Tag: Creative Writing

  • Psychiatrists are Crappy Poets

    Psychiatrists are Crappy Poets

    Don’t get me wrong, I love psychiatry. It has given me the language to understand what happens in my mind when I am sick. Diagnosis is a wonderful, wonderful thing, because, once you diagnose something, you can focus on strategies to confront it. That’s what you get from studying the disease you suffer. But psychiatrists…

  • Rejection Letters

    Rejection Letters

    This is one of the most painful aspects of a writer’s life. If you can work through this one, you’ve crossed a great desert of pain. And, with enough visceral fortitude, you’ll cross it, again, and again, and again. . . When it comes to rejection letters, I always think about one of my favorite…

  • Are You a Writer? Make Sourdough Bread!

    Are You a Writer? Make Sourdough Bread!

    Here’s a little entertainment for your Thursday evening, as you head into the weekend. One great habit to pick up if you’re a writer is to make sourdough bread. Because baking sourdough takes a long time. You have to stay in the house to keep an eye on it. There are long, long periods of it rising,…

  • About Literary Agents

    About Literary Agents

    Dear TWB Reader, This is the second of a series on fiction writing, specifically, what you do after you’ve finished your manuscript (in this case, a novel). Many ask me about literary agents, what they do, do they make you rich overnight, etc. Here, I share some of my own experiences with literary agents. I’ll call my…

  • Friends Don’t Let Friends Write Shit

    Friends Don’t Let Friends Write Shit

    Dear TWB Reader, I posted this five months ago, when I finished a fiction manuscript. The next step was to send it to people so they could run it through their bullshit-meters, asking the fundamental question: does it work? In the next few days, I’ll share some updates with you. The thing is, this book…