A few months ago I printed a 25 page article from The Guardian called “Ten Rules for Writing Fiction.” Thirty different writers contributed their lists. I thought the article might inspire me to start thinking about writing another novel. A Billy Collins poem, “Advice to Writers” was the prompt for a writing group I am  Read the Rest…

I’ve just published my first novel. I began it in 1997. I was part of a “spirituality group” that imploded from suppressed resentment, unbearable competitiveness and hurt feelings. One evening everyone popped off like a batch of homemade root beer in the basement, one at a time like a series of timed explosions. One woman  Read the Rest…

When I was a child I often wailed “What can I do?” My father wailed back at me “The perpetual cry of youth: what can I do?” Irritated me no end but there you are. I am feeling a little of that angst this month because I am between quarters so no choirs to direct  Read the Rest…

It’s been another contemplative ten days on Whidbey Island. I guess I have become one of those hothouse artiste types: “Oh, I can only write on my island.” Except I’m home now and I’m writing this. I need to memorialize the week. Memorialize. That’s a word we all know now—those of us that follow the  Read the Rest…

I’m always struck by how cold the vernal equinox is.  Spring may usher in the warmth of summer on its far end, but it begins with Aries riding through the world, directing the whirlwind, waking up hibernating animals (like me) and splashing cold water on our faces.  During the week of the equinox, I was  Read the Rest…

I’m up on Whidbey Island writing a novel.  I have no idea how to write a novel.  This novel actually began in 1997 with a very long short story that I thought would develop itself.  I thought a novel would spool from my imagination without my having to think about anything like structure or an  Read the Rest…

Last May when I was two weeks away from my trip to England, I started a folder called “Stuff to Do When I Get Back” and began tossing notes quite liberally into it.  After spending an idyllic June in England, I came home to my life, which includes wonderful friends and neighbors, my two cats  Read the Rest…

Feb 5 I hear scratching and scurrying sounds in the ceiling above my bed. It must be birds on the roof. Feb 10 I find a pile of sunflower seed shells dribbling from a bag of bird seed in the sun room. Outside the door is a fat squirrel innocently nibbling under the outdoor bird  Read the Rest…

I was going to subtitle this post “The essays of George Orwell” but then no one would read it.  I’m afraid it would have the same result as something Orwell says in Poetry and the Microphone: “Arnold Bennett was hardly exaggerating when he said that in the English-speaking countries the word ‘poetry’ would disperse a  Read the Rest…

It’s a good idea to know the definition of dapple (cloudy and rounded spots or patches of a color or shade different from their background) before you read Gerard Manley Hopkins because it’s a word he uses a lot and nobody else does. Not ever. I have a dappled relationship with him. Music, painting, and  Read the Rest…