See what I mean: my latest graphic recording

March 29, 2016.Reading time 1 minute.

I have a tendency to space out during talks and lectures and life in general. So, to combat that habit and force myself to make meaning out of the wisdom and knowledge that is shared with me I have been creating graphic illustrations to represent my ‘takeaways’ from these types of learning events. This one […]

My secret writing shame…and why I should never wear sandals

May 19, 2014.Reading time 2 minutes.

Let me just introduce myself by saying that the piece I am about to read completely sucks. In fact, so do I. I didn’t exactly put it that way at my writing group yesterday, but as one of my reviewers put it, by opening up my excerpt by confessing that my work is ‘low-brow’ young adult faction, […]

Project GET MY MOM TO BLOG

April 27, 2014.Reading time 2 minutes.

My mother has started making hats out of old sweaters. When I suggested she start a blog about her repurposed creations, my mom responded by scrunching up her nose like I just gave her tickets to an Eminem concert. “Why would I do that?” she said. I tried to tell her about all the amazing wool […]

Vulnerability: lessons from writing on living (with help from Brene Brown)

March 23, 2014.Reading time 1 minute.

I wrote a memoir manuscript once. It wasn’t very good. I could tell when one of the teen readers I work-shopped it with scrunched up her nose and said she just didn’t connect with the voice. Years later I finally understand what it was lacking. It’s the same thing that makes ‘evil-doing’ characters into ones that […]

Seth Godin’s Purple Cows for Queries

March 16, 2014.Reading time 2 minutes.

I finally figured out why writing query letters sucks (and I mean aside from the repeated stick-in-my-chest rejections): boredom. I have sent out twenty slightly-modified versions of the same query letter as of last week and frankly I’m tired of it. In fact, I think I may have a brown on my hands. According to […]

On seeing the world as writers do: Ueland’s excercise in microscopic truthfullness

December 5, 2013.Reading time 2 minutes.

Sure, a writer writes, but is there more to it than that? Reading Brenda Ueland’s If You Want to Write, I have started to wonder if being a writer is also about seeing the world in a particular way—being present to what is happening around you, observing details that others might gloss over, and when […]

On paying attention: a lesson in toothbrushing and writing from Colette Brooks

November 28, 2013.Reading time 1 minute.

On one block I see the windows through which scores of young women once leapt to their deaths, fire driving them from factory floor to the cool of the open air…someone else who remembers place white roses on the sidewalk (Brooks, In the City).” In my attempt to be more mindful of the world around […]

LIFE is an ass-hat but don’t let that stop you: Lynn Coady on writer’s block

November 18, 2013.Reading time 1 minute.

Mounting phone bills. That bitchy friend who raised her eyebrows when I announced was going to be a Great Novelist in grade ten. Pure fatigue. Though I call it Writer’s Block, the forces keeping my from sitting down at the computer and working on my manuscript are more akin to a mosh pit of baby […]

Artists: Be Here Now…or face this Duchman’s wrath

November 12, 2013.Reading time 2 minutes.

Apparently I have the attention span of a month-old shih tzu. Despite making a pledge to be more present, I only managed to reign my mind in to the moment for all of about 37 seconds over the course of two weeks. Pathetic, I know. And yet despite its brevity, I did manage to get […]

On the Importance of Doing Nothing: Brenda Ueland & Writing

November 8, 2013.Reading time 1 minute.

I have been carrying some pretty heavy writer guilt around lately—and I don’t mean heavy as an office water cooler, I’m talking heavy as-an-Assembly-on-Drunk-Driving, plus the whole damn Mulligan delivery truck. Despite managing to spend plenty of time getting all wet and sandy with my three-year-old, several months have passed and I still haven’t produced […]