Has this ever happened to you?

This morning my writing sent me from beginning a fresh draft of a new chapter in my memoir to my notebook so I could hand-write a section that felt too tender to write on the computer. A paragraph or so into the piece, I shied away from going deeper and, sticky-noting the page in my notebook, went back to the loose-leaf binder where the draft resides and decided before I could go any further, I needed to research the actual route I took from London to Tiel, Netherlands, but memory was handing me “Utrecht,” so I had to go to my original journal to confirm whether Tiel was the location of a scene I intended to write and there, in my decades-old journal, I discovered it was Tiel and I got there via Utrecht but before I could settle in to write, memory took over again and next thing I knew I was in Amsterdam. Now, having put the whole thing away, I’m at my desk eating trail mix and apple slices wondering where the morning went.

Continue reading

This is what we do.

Last week I spoke at the CATE/GSDCTE* Student Creative Writing Awards ceremony. Three winning students in six grade divisions, beginning with grades 5-6 and through grades 11-12, were invited to read their winning entries, receive their certificates, and be applauded and congratulated by their English teachers, their proud parents, and members of the sponsoring organizations.

The very next morning, I drove to the other side of LA to talk at the monthly meeting of the San Fernando Valley chapter of the California Writers Club. Here, writers closer to my own age (and we all know how old that is), gather on the first Saturday of the month to share their work, celebrate their “wins” and hear a presentation.

Continue reading

The Dog Days of Summer Writing

We are in the Dog Days of Summer, which began July 3 and end August 11. Many believe these summer days were given that name in reference to the heat, and that even dogs are stricken lazy by it. During these Dog Days, we may find our writing lagging, too.

But the term Dog Days of Summer isn’t about the heat or lazy dogs. Actually, it refers to a different kind of dog: Sirius—Orion’s most loyal hunting dog. The Dog Days of Summer actually refers to the heliacal rising of the Sirius (heliacal, meaning rising with the sun), which for the six weeks we’re in the midst of now, is the brightest star on the morning horizon.

Continue reading