Rhino Puzzlings

Last week, I wrote about my theory of the three writer's roles that occupy my head: Creator, Revisor, and Copyeditor. I think when people talk about "being inspired" and waiting for their Muse to visit, or in my case, burst through the drywall. For all her bluster and bravado, my Muse only gets to work with the Creator, the shy one, the sprinter. He's capable of turning out a lot of words in very little time, as long as he's not being pestered about quality . Quality, and self-judgement, and the urge to self-correct is so strong, and I personally find it destructive when the Creator is out to work. Writing is like sailing across a foggy lake, with only the occasional glimpse of a light to steer by on the opposite shore. It's more important that the vessel get there than how efficient or elegant the journey. Only after, when the fog is cleared, do the others get to participate. I know some writers edit as they go, often putting polish on scenes or whole chapte...

A new session started this week of our creative writing course, and besides the usual high rate of students continuing from the previous session, there's always some fresh faces in the room. I think that's exciting: they're coming to writing after time away ("I wrote in school") or life events ("I want to capture stories of my family") or just a surplus of time. I enjoy watching their journeys from hesitant to confident, tapping in to their respective muses and development of what's I consider the most challenging tool, producing on demand. It's  one thing to plan and plot a short story or novella or novel, to mentally see the whole picture and its intricacies, but another to actually squeeze out the words. Despite our lifetimes of talking and reading (hopefully!), the act of getting the words down into that shape is absolutely not easy. Doing this on a fifteen-minute timer with a room full of strangers is worse. So, this week's lesson: writ...

My Muse has been getting inconvenient again, and I appreciate her for it. That is, I've been trying to keep with a daily habit of writing for some time now, moving from the old annual cycle of NaNoWriMo where I'd devote September through November to plotting and planning and plantsing, and the remainder of the year to non-writerly activity.  Since deciding to start writing in earnest, the best way to hold myself to that decision was to insist that I do something , daily, to advance the cause. And like any muscle, I'm finding the small regular workouts are adding up. We have a weekly informal group that meets at the library, plus a night class, plus online read-and-feedback sessions, and I'm thinking of starting a casual monthly lunch group at work as well. It's not that I can't get enough, but that I'm trying to keep the pledge in different ways. Get-togethers and Zoom calls with other writers "counts" as daily writing, I tell myself. Insisting on ...

There's a legend that says that the ones who got richest in the California gold rush sold shovels. I can confirm that as soon as I've released aanything, someone is right there waiting to shovel me under an unbelievable opportunity. True to my grizzled rhino nature, I don't believe them a bit. I determined that TikTok felt too much like trying to roller-skate along a highway, so what social media I've done is limited to Instagram. The platform has been through its heyday as a social media darling, and since it was originally focused on still photos, I find IG more manageable and more "me." The pace is a better fit for me. File this under "writer beware." Becoming an author is not at all a guarantee of fiscal success. We do it because we love it (usually) and not because it will make us rich beyond measure. But there's folks happy to sell us a shovel service and they're hanging out on both the social media highways, and the sleepie...