Do you ever do timed free-writing?  Do you ever just set a timer for ten or fifteen or thirty minutes and write about anything and everything till the bell rings?   You’re not writing about …

There was a time when I bought books about writing with a hunger and a purpose.  I just knew that one of them, or maybe two or three, held the secrets to the universe of …

That is the purpose of description, you know, to suck your reader into your mind’s eye, and spew out for their benefit exactly what you’re seeing. Some people are really good at it.   …

Where do you begin a story? At the beginning, of course.
Well, maybe not. Hard news writers, the actual reporters among us, have to begin their leads with the time-honored 5Ws and H: …

This year, the sixth annual BlogHer conference has a Writing Track, and as part of that track, there will be two Rooms of Your Own (ROYO).  If you have been to Blogher before, then you …

Here is the first essay/blog post that will be the subject of an on-going editing dialogue. This is the first draft, untouched by human hands, as it were. Your job is to read …

Do you write short or long? Do you meander into a story, or just get right to the point? And does it make a difference? I’m asking this because I’ve been aware for …

It’s January, that cold gray endless month that follows the hey, everybody! glitz and tinsel of December.
Let’s pause for a moment while I get fully into my cold, gray, endless mood…
Okay, I’m there.
So–how are all …

“Patricia Highsmith….lost her form. The problem wasn’t the supposed confines of crime writing, but her increasing refusal–in love and in work–to let a relationship happen. And art is always about relationship–to the material, …

Yes, yes, yes–I know that everyone is overwhelmed with the holidays.  But really, you shouldn’t close your writer’s eye at such a rich time.  So, here’s another exercise that you can do in your mind, …

As writers, all we have to work with is our words.  They’re the currency of our craft; we use them to say, to show, to explain, to tell, to create an idea or a world …

There’s an old saw that may or may not be a Joan Rivers joke: “Men–can’t live with them and can’t live without them!” That’s how I feel about deadlines. As someone who …