A Boomer In Second Bloom
In the final days of my cat, Natasha’s life, was human comfort or feline comfort my priority? Already a spectral presence, frighteningly thin, weak, and silent, my dying cat took up residence under the bed exactly far enough from either side that she could not be reached. I lay on the floor, my arm outstretched…Continue Reading “Whose Suffering Is It Anyway?”
I live in a region of the country where outdoor recreational activities abound. Last night I overheard a couple of young men standing behind me at an open-air concert discussing their hiking plans for the summer. Not wanting to turn around and stare, I could just imagine two strapping, healthy youths sporting robust backpacks and…Continue Reading “A peak a week”
Shaking off the shackles of writer’s block (as any writer knows) is not easy, but I’ve learned that anything worth doing is rarely as easy as it seems when you start out. Occasionally, just starting out is the difficult part. I decided to use the strategy my own coach, Scott Lewis, taught me when I…Continue Reading “One sentence at a time”
It was destined to happen sooner or later, that dreaded affliction of every writer–block! Here I was, steaming along at a locomotive clip when I slowed down to see the track ahead better and eventually slammed on the brakes. Now I’m sitting on the rails reluctant to stoke the engine fire for fear (yes, there’s…Continue Reading “Writers’ Block, or Fear?”
I’ve always loved to write for 3 reasons: words flow easily for me, I love to entertain others, and I suffer from a need to express myself! I started writing creatively when I was only 8 years old. Everyone told me I should be a writer, and I did write poetry, articles and essays over…Continue Reading “Doin’ What I Love”
After writing for 28 days, at least 3 hours every day, I am wrung out, but thrilled to have created a novel out of thin air. As I think back over the story I see how each of the plot lines and characters contain elements of myself. All of the issues I’ve tackled are fragments…Continue Reading “Pushing words up the anthill”
Around 15 years ago I met a cute guy who owned a small town newspaper. I admit, I wanted to impress him, and since I wasn’t the only woman vying for his attention, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to dust off my writing skills and submit an article he might find worthy of publishing. Much…Continue Reading “What’s it like being a novelist after 18 days?”
I am writing Chapter 8 of my 30-day novel and wondering why I haven’t written a word of dialogue yet. Being an essayist and poet, I don’t have much occasion to write dialogue, so I consult one of several books with which I’ve surrounded myself in the past couple of weeks to “teach” me how…Continue Reading “Yes, I can do this!”
I admit it. I’m one of those people who has spent her whole life composing novels in her head and never writing one. I even try to live my life as if it were a novel. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I do write. I’ve even been published (aside from these blogs), but the idea…Continue Reading “Who knew novel-writing could be this much fun?”
I recently read a post from another life coach that made a case against expending time and thought to uncover your life’s purpose. Her main argument is that we all have life purposes, often more than one, but if we waste time trying to discover what they are, we waste our lives, period. In other…Continue Reading “Do you really need to know your life purpose?”