Monthly Archives

October 2017

Why NaNoWriMo Works

If you’re a writer you know what it’s like to have a “writer’s brain.” You meet people for one second and get caught up fantasizing about their life stories. Your imagination goes into overdrive just from hearing a song on the radio. You get so attached to characters in books that you have extreme emotional reactions whenever anything bad happens to them.

Your brain never stops moving. It never stops plotting, dreaming, building, investigating, and finding new roads to travel down.

This is the blessing of being a writer—and the curse. Continue Reading

Stop Telling Me What I Can—and Can’t—Write About.

I had a really bad time in a creative writing class I took in college.

It was my senior year and a very small class. I desperately wanted to write, but I was having huge problems even finishing one page. Everything I wrote felt clumsy, awkward, and stupid. I was also introverted, super sensitive, and just plain weird. On top of this, the other students in the class seemed to know exactly what they were doing. They seemed to be clicking with the teacher, and handing in work that aligned perfectly with her expectations.

And the teacher did have firm expectations, that much was clear. She seemed very knowledgeable about publishing and what people wanted to read. She had a lot of opinions on what we should spend our time writing, and what would be a waste. Continue Reading