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Truffle Hounds & Writers
An Italian truffle hound digs up only ripe truffles. Its nose is that fine tuned. I don’t claim to find only ripe, valuable details when I collect data. Sometimes I have no immediate use for a detail that catches my attention. Like knowing about truffle hounds. Turns out that they come from a long line…
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Map That Story
Bill Roorbach’s craft book Writing Life Stories recommends mapping a once-familiar neighborhood in order to spark memories. That works very well. On Friday, over breakfast, a writer friend and I talked about a memoir project she has going and thinking about the streets where she and her brother played cranked up her imagination and focused her point of view.…
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A Writer’s Prayer
Whether you pray to an old man in the sky, a saintly woman in blue, a statue, or a light pole, it won’t hurt to think about praying like this: May I be well enough to get to my writing place; May I be safe from the critics in my head; May I know the…
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Frozen Stiff
She’s frozen by indecision and fear. Fear of boring people, fear of not writing a helpful piece that answers the so-what question, the why-should-anyone read what she has to say. She’s not famous, not a celebrity from the cover of a magazine. OMG! She makes more coffee, listens to more music, takes a shower–anything to…
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Runaway Words, Lost in Time
Last week I blogged about the writer’s checklist and posted a short form of what might keep an otherwise disorganized writing project on track. That was such a good idea. Too bad I didn’t take my own advice. As some of my friends know, I’m working on a sequel to Accidental Child, and I’ve been…
Karen Douglass, Author 