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I was elbow-deep in my first novel when my second novel arrived. Since Novel 2 concerns premature babies, its timing seemed appropriate. For a week, I pacified Novel 2 with light research and a thousand words of writing. There, I told it. Wait. I headed back to the hard, long slog of nowhere-near-done Novel 1….
How can you avoid bad dream-writing? Part One of this post appeared on Monday. All right, let’s talk about the good things dreams can do for your writing process. Let’s have some nice dreams. Real-ize Your Dream Have you ever used a dream as inspiration for writing? George Saunders did this in “Pastoralia,” which, as he puts it,…
I had the strangest dream about you last night, my husband said. You were surrounded by wood. There were wood walls, floors. All this old furniture everywhere. Of course, a wife is keenly interested in her husband’s dreams, especially if she’s the star. But what struck me about my husband’s dream was its accuracy: I’m…
First, a confession: I’m lousy at prioritizing fiction writing. I let everything else in my life take precedence. I even let other writing take precedence—articles, book reviews, syllabi, comments on student work, status updates, replies to all. And yet, good things have happened to the fiction I’ve written. I know a lot about fiction and…
The package arrived earlier than expected, its corners sharp, its weight hardbound. I tore open the seal and inhaled its out-of-print mustiness. This was the book with all the answers. This book contained all I needed in the world right then. Giddily, I flipped through photos of crosscut saws and ox-sleds loaded with staggeringly huge…
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