Notes on the Writing Life

Own Your Process

- I can't get enough of listening to seasoned (read published and famous) writers talk about writing. There's an unspoken hope that one of them will share the secret sauce to being published and becoming famous (or rich — think J. K. Rowlings). This must be a thing. Otherwise, there wouldn't be...

How Hunger by Roxane Gay inspired me to keep writing

- I first saw Roxane Gay on a panel at AWP. It was a collection of Black women authors talking about the Black female protagonist. At one point during the panel, a few of the panelist mentioned they were children of Haitian immigrants. Roxane Gay was one of the women who talked about coming from...

How to Start Your Writing Project

- You decided to write a book. The ideas were there, but disappeared the moment you opened a new Word document. Now the only thing standing in the way of you being the next New York Times bestseller author is actually start your writing project. What to do? Turn off the computer and return to...

Five Easy Steps to Write Fearlessly

- What’s the biggest obstacle to writing? The writer. Sitting down to write often means coming face to face with our doubts and fears. I’m not a real writer. I don’t know enough. How can I possibly say anything that hasn’t been said better by the experts? What if I get it wrong? Does my idea even...

The struggle is real.

- Yesterday, while going through the bookshelves in my office, I came across a Mediations For WOMEN Who Do Too Much Journal. It was one of those journals that places a word and a quote prompt on the top of each page. There didn’t seem to be any reason to keep it since I’d only written on the first...

This is not Bobby’s World

- When my boys were little, they watched this cartoon called Bobby’s World. The show was about a four-year-old little boy named Bobby Generic, who had an overactive imagination. I’m pretty sure I liked the show more than either of my sons did. I loved how the mother used to say, “Don’t cha know.”...