Barefoot By Choice

Last night I had a dream that I was at the end of a retreat. It was one of my retreats, through Wild Ground Writing. But instead of hugging people, making plans to reconnect over ZOOM, thanking them, being thanked, I was scrambling around under a table, cleaning up a mess of clutter: papers, craft […]

The Power of 10 Minutes

Ten minutes. Start with that. Last month, at our annual invigorating Wild Writing in the Boreal retreat, I found myself suggesting it often. One participant said, Yes, because then you’ll keep going. If you do 10, you’ll do 20, even an hour. Maybe, I replied. But you can also just fill those 10 minutes. It […]

Patience

Early this week, I finished the latest draft of a new novel. When I reached the end, after days and days (and days) of slow, plodding progress, I felt surprised. It was like thinking you’ve got a couple of hours left to drive then spotting the sign marking the city limits. It was like waiting […]

What Happened When I Tried to Turn My Life into a Novel

I spent over a decade working on my book. “Working” may be the wrong word: I spent over a decade trying to make the book work. I only actually worked on it for the equivalent of a year during that time. The reason for this long, languishing creation period was simple: I wasn’t writing honestly. […]

Chaos (Again)

These days, I’m working on the fourth draft of a strange, new novel. It is largely plot-driven so sometimes I wake in the night with an aggravating case of “what ifs.” What if this happened… Could it? Do I dare? Yes, I do! I get up, stumble to the spare room, and reach for whatever […]