I do. I tend to work on something until it’s 85% finished and then I get distracted by something new and I wander off. The result is...

Do you have lots of life to record and not enough time to do it? Do you yearn to document thoughts and memories but don’t seem to get...

After I collapsed 2 large writing projects — a memoir and an essay collection — I felt so inadequate. Everyone else is able to publish...

I’ve been kind of blue for a month now. I’m embarrassed to even talk about this when people are dying and losing their homes and families...

Last week I read over the 31 micro-memoirs I’ve been working on for the past month and a half. A heavy feeling settled into my bones:...

When I start a new project, I want to capitalize on that energy by going full force. Dream big! Sky’s the limit! You can do anything you...

When we got home from our summer trip to Italy, I was at a crossroads. Not only had I abandoned the idea of writing a book-length memoir,...

Have you ever thought: I write a lot but finish little? Or where is the reward for all this work? Or I just lost 3 years on this novel...

If you don’t have to have time to sit down with a pen and notebook, then your writing time is limited. Or so I used to think. Now I write...

Ever since the pandemic ended, I’ve been trying to figure out why I felt so alive, so prolific, and so unafraid to share my work with the...

On the day before our spring break vacation, I felt I was screwing up left and right — with our Airbnb guests, with our neighborhood...

When I was growing up, we would wake up on Easter morning and find baskets of jelly beans and foil-wrapped chocolate bunnies sitting in...

This winter has felt like a time to calm down all my striving, and planning, and posting, and declaring, and sharing. I am paying close...

You hear about artists neglecting their house, their children, their hygiene while whirled in the throes of a creative project. When I...

Last weekend I facilitated my very first writing retreat. Pleasance Silicki and I planned a weekend swirled with healthy meals and...

Every weekday morning I walk up Wisconsin Avenue, where cars muscle to get downtown fastest, toward the school where hundreds of parents...

Writing a book is like solving a maze: paths that lead nowhere, sign-less intersections, circling roads that never end. It’s so...

My husband has been dreaming of buying an apartment in Italy for years. I resisted and resisted, until I finally gave in. In one of our...

Over the past month, I have had 3 chances to stop all my planning, striving, and doing — and simply rest. Two I asked for; one I didn’t....

Over the past two weeks, I have been convinced I had either a peptic ulcer, gallstones, Covid, stomach cancer, tropical bacteria, or a...

I used to lust after quirky artist routines. Maya Angelou would write in hotel rooms from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. with nothing but a dictionary,...

A few mornings ago, as my eyelids opened and my brain came online, the usual thoughts rushed in. What do I have to do today? What didn’t...

It's a conundrum that torques every creative person: if I love doing my creative work, why is it so hard? Why do I have to assemble in...

Re-experiencing traumatic events through writing or making art can unleash a tidal wave of emotions. For me, this used to result in not...