Weekly Writing Exercise: What’s Missing?
Find a photograph (a candid photograph works best, but any will do) and sit with it for a few minutes. Imagine the full scene – the photographer, the people and things not seen, the moment just before the photo was taken and…
Beta Readers and Writing Partners: Finding Feedback
So, you've implemented writing deadlines, and now, after meeting them for a while, you have a piece you're (maybe a bit tremulously) ready to show to someone else. But who? Who should read these tender words you’ve labored so arduously…
Weekly Writing Exercise: Escaping
What does the word "escape" mean to you? There's the spa-like definition, fleeing danger, retreating into a world of fantasy or a television show or novel, breaking free from conventions or restraints, absconding from the law, dying, leaving the rat race....
Holding Yourself Accountable: Using Writing Deadlines in Your Customized MFA
A writer who doesn’t write isn’t a writer at all. A dreamer, perhaps. A planner. But not a writer. So, how do you hold yourself accountable? Deadlines.
Weekly Writing Exercise: The Proust Questionnaire
When Marcel Proust was a young teenager, he answered a questionnaire of the sort popular in the late 19th century. That questionnaire can help you to delve thoroughly into your characters, to get to know them more intimately and profoundly.
Slivers of Time: Uncovering Writing Moments for Your Customized MFA
Writers make the time. Simple as that. If you’re a writer, you write. If you’re not a writer, feel free to switch on the television or grab the newspaper.
Weekly Writing Exercise: Use the News
Whether you greedily devour each day's news or you shun it altogether (like I do), this writing exercise will turn the scraps of the day into fodder for your creative mind.
