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Writing in a World on Fire

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Photo by id-iom.

 

There is a meme, started by Matt Jones (@tinyarmoredone), that goes as follows:

me: *opens mouth to scream into the void*
the void: sorry, man we’re full up
me: what?
the void: there’s no more room, we’re teeming with screams
me: but –
the void: We. Are. At. Full. Capacity. Sir. Try a pillow.

It’s been feeling like the teeming void for a long time, and 2020 has only amplified it. The void’s at full capacity, but the screams just keep on coming.

I write romances. To be even more specific, I write geeky romantic comedies. All my agents have characterized my voice as incorporating humor: it’s a selling point, it’s my shtick, it’s my brand.

Needless to say, I have not been feeling inspired.

It’s been hard for me to be motivated to write about love, no matter how much I believe in it, and laughs have been thin on the ground. Rather than story ideas, I have been hit with a powerful and inchoate rage, so immeasurable and overwhelming that I feel like I could spontaneously combust.

Putting my writer’s coach cap on, I keep trying to think of what I would say, if I were faced with a writer who was struggling with depression and despair in the face of a world on fire. This is the best I can come up with: [Read more…]

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How to “Sail” Through This Storm: Interview with Olympic Sailor and Novelist Carol Newman Cronin

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After sailing for the USA in the 2004 Olympics, Carol Newman Cronin shifted gears and became a writer, penning four novels (and counting…) with themes tied closely to the sea and coastal life. Her latest, Ferry to Cooperation Island, releases on June 16.   Like most authors this year, Carol had no idea what the whims […]

Break the Lego House and Start Over (Or: Writing With Kids at Home)

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I’m not sure that anyone should try to give advice about raising children. Much less about raising children while trying to write. Much less about raising children while trying to write and hold a job outside of writing. Much less about raising children while trying to write and hold a job outside of writing – […]

Breaking Through Writer’s Block

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Depending on the writer you talk to, writer’s block seems to be either: (A) Something writers’ dread (B) Something they run into without warning (C) Something they don’t believe in–an easy excuse people use to avoid doing the hard work. A way of letting fear get to you. It can be easy to discount something […]

Writing as Collaboration

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You know the drill : writing requires you to put your ass in the chair and write… alone. We’ve got our characters, sure, but they aren’t colleagues. The conversations we have with them are really conversations with ourselves. I think this is one of the reasons that writers flock to social media – finally, other people […]

Top 5 Writing Hacks to Distract You from the Nightmare of Your Daily Life

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Warning: Hacks for Hacks tips may have harmful side effects on your writing career, and should not be used by minors, adults, writers, poets, scribes, scriveners, journalists, or anybody. If you’re an aspiring writer, dealing with distraction is a big part of the routine. Between social media, your day job, familial responsibilities, and the once-in-a-century […]

A Writing Life in Singular Times

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Even before I was published, writing, which to me has always been about the weaving of stories for other people, has been part of the very fabric of my life and my being.  Since my first book was published, thirty years ago precisely, I have felt lucky, indeed, blessed, to earn my living doing what […]

The Fierce Urgency of Now

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The world has a way of shaping our literature, bending our writing to align with the arc of history. I began writing The Kindest Lie, my debut novel, in earnest during President Obama’s second term in office, a time when Americans were grappling with the promise and limits of hope. The racial and socioeconomic chasm […]

9 Authors on Hope

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I was on the phone with author Barbara Taylor Bradford on Tuesday morning. We were just having a check-in to see how things were going in quarantine. I complained about my mornings of remote learning with my five and eight-year-old children. We both agreed that as women who have worked from home for years—she 40 […]

Scrivener Quick Tips: A Roundup of Handy Features

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Whether your home office has been invaded and you have little time to write, or you suddenly find yourself with nothing but writing time, I’ve pulled together a motley collection of handy features that every Scrivener user should know about. NOTE: When the process differs between versions, I’m using S1, S2, and S3, to denote […]