Write Something Crummy Today

Write Something Crummy Today

Vincent Van Gogh My students in novel writing often hear me encourage them to “write something awful.” The reason I do this is to help students learn to separate their drafting (creating) from their refining (rewriting). I maintain doing both at once is a good idea only for highly skilled writers (and sometimes it backfires […]

The Despondent Writer

Since we’ve talked about writerly emotions, why not that feeling so many of must live through, despondency? I don’t like to be Debbie Downer, but rejection can do terrible things to a writer’s ego. After you are told no for the umpteenth time, it’s easy to see how feeling darn near hopeless can grab a […]