I was an only child in Chicago in the 1970s. At age eleven, I lost my mother to cancer, an isolating and then emboldening — (maybe not quite empowering!) — experience that I mine in my writing. My memoir, Girl Next Door: A Coming-of-Age Memoir of Early Loss, traces the bleak changes to my life and, later, my reliance on my inner compass and the strength instilled by my mom. I’ve finished revising it and am ready to send copies to six beta readers for their feedback. I wrote this book to share with other motherless daughters and those who…
“The more we can be ourselves, the more positively we influence others.” – Carl Rogers, On Becoming a Person Rogers and other psychologists have said that everyone wants to be influential. But Rogers doesn’t talk about it in the power-hungry sense, or the “compensate for our sense of inferiority” sense. Like most of his writing, it takes a positive view of the human mind, and I appreciate that. Reading about the need to be influential reminded me of when I opened my fitness training business, and how inspired I was to share my own life-improving experiences with other people. Recently a…
The scenarios I thought I confronted were:
1) Be erased by meeting the standards of a universe in which I can’t exist; or
2) Resist and prevent rites of passage that can neither be resisted nor prevented.
By the time I wanted to apply to college, which was after I’d already graduated from high school, I believed my mom had been wrong about me. I wasn’t extra smart, in fact I was unable to do what it took to really get somewhere.
First draft completed, I’m reading through it, marking it up, and using Scrivener to outline and lay out the rewrite. It’s compelling and is the only thing I want to do these days.
I finished my book draft the other night, after four and a half years of almost daily writing. My writing partner is almost done with her draft, too. This has taken us four and a half years that were going to pass anyway. Stick with your project — it feels so good to hit a milestone.
I built a fitness community around a popular brand. This time, in my writing, I don’t have a well-known brand. What do I have?
He’s public, he’s private, he’s a resource, a treasure, a person.
Certain composite people, or personas, represent my Facebook audience in my mind. They morph into a gang of inner critics, and their (my) assumptions prevent me from blogging. But I don’t know what anyone thinks unless they tell me.
The lake looked dark blue and choppy. Close-up, the water was clear, and the gravel bottom looked varied and pretty as usual. Pollen and tiny bits of plant matter floated on the surface as usual. The coolish breeze and the partly cloudy sky, though beautiful and milder than a glaring full sun, were different weather than I’d swam in before. No matter how insignificant a difference it should have been, it felt like a less familiar environment.