If I ever die unexpectedly and my “idea file” is found, I hope it is turned over to one of my writer-friends, who will know what to do with it. (Hopefully put it in the nearest shredder.) Most of these ideas for essays and short stories and novels are jotted down in small spiral notebooks I keep on my nightstand and in my purse. Anything that I consider grist for the literary mill is written down in brief, pithy phrases that I can refer to when I need a little jump-start of inspiration. And even though I have dozens of these notebooks, which I’m sure contain some of the most profound ruminations known to mankind, I will share some of them with you. Just because I could never figure out a way to expound further on these topics, doesn’t mean you can’t!

…You know you need to start getting out more when you start talking to your goldfish.
…I hate it when I’m on the treadmill watching TV, and every commercial shows a fattening dessert.
…Every person I know thinks their way of loading the dishwasher is the best way.
…The hardest part of writing a novel is the first sentence.
…I hate opening the microwave in the morning and finding something in there from the night before. Continue reading →

(Originally published on Brevity nonfiction blog on November 1, 2016. Link below or read here…)

Have I Got a Residency for You

Two-week to five month residencies for emerging or established writers. Private room provided in exchange for twelve hours of work per week to help renovate and maintain grounds.
          *****
Private studio space for writers. An hour a day of routine caretaking of the property is required.
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Residents will assist with fieldwork, research, and other light ranger duties.
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Most writers I know harbor an inner belief (or maybe it’s a fantasy) that if they could just get away for a week, or preferably a month, and ensconce themselves at a writers’ retreat or residency, it would make all the difference in their writing lives. The scattered notes for a novel would miraculously assemble themselves into a coherent narrative; the poems written in spiral notebooks over a period of years would take on the emotional heft they have been lacking; the deep thinking required for your memoir’s narrative would result in a new breakthrough.

We writers have bought into the notion that “a room of one’s own” is critical to our mental health and literary success. After all, what could be more appealing? Take kids, spouses, dirty dishes, dust balls, and family pets out of the equation, and what comes to your mind first? Perhaps blissful silence, meditative calm, the space to create. It worked pretty well for Virginia Woolf.

Have no fear. What you need is a residency at a writers’ retreat. Browse through the listings in any magazine or website that provides information and inspiration to writers. You’ll read descriptions of secluded wooded glens, private studios, farm-to-table meals delivered right to your door in cute little picnic baskets. Continue reading →

(Originally published in The Beach Reporter on 2/19/93)

I recently read that becoming a writer was one of the top fantasies of the American public, right up there next to trading places with Julia Roberts for a day.

I don’t want to burst anyone’s bubble, but in my personal experience as a freelance writer for the past eight years this is the least glamorous job I have ever had, and I have had plenty of jobs.
My former biggest fantasy about being a writer (before I actually became one) was that I would write for uninterrupted hours, surrounded by the accoutrements of my trade.

I still harbor that fantasy. However, most of my writing is done at an enormous slab of a desk that my husband once did his homework on, in a room that could best be described as the junk room. Continue reading →