personal writing

A collection of 57 posts

imagination

Writing and "Tulpamancy"

At the end of August, Reply All ran a podcast episode called “Making Friends” that has been haunting me since I listened to it on a long drive a couple weeks ago. The episode follows Shea, a 30-year-old woman who says she was about to commit suicide at age 16,

book reviews

Published Journal Book Review: Let Me Stand Alone by Rachel Corrie

Let Me Stand Alone: The Journals of Rachel Corrie by Rachel Corrie My rating: 4 of 5 stars I listened to this audiobook mostly while I was biking with my dog, so now I find that I “miss” Rachel Corrie when I go biking with a different audiobook. This makes

245

A Dialog with My Inner Writer

Since May, I have been working through the exercises in Julia Cameron’s The Right to Write. I wish that I had made it a regular practice to post some of my entries (the way I did with A Year in the Life), but I never got started and then

A Year in the Life

2014: My Writing Year in Review

It’s easy for me to get discouraged with how long some of my writing projects take. I will be finishing up my second year of revising my Rapunzel retelling in 2015, and I always want to be writing more than I actually am. But when I paused to take

Book Reviews

Writing Related Book Review: Belzhar by Meg Wolitzer

Belzhar by Meg Wolitzer My rating: 3 of 5 stars I’ve long believed that through writing, we have the power to transform ourselves and our experiences. It’s why I journal every morning, even when there are a million other things waiting to get done; it’s why I’

honest writing

On the End of 100 Happy Days

I hope that I still have many happy days to come, but this last weekend marked the official end of my participation in the #100happydays meme. The meme challenges you to take one picture a day of something that makes you happy, and post it to your network of choice

journaling

Rumpelstiltskin, Rapunzel, and the Grief Journey

Over the weekend, this article about Rumpled was published in the Marshall Independent, my hometown newspaper. I did the interview last Monday. Beware, though: there is a spoiler in the interview (which the reporter quoted from the acknowledgements page at the END of Rumpled — I didn’t give any spoilers

journaling

When You Can't Write Around It, Write Through it

In this writing lecture by Brandon Sanderson, a woman asks how to continue writing when you’re going through something traumatic. Sanderson’s answer is a little less-than-adequate (although honest), in that he says he’s never experienced that because a) nothing very bad has ever happened to him; and

freelancing

How I Crammed My Life Full of Books ... in Nine Steps

The professor who supervised me in my college days of working at the university writing center recently wrote me with feedback on Rumpled. She said that she wasn’t sure how I managed to find time to do so much reading and writing. I wanted to laugh, because what I

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A Year in the Life, Week 52: Self-Reflection Week

Well, yesterday I finished working through the exercises in A Year in the Life. The final exercise was the last of four “self-reflection weeks” in which I gave myself feedback on my journaling. (You can see how the schizophrenic relationship with myself as both employer and employee began here.) I

6

A Year in the Life, Week 49: The Telephone

This week’s prompt from A Year in the Life was to write about the telephone. Seriously. The entry is supposed to start, “THE TELEPHONE …” Fortunately, I have very strong feelings about telephones, so this entry was easy for me. The telephone is the Great Disrupter. My relationship with the

authors

Beware the Unruly Catholic Woman on the Train

Last week, I traveled about 48 hours round-trip by train/bus/car, spent $300 on said transportation(s), and didn’t get a full-night’s rest for four nights to attend a reading of Unruly Catholic Women Writers in Dayton, Ohio, on Wednesday. Train and bus schedules were such that

blogging

A Grown-up Kind of Catholicism

My newest post, A Grown-up Kind of Catholicism, is up at Young Adult Catholics today. It’s a reflection from my journal about how I balance a lingering Catholic identity with the fact that I now belong to a non-Catholic church.

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A Year in the Life, Week 45: Whistling (Saxophoning)

This week’s A Year in the Life exercise asked me to write about the role whistling, or humming, or playing an instrument, had played in my childhood. I wrote about my relationship with my saxophone, my first musical love. I don’t remember ever liking to play piano, or

book reviews

Writing Book Review: The Right to Write by Julia Cameron

The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life by Julia Cameron My rating: 5 of 5 stars “Writing–and this is the big secret–wants to be written. Writing loves a writer the way God loves a true devotee. Writing will fill up your heart if

honest writing

Time for Writing

“The lies we tell ourselves about writing and time are all connected to envy, to the fairy tale notion that there are others whose lives are simpler, better funded, more conducive to writing than our own. “The trick to finding writing time is to make writing time in the life

blogging

Creative Process Blog Tour

I read about a “Creative Process Blog Tour” over at Susan Perry’s blog, wherein different creative types are answering a set of questions about their process in their blogs. (Susan Perry is author of Writing in Flow, although I first discovered her through Loving in Flow, which I read

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A Year in the Life: Valentine's Day

My A Year in the Life journaling book has prompts in the back for holidays, in addition to the regular weekly prompts. I decided to do the Valentine’s Day one, which was to imagine that Puck had sprinkled fairy dust on me so that in the morning I would

freelancing

Some Thoughts on Money and Writing

In November, I clipped this piece of writing advice from Writer’s Digest (my apologies that I didn’t also clip the issue date — if anyone recognizes it, I’m happy to attribute.) I listened to my mom. She once told me to always live a little outside of my

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A Year in the Life, Week 40: First You Have to Teach a Lesson

This week’s writing exercise in A Year in the Life prompted me to write about a time that “learning a lesson” was somehow connected to a secret that you kept. I wrote about learning to play guitar when I was 22. Perhaps I wanted to learn guitar since those

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A Year in the Life, Week 39: Self-Reflection Week

This week’s A Year in the Life Exercise was another … self-reflection week! Man, this is the last time I take a job where I have to undergo a performance review every three months. 😉 This one went better than the others, though. The exercise instructed me to start with my

blogging

Catholic Spiritual Journals

Just posted my latest entry over at Young Adult Catholics about Catholic spiritual journals. Any that you recommend?

fiction

"New Adult" Literature and No-Good Writing Advice

Last week, I was reading “What’s New About New Adult?” in the January/February issue of Horn Book. The article is about the rise of “New Adult” literature, a sub-genre of Young Adult (or a sub-genre of adult) that focuses on characters in their late teens or early twenties.

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A Year in the Life, Week 36: Admonitions

This week’s A Year in the Life prompt asked me to reflect upon an admonition I remember hearing in my life. From my mom: “Don’t open the door for or go with anyone except Grandma, Amy, or Susan–even if they say I’m hurt or dead.” This

Book Reviews

The Handmaid's Tale and The Hunger Games - What Makes a Strong Female Character?

This month, my book club discussed The Handmaid’s Tale. This is one of the books that has been formative in my life as both a reader and a writer. It was the first piece of dystopic literature I read beyond The Giver, and it awakened a taste for much,