Planning One of the harder tasks in the world of writing is the planning required. Yet, planning helps spread out all the other tasks, and makes getting started one step. Otherwise, all the overwhelming steps come at you at once. Even writers long…
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How to Plan Your Writing Retreat Have you ever wished for an uninterrupted time of focused writing or editing? Yet you don’t want to sink back into binge writing that drains your life and energy, making you want to abandon…
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Eagle’s Eye View When I began my dissertation some moons ago, I attended a workshop where I learned a few strategies and approaches that I still use today when I write. The workshop facilitator, Dr. Cynthia Ganote, a sociologist and life coach, is…
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The Body Remembers The grass was warm and dry under my bare feet. The labyrinth brought back the familiar feeling of rushing to the center, and long pausing at the middle, and dragging my feet with a desire to stretch…
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Go! Go! Gooooo! Sometimes the main thing holding us back from getting our writing done is simple inaction. We just need to go! Sit down. Open the document and go! We know what needs doing and simply need to do it.…
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Desk A clean desk invites fresh writing. And it can be a ritual or signal that it is the right time and place to write. Recently I visited a man who has started numerous Montessori schools. If he said to me…
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Confidence Crisis This is part of the occasional series Wednesday Words for Writers. Check out previous posts on the letter A and the letter B. This post comes from a recent response I made to one of the academic writers that I…
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Blocks What usually comes to mind when you think of “writer’s block”? Is it the blank page or flashing cursor on the screen? The stories and words that won’t be fully formed in your mind? Or is it that elusive idea that…
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ASK Writing is often a solitary enterprise. Yet all kinds of connections are needed for writing to begin, to improve, to be published, and of course to be read. In the early stages of writing one of the best things a writer can do…
Read MoreLenten Lights BB ~ Writing Inspiration Today was a full day of writing … little bits on several different projects. Much of my schedule day to day is filled with writing. So I’ve opened a new page on my site…
Read MoreLaugh, Cry, Do a Happy Dance Almost exactly six years ago, I decided to make the final push to finish my dissertation – after three years of writing fits and starts and many life pauses, including the birth of my…
Read MoreBreather For three weeks I’ve worked at a sprinter’s pace, with the urgency of a spiritual quest, and supported by friends, family and colleagues, on completing my book. This push comes at the end of several years of steady work,…
Read MorePaid Writing Tonight I turned in my Upper Room Disciplines meditations for 2015. Working on them for two months, just a little each day, led to an on-time finished project. I wish all my writing could go that smoothly. Cultivating better habits…
Read MoreWriting Lessons | Part III Today’s book-writing goal was lost to oversleeping. However, a few things on my helpful writing lessons list don’t actually happen in an obvious way, or while I’m writing at all. 7. Running. Running is a spiritual practice for…
Read MoreWriting Lessons | Part II Yesterday I shared three ideas that help me with writing. Here are three more, each supported by the research of Robert Boice. They are less intuitive, and yet extremely useful in establishing a writing habit. 4.…
Read MoreSilent Night Singing Silent Night to my daughter tonight, I knew what I wanted to say in today’s brief update. Atop of my list of reasons for laboring over Anatomy of a Schism is to transform the future for her generation. Gender…
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