Novel Ideas

I am aware that if you are a humanitarian and liberal thinker, you are crying over this week’s terrors, but if you’re a conservative and supporter of our current administration you may be feeling triumphant, but currently I am focusing on creativity and staying clear of politics, as hard as that is for me and yes, it is hard to ignore humans in cages. Instead, I am planning for my work with next year’s students while taking a week-long class with two terrific colleagues. During all this plotting I can’t help but remember my own artistry, which is, of course, writing. The place I go to whenever given a second, an empty space, where I fall so hard whenever I have the chance. So… tonight I thought, why not share bits of that  imaginative place?

Interested in reading Chapter 1 of a yet to be published novel? I’d love to know if you are… indeed… interested… and what you think afterwards. Please let me know in the comments below, and I’ll add another chapter to the storyline next week if you’d like.

Santa Monica at sunset   Continue reading

Find Your Group

Artists have sought the company of others forever… One such notable Saratoga Springs colony, Yaddo, formed in 1926, boasts over 6,000 artists to have passed through, from Langston Hughes to Truman Capote. Google ‘Writer’s Retreats’ and pages and pages of such rejuvenating programs appear, including Vermont Studio Center; my time there enabled me to move my scattered chapters into a complete novel. These short stints of concentrated writing time often catapult one from a small group of supportive peers with whom you share your work, to a greater determination to carry on.

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