Even though the snow on the deck of our house is still up to my knees, I’m sensing a shift in the light, the breath of a new season. Winter is waning, no matter what the depth of the snow may be. Along with the shifting light and that promise of change, I’ve been thinking […]
Tag: writing life
When You’re Stuck in Mid-Winter
I think I have mid-winter brain. Never mind that I like winter most of the time. I am still susceptible to hunkering down so much I get lazy and sluggish. My energy has almost disappeared. It’s work to put on coat and boots and go anywhere. Tuesday was a good example. An enormous full moon […]
One Minnesota Winter Morning Brings Out the Best in Me
January in Minnesota has plenty to make me happy. Yes, this does make me a weirdo among many. But just yesterday I found myself thinking what a great thing days with temps well below freezing and a little fresh snow are. Days when our neighborhood owls call to each other in dim early morning light […]
As We Get Closer to November 6
The rain fell yesterday, its cleansing of the dying garden and leaf-littered deck a welcome sound as I worked. I ate my lunch late – a toasted tomato sandwich with a tasty tomato from the St. Paul Farmers Market – in front of the rain-spattered patio door where I could watch water droplets plink into […]
One Minnesota Writer Returns
I struggle with feeling too tied up by everything in our society. Social media, cellphones, requests, demands, expectations, and noise – sometimes the sheer amount of all of it makes me want to run to somewhere untouched by others, somewhere without a cellphone signal, without television, without sales pitches and political campaigns and nudges toward […]
Digging up Ideas for Your Summer Writing
Every time I go on social media, I see posts from someone pondering their next writing move. Maybe they are tapped out for inspiration or maybe they are considering a lot of ideas and don’t know which one will be best for them. Every week, when I think about what to post here, I have […]
This is What A Writing Life Looks Like
It’s been quite some time since I made the move to having dedicated writing space in my house, a whole room that became my writing studio. There’s a large computer screen that allows me to edit two documents side-by-side with ease, high-speed internet, a door I can close, and a window I can open. How […]
Grumpy Inertia
I’ve been in a bad mood lately, the kind of bad mood that makes me want to do nothing more than lay on the couch and watch T.V. I could blame my bad mood on the weekend blizzard that dumped more than a foot of snow on my city just when we thought it was […]
Live from St. Paul – A Writer’s Life
Monday morning writing sometimes happens far away from computer keyboards, for which my eyes always thank me. Today it’s happening at a marble-topped table in a booth at Quixotic Coffee in St. Paul, Minnesota. A quiet place on Cleveland Avenue in a quiet-ish neighborhood – at least, Monday mornings at 8:30 are quiet. Given the […]
Federal Holiday Today? Not at My House.
The thing about being a freelance writer and editor, especially one who co-edits a lit mag where submissions may arrive anytime during the reading period, is that I don’t pay a lot of attention to federal holidays. That is until I go outside to get the mail and find an empty mailbox. And then I […]
