My Writing Process — A Blog Tour

My writing pal, Betsy Morro invited me to participate in this Blog Tour that’s making the rounds these days and I’m honored that she did. Betsy’s writing an exciting book right now, Casualties, and I’m lucky enough to get to read parts of it most weeks. You can find out more about Betsy’s process at her site: elizabethmorroblog.com.

The Blog Tour wants participants to respond to four questions about their writing process. So here goes.

Continue reading

Speak, Shadow

One of the sections in my Wild Women Writing Workshop is “Light & Shadow.” In it, we investigate the magical, the mystical, “intimations of extraordinary realities,” as Deena Metzger names them in her book, Writing for Your Life. We also explore our shadow side, that darker aspect of ourselves that is often repressed and usually thought to be unacceptable. But this shadow self also has spontaneity, creativity, and imagination. Creativity often derives from what might appear as socially unacceptable ways of seeing and interpreting the world, maybe a little dangerous, certainly nonconforming. But there’s great energy in this uncontrolled, uncensored creativity and it’s exactly here we might find traces of our wild, authentic voice.

Continue reading

Images as Inspiration

I’m knee-deep in a new book based on my Wild Women Writing Workshop, and just as I’ve done with other projects, I’m using visual images to inspire me.

In this case, I stripped the bulletin board above my writing space of its mini-collages of characters in my novel (the novel has been put in drawer until I finish this project), and filled the space with images of women—some mini-reproductions of famous art, a couple of greeting card images, random clips from magazines, a few postcards, even a picture of me taken way back when I was a Wild Woman apprentice. I included some mementos, a few pins, a Chinese fan, and a wooden bracelet.
photo

Continue reading