Taking a Lesson from Moonlight
A few weeks ago, when I walked out of the theater after seeing Moonlight, I experienced a feeling akin to what I felt three days ago when I closed the cover of Zadie Smith’s Swing Time and sat back and…
Category: Revision
Ambushed by Beauty
The members of my writing critique group comment on my manuscript. That’s what they’re there for: to offer suggestions, to help steer me in the right direction and to give me their gut reaction to my work. Most of the…
Writers’ Original Sin: Control
We all know that exhilarating feeling of banging out a first draft when the ideas are flowing, the characters are talking and pages are filling of our their own volition as we put our vision into words. There’s no better…
Getting the replay: Composing stories that stick
I’ve spent the last few days with the same song stuck in my head. You’ve experienced this before. We’ll both experience it again.
Am I Selling Out? A Guide for the Concerned Marginalized Writer
Writing marginalized content in a mainstream world is balls. Aside from the extra pitfalls we as such authors have to look out for, aside from the extra attention and reflection and detail such writing demands, we also hit a nerve-wracking…
Friday Feast: 10 Books Featuring Subversive Women, 10 Must-Reads for Donald Trump, on Receiving and Accepting Novel Feedback, That Uncomfortable Feeling When Writers Don’t Write, and What Happens When a Debut Author Won’t Join Social Media?
My Grandma Sue lived alone in the middle of a rice field in southern Missouri. The electricity would flicker if the wind blew too hard and the water smelled like lead. She stole all her dad’s savings and ran away…