A new essay about the writing life published on Brevity Nonfiction blog…
https://brevity.wordpress.com/2018/12/07/on-writing-the-same-only-different/
Author: Kathy Stevenson
Millicent the Magnificent (a short story)
You can read my new short story “Millicent the Magnificent” if you follow the link below to The Same literary journal, an online journal publishing work only by women.
A Bird’s-Eye View
A Bird’s-Eye View (a new essay about the writing life)
“Maybe you just need some distance.” Words often offered as a gentle suggestion when perhaps your writing isn’t going as planned. Maybe you’ve even said these words to yourself. You keep re-reading the same pages, changing a word or a sentence. Then putting the original word back in. Looking at other drafts and deciding you should have stayed with Draft #3. Or maybe Draft #5 is better. Or maybe…
Therein madness lies. Or at the very least, frustration.
But you have to stick with it, don’t you? Persevere. Now’s not the time to wimp out. You always knew that Draft #2 was your best. Maybe the ending from #4 could be tacked onto Draft #2 somehow. That ending was really good. Some of your best work. Continue reading
Stick the Knife In: Then Twist
Stick the Knife In: Then Twist (a new essay about writing)
I’ve been thinking a lot about vulnerability lately. It’s no mystery why my thoughts keep going there – I’ve been writing a memoir about being a sister for the past two years. Naturally I would feel vulnerable writing about family, right? After all, the funny/but not funny joke in nonfiction and memoir writing classes is: “I want to write about my family, but I have to wait for them all to die first.”
That’s a bit extreme. But it does show the depth of vulnerability many writers experience when even considering writing about personal topics. And family is often one of the most personal. Of course there are many other subjects that are also personal, and require a writer to be vulnerable. Illness, physical or mental trauma, experiencing some event (either painful or joyful) out of the ordinary – all of these have their place on the vulnerability spectrum. Writing about any of them requires the writer to go inward, excavate, examine, and then turn that into engaging prose.
So much easier not to even go there. So much easier not to probe.
kathystevenson.com 