I I knew it was you again when I saw the glitter coming out of my mouth flecked with blood and spit. I knew it was you who broke my face in the mirror, and stretched my hips into the shape of a Gothic castle. Told me I was the kind of ugly that killed […]
Cynicism is easy – I realize that now – because I used to look at the world in disdain with its McDonalds, mall, and unhappy marriages and just see shit piled on top of shit. I saw a gray world spattered with a dawn like blood, a beautiful sky that we didn’t deserve. Is this […]
This is a post about how safety is an illusion and we’re all going to die. The other day I asked on Facebook if I should apply to Clarion West’s writing workshop and I got a pretty loud resounding no from everyone for various reasons – that the average writer at Clarion didn’t get published, […]
Every-time someone asks how they can improve their writing, I see the same answers: Join a critique group, read “writing how-to” books, find a writing buddy, join an online writing community. The problem is that most of these are investments into social groups, and the people that I see most involved in social groups are […]
What kind of writer are you, and what do you have to change or improve to be where you want to be? Wherever you are in your writing career, self-reflection and the ability to change course is always a useful vehicle for improvement. I ran across some notes I’d written to myself a few years, […]
When the dream meets reality, you have to deal with real problems that the dream could never actualize. Many days I romanticized about being able to spend all my time writing, living in a solipsistic wonderland inside my brain, sipping coffee and vodka while I wore turtlenecks and a disdain of all worldly things. But […]
There will always come a moment when the joy of discovering a new artistic medium (I.E, writing) is eclipsed by the fear of not being good enough. The amount of courage required for a task does not necessarily equate to an equal amount of compensation, success, or satisfaction. You are right to be afraid of […]
Nobody wants to pay you what you’re worth. For anything. Ever. You don’t get into the business of writing because you wanted a quick way to make some cash. If so, day trading and prostitution would have been much more viable options. But you wanted to write, because it seemed like happiness was […]
I haven’t written anything in nearly two weeks. I needed to take a break, but sometimes even when I feel like I don’t have the energy to write the engines keep burning. It makes it difficult to accomplish the goal of relaxation when you’re ready to spring at any time. I could sit down with […]
Someone told me a few days ago that they thought happiness was a form of self-delusion, or at least was heavily leaning toward that idea. (He’ll know who he is when he reads this, but I don’t think he’ll mind.) I used to think that was a valid idea, and I’ve seen it repeated often […]
