Hello my friends —
While you process the deluge of coronavirus advice and guidance, (and the anxiety, and the chaos), remember this:
As writers, you possess skills that will prove useful in the coming weeks and months. You’re good at listening. You’re good at synthesizing information, and sharing stories. Continue reading “Reaching Out”
Writers, as I compose this note to you all, I’m listening to a trivia contest about celebrity micro-marriages, unions that lasted all of 72 days or nine days or even just 55 hours. Love, it seems, can go spectacularly wrong.
As can our writing about it. You know what I mean—the over-flowery, purple, cringe-inducing paeans to amore; the clinical descriptions of looks or worse, body parts. (Quelle horreur.) The clichés.
We trip ourselves up when our focus is too narrow, trying to evoke a single feeling, where love is ephemeral, and when you’re in it, it’s a state of being. Maybe, what we need to do is think of love as an environment. Continue reading “Writing About Love”
Maybe one of your New Year’s Resolutions is to submit your work for fellowships and residencies, to contests, or for publication. Maybe you’ve got a project ready to go. If so, yay! Good on you. Before you hit send, let’s review some best practices to help you vault over that slush pile.
I’m going to skip the fundamentals, so if you need a refresher, read this, this, and this.
I asked some writers who’ve worked the other side of Mount Slushie: What snapped your glazed eyes to attention?