions

We just passed Beltane Day, May 1st, the mid-day between spring and summer. Time for some Beltane writing resolutions. They say most New Year’s resolutions are broken by January 12th. I’m happy to say I lasted a lot longer than that with my New Year’s writing resolutions. (We won’t talk about the other non-writing resolutions.) But I still fell short of my goal to have the first draft of my re-written novel done by the end of March. What happened? Read more

The Love (And Hate) Of A Great Book

As writers, we love to read good books. We appreciate them, we celebrate them, we admire them, we lose ourselves in them. Why, then, does reading a good book sometimes cause our writing insecurities to rear their ugly little heads?

One of my writing acquaintances recently complained that while she was loving a book she was reading, at the same time she was finding it discouraging. Why? She elaborated, saying it made her feel like she could never write something that great and so why the hell was she even trying.

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Sometimes, I Surprise Myself!

Sometimes, I resist trying new things, for fear of failure, but eventually, I force myself to do it. Sometimes, I regret the decision instantly and other times, I surprise myself.

All my writing friends know that I hate participating in writing exercises. Those on-the-spot moments where an instructor snaps her finger and says, “We have five minutes, let’s write something with the words: Baby, Police and Dietary Fiber in it. Go!” And, of course, she also mentions we will be reading the exercises out loud. Seriously, I’d rather stare out the window and count snails slithering by, than write something that will waste my time. AND, there is no way I want to read my drivel out loud into the room where every word can bounce back and hit me in the forehead, reminding me how stupid it sounds. Read more