I started writing a novel last October, after hitting a wall with a play I was working on. The idea for the play was (is) really solid, but I was focussing so much on scenes and sets that it became tedious, and so I put it down. Putting the play down, however, didn’t mean that the creative energy just disappeared. I’d had an idea for a book for a few months, and decided to push my energy in that direction to…
Across the sky the ravens glide between dark and twisted boughs. Constant companions at this mountain retreat. Evil muses who grab my attention and pull me in the wrong direction down a path of lies and a pile of bones of writers who came before me. *** Jim Mitchem
As you may know, I’m leaving home to finish my book. Part of me feels terribly selfish about doing this. It is a fear that says I’m not doing my part to help my family move along this timeline of life that we all hack our way through every day in America. That I’m letting them down by going off to play in the woods with the muses. And for what? Nothing. To scratch a creative itch. This isn’t about…
Remember your tenth birthday? At the time it was the greatest, most profound moment of your life. But I bet you can barely remember it. If you remember it at all. Do you remember the feeling you had the moment you met your spouse? What about the day your first child was born? Do you carry those intense feelings around with you as you live from day-to-day? Or have they slipped into history, part of a bank of reminiscence that…
I am leaving home soon to head into the mountains, alone, to finish my first novel. It’s something like a dream. I’ve been writing a story called Minor King for about a year. It’s slow going. I’m about 20,000 words in, and have found that when you work full-time and have an active family life, that it’s a little hard to find the time to sit still and let the muses take over your heart and brain. I’m not making…
Since joining Twitter and Facebook in 2008, I’ve enjoyed observing how people communicate in these spaces. I’m not just talking about sharing cool links – but rather the big, important stuff. The stuff of life. Personal challenges. Victories. Heartbreak. Joy. How a person shares these things (or not) says everything about them. If you look closely enough, you can see the essence of a person by observing what they share here. Or don’t share. As a writer, in particular a…
