“Tomorrow is a new day, with no mistakes in it yet.” -Anne of Green Gables This quote is true every day, but none more so than on New Year’s Eve. I wish all of you the best with your fresh, pristine year ahead. I have great hopes for 2017 for myself and my family. I […]
Perspective
The Life-Changing Magic of Cleaning for Writers
How often have you heard a writer say, “I couldn’t face my manuscript, so I cleaned my closet instead?” On the surface, this remark seems to be entirely about procrastination and the weight of creative work. But is it? What if decluttering, organizing and cleaning are skills we writers truly need? Decluttering is a lot like […]
Life Lesson: Keep It Simple
“Michael always says, ‘K-I-S-S. Keep it simple, stupid.’ Great advice. Hurts my feelings every time.” -Dwight Schrute, The Office It was the morning of my son’s 4th birthday party, and I was debating whether to make pancakes for breakfast. For most people, this would be a no-brainer. The kitchen was clean, there was a lot to […]
Honor Your Audience
Last week, I was preparing my flute students for the annual New York State solo festival, where they would be judged based on their performance in scales, a solo, and sight reading. Most of them expressed some degree of (understandable) nervousness. I talked to them about keeping the performance in perspective, remembering all the work […]
Retreat From Writing
You may have noticed that I’ve been blogging a bit less over the past couple of months. I’ve been having trouble writing new material in general, but blogging has felt especially difficult because of its immediate audience. The best weeks of my recent writing life were when I was revising Waist for my agent; that invigorated […]
If You Want To Discover What You Love, Take A Vacation
Last weekend, my husband and I took a trip to Vermont. We hadn’t made many plans for the trip: we had a room booked for two nights at a B&B, and we knew the route we planned to take up north, but that was about it. We’d never been to the area before. When we left, […]