The fears we don’t face become our limits.

I doubt Robin Sharma was talking about research when she penned that. Researching books. Anne Lamott's advice is to actually speak with other human beings. She used the word "phone," at which point I began to skim, to mentally prepare my grocery list. I wasn't taking her advice, not at all. Like most writers, I …

I Have a Creepy Story for You.

Okay, 26 stories. But anthologies, you've got to love them. Where else do you get a perfect marriage of theme and diversity? Unique voices held together by a common what-if? The editors of Chicken Soup for the Soul understood the power of the anthology. One of my fellow Reds* has a story in this one. …

Write to help yourself make sense of things.

My therapist says feelings aren't wrong. Actions can be, but not feelings. My therapist allows me to email her. Yes, I'm very lucky to have her, and no. You can't have her name. I'm a little possessive of her time. Writing my thoughts is good for me, she says. I agree. And it's not just …

When DID You Stop Beating Your Story?

All writers beat their stories.  Don't give me that look; they do. Any writer who wants to be read, who doesn't keep the stories to himself and tries (oh how hard he tries) to find an audience, that writer will beat and be beaten by his stories, often simultaneously. Whether or not he rises again …

Writing Advice from Lizards

Run fast, stand still. In quickness is truth. The faster you blurt, the more swiftly you write, the more honest you are. In hesitation is thought. In delay comes the effort for a style, instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth deadfalling or tiger-trapping. - Ray Bradbury Learning from iguanas. Close enough.

We Want YOU…

...to vote for your favorite flash fiction. I teach writing to homeschooled students. Readers, would you be willing to help out? All you need to do is click the thumbs-up to cast your vote for a flash, and if you can't choose just one, feel free to choose more. And if you REALLY feel moved …

I am What I Daily Do, Not What I Wish Were True

"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate." Carl Jung Atomic Habits by James Clear pulled back the curtain on my unconscious mind and revealed the old man who pulls levers and pushes my buttons and tells me not to mind him at all. That old …

I Stand Corrected: You Can Have Your Cake & Eat it Too

Confidently wrong. That is a phrase that's been used to describe me. It's quite annoying. I don't mean for me. I'm talking about those unfortunates who ask me a question. My confidence causes them to take my advice, and my wrongness causes us to be, well, wrong. And we usually discover it together. In the …

A Thousand Words a Day

I've been participating in the #1000wordsofsummer campaign. I did it earlier this summer, too. I don't count these words, here on the blog. I could; some might, but the words I really need are fiction ones. I do not poo on anyone's idea of hard. It's different for everyone. For me, it's the blank page. …

Turning Friends Into Villains: a Writer’s Right

My short story "Turn a Blind Eye" will be published by AM Ink Publishing in their upcoming horror collection The Half That You See. The book takes its name from a quote attributed to Edgar Allen Poe: Believe nothing you hear and only one half that you see. Have you ever been misquoted? So was …