It takes a village to raise a child, and, judging from acknowledgement pages and how my writing group has saved my ass innumerable times, it takes a village to write a book. In addition to the obvious participants (your writing teachers and colleagues, your beta readers, your agent or publisher or local copy store clerk), we’re […]
The Village in Your Book Read More »
Why is creativity so nourishing? Why on a busy trip does an hour with watercolors settle my daughter’s nervous system? Why do ten minutes of journaling launch my day well? How did a simple circle dance, repeated over a weekend, deepen trust and add bounce to the steps of retreat participants? On a walk through a rough part
At the Heart of Creativity Read More »
So you’re at the sink, washing up the breakfast dishes when a writing idea pops into your head. It’s brilliant; it blazes through your body. Do you: A) Dismiss it because you can’t do it justice,B) Disregard it because the world’s on fire and there are more important things to do, orC) Heed it and head to the writing desk?
React or Respond: A Choose Your Own Adventure Read More »
I’d like to make a confession. On Sunday mornings, I sit in church internally spinning out a reactive, biting critique of the service, how hollow and performative it is, how the sermons charge us to do justice and love kindness and walk humbly without ever addressing how, feeling mightily superior about the vibrancy of my prayer
Creative Bypassing: Grist for the Mill Read More »
I’ve heard sculptors say that, when a piece isn’t working, the best way forward isn’t to chip away at the details but rather smash it to the ground. Only devastation will make possible a new vision. Writers do the equivalent. In The Release I relate how, when Benjamin Percy spent two years writing a novel
A Moment that Matters Read More »
In preparing to launch The Release this October, I’m dizzied by the ironies of releasing a book about releasing creative work. If ever there were an opportunity to heed my own advice! So between now and then I thought I’d share some excerpts, in part to give you a foretaste but mostly to remind myself. The Release shares spiritual
This Queer Divine Dissatisfaction Read More »
On a weekly basis, one client or another will tell me, “If I wind up on my deathbed without finishing this project, I’m seriously going to regret it.” This population of writers is, admittedly, peculiar; they share an intense enough degree of passion, compulsion, or vocation about writing to pay me good money. Or perhaps they seek
A few years ago I submitted an essay to an anthology of queer Minnesotan writing. I called it “Wearing Bi-Focals” because it explored bisexuality as a lens much as my progressive lenses help my eyes integrate what’s near with what’s far. I sent the essay out and promptly forgot about it. Six months later the
Flourishing in Creativity’s Gift Economy Read More »
Years ago I coached a Buddhist priest in the development of his memoir. Unlike most beginners, Sensei V (as I’ll Christen him) cranked out a crummy but exceedingly workable rough draft in no time flat. Plagued by none of the usual hang-ups (self doubt, insecurity about “not being a real writer,” despair at how terrible his writing
“Let it go! Let it go!” Read More »
Perhaps because my first big writing project gave me room to articulate my sexual longings, come out bisexual, and figure out the implications for my Christian faith; perhaps because I’m drawn to spiritual and therefore intimate subjects, my first drafts (and often second and third) I tend to write for no one but me. Of course
Writing in the Cloud of Privacy & Unknowing Read More »