I’ve mentioned it before: I receive a lot of rejections. The actual number, of course, varies upon the time of year, my confidence level and my writing output. I usually have three pieces out in circulation at any point, and with the average literary magazine accepting less than 1-5% of submissions–well, you do the math.… Read More Don’t let rejection freak you out (and goodbye, Phillip Levine)
I first read Kari Neumeyer’s memoir Bark and Lunge: Saving My Dog From Training Mistakes about half a year ago and immediately wanted to write about it. But my dog was dying and I was afraid that if I wrote a review of a book where (spoiler alert!) someone else’s dog dies, then my dog would… Read More Bark and Lunge (and hello, Kari Neumeyer)
I was having a bit of a bad day, you see. My stomach hurt and the cat threw up a hairball on my pillow and there was nothing good to eat for lunch. Then, while browsing Facebook (Facebook is the most splendid way of avoiding writing one’s novel), I discovered that it was Robert Olen Butler’s… Read More OMG! It’s Robert Olen Butler’s birthday (two days’ late)
Why is it easier to write while away from home? Is it because, once out of your normal environment, you feel free of burdens, free of constraints, free of all of those nagging doubts and insecurities that settle down wherever you call home? Last week I left Anchorage and flew to my sister’s in Philly, where I met my… Read More Writing while away from home
Well, my project to write each day of September was a big, fat failure. Oh, I wrote, I just didn’t write my stuff. I wrote journalism stories and briefs and obituaries. Which is still writing, still honing the craft. But it didn’t cause me to ponder or question or wonder or dig down deep inside of myself,… Read More Writing fail, and big Alaska photo drop
I love reading blogs. It’s my biggest guilty pleasure. I’m not much for Facebook and while I do love Twitter, my heart lies with blogs. Following other people’s lives feels slightly voyeuristic, much like luxuriating inside a long novel. You begin to know people, and care about them, even though you’ve never met. You build relationships. I “met” Eliza… Read More An unlikely agent success story
For months I began my day reading tweets and blogs from very popular bloggers and self-proclaimed writers, all of whom seemed to think it was their duty to tell me everything I was doing wrong with my blog, my writing, my attitude and even my life. The headlines for these blogs usually contained numbers, and… Read More Why I stopped following certain popular blogs
The good news up here in Alaska is that the light is coming back. It’s 6 p.m. and still light, such a luxury after the long siege of winter darkness. Each year around this time something inside my chest thumps and I feel a strange trilling inside my veins, almost as if my blood is singing, as… Read More Of sled dogs, writing and romance novels
I often wonder how people who live in big cities write. Not how they write, since writing can be done anywhere (I wrote a passage for my first novel Dolls Behaving Badly on the back of receipts propped up against a cantaloupe at the supermarket) but how they find the inspiration to write when they’re surrounded by… Read More Writing up in the mountains
Once, years ago as I was writing at my desk late at night, I heard a tap against the window. It was winter and cold, and I assumed it was snow falling from the roof. A few minutes later, I heard it again, louder this time. I crept over to the window, peered through the blinds:… Read More Midweek moose, and musings
Cinthia Ritchie 