Category Archives: On writing

Critique Etiquette

This article from the Roeder Report about critique etiquette in the June 2008 issue of Writer’s Digest is a hoot! Check it out.

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Interested in hiring me as a coach to get you boosted with your writing goals?
Find free resources and information here.
Some past posts to keep you making time: 
Adjust your pace accordingly.
It’s about the routine and how you shake up the routine
There are things you will have to give up
See it to achieve it
Washing the dishes
Write slowly
A celebration of the pause
Monday, a run through the driving rain
Zen accident
Get out of your comfort zone

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Eavesdropping

This is also from Writers Ask, Issue 40:
Elizabeth Cox explains how she gets to know her characters on and off the page: “Sometimes I eavesdrop on conversations in public places, and I am struck by a phrase or a sentence that I know a certain character…”

Liz says: Has anyone else gotten in trouble for this? Dirty looks. What are you staring at? That sort of thing. I’ve gotten more stealthy with time, I haven’t gotten any dirty looks in a long while, but I do still eavesdrop and people watch.

Buy my books here.

Interested in hiring me as a coach to get you boosted with your writing goals?
Find free resources and information here.
Some past posts to keep you making time: 
Adjust your pace accordingly.
It’s about the routine and how you shake up the routine
There are things you will have to give up
See it to achieve it
Washing the dishes
Write slowly
A celebration of the pause
Monday, a run through the driving rain
Zen accident
Get out of your comfort zone

Follow Liz Shine elsewhere and share these posts!

Escaping To Write: Day 3

It’s 9:30 AM and I’m just getting started with writing. I woke at 7 and went down to the breakers to take some photos and chill on the rocks. The seagulls were all congregated on the end of the jetti, and I was still sitting there when they jumped up and flew away. That was a cool sight to see. My plan for today is to finish editing my short story manuscript, take some time to read, and work on some poetry. Later tonight, I’ll do some dreaded market research and set some goals about sending out some of my work.
Here we go–
🙂

Interested in hiring me as a coach to get you boosted with your writing goals?
Find free resources and information here.
Some past posts to keep you making time: 
Adjust your pace accordingly.
It’s about the routine and how you shake up the routine
There are things you will have to give up
See it to achieve it
Washing the dishes
Write slowly
A celebration of the pause
Monday, a run through the driving rain
Zen accident
Get out of your comfort zone

Follow Liz Shine elsewhere and share these posts!

More on Day 2–Still writing!

It’s 9:37 PM and I’m still writing. 🙂
I finished edits to my novel and am now working on my short story collection, Pieces of Cake. My butt is numb, but I’m still writing!

Interested in hiring me as a coach to get you boosted with your writing goals?
Find free resources and information here.
Some past posts to keep you making time: 
Adjust your pace accordingly.
It’s about the routine and how you shake up the routine
There are things you will have to give up
See it to achieve it
Washing the dishes
Write slowly
A celebration of the pause
Monday, a run through the driving rain
Zen accident
Get out of your comfort zone

Follow Liz Shine elsewhere and share these posts!

Writers Ask

A few excerpts from Writers Ask Issue 40:

Ann Patchett on having a plan:
“I love the story E.L. Doctorow tells. He didn’t have an idea for a book, so he started writing about the wall and then about the window and the garden, and the next thing he knew, he had written Ragtime. Never in a million years would that happen to me. If I don’t know where I’m going when I sit down, I don’t get anywhere.”

Liz’s reaction: It’s happened both ways for me. I like to stay open to both–and more–possibilities.

Susuan Orlean on multi-tasking: “I hate working on more than one thing at a time. I find it really tough.”

Liz’s reaction: Not me! It’s how I roll, man. If I get stuck on one thing, I shift to another for a while, then back when I’m ready.

Charles Baxter on first drafts: “Writing a first draft is the experience of not knowing how to do something and persisting at it until it begins to feel right.”

Liz’s reaction: Sounds about right to me. The story is vague until you get to that point. Vauge, but compelling.

Buy my books here.

Interested in hiring me as a coach to get you boosted with your writing goals?
Find free resources and information here.
Some past posts to keep you making time: 
Adjust your pace accordingly.
It’s about the routine and how you shake up the routine
There are things you will have to give up
See it to achieve it
Washing the dishes
Write slowly
A celebration of the pause
Monday, a run through the driving rain
Zen accident
Get out of your comfort zone

Follow Liz Shine elsewhere and share these posts!

Escaping to Write: Day 2

7:40 AM Sunday

Woke up at 6:00 and went for a run on the beach. There is really nothing like running along the water’s edge. The waves sneak up, then retreat. The wind wicks sweat away. The ocean sounds like every answer to every question you ever had. It’s just for you to pick up on the write conversation being whispered. The seagulls are congregated for their morning feast.
The distance it took me to get from my hotel to the water’s edge was enough time to dump the clutter in my mind, so that I could focus on the important questions regarding my novel. So, I asked myself some important questions—at one point was actually talking out loud to my main character—as I ran, ran, ran. The last question was the scariest, but I asked. What’s the point, Liz? I was ecstatic to find I had an answer. So, as I walked a cool down back to the hotel, I ran over the breakthroughs I’d come to. Now, I’m getting started in implementing those changes in the current draft and the question is: where do I start? I think I’ll start with one change at a time, figure out where in the story I need to start with it and then thread it through to the end. Then, I’ll do the same for the next change.

Namaste.

Interested in hiring me as a coach to get you boosted with your writing goals?
Find free resources and information here.
Some past posts to keep you making time: 
Adjust your pace accordingly.
It’s about the routine and how you shake up the routine
There are things you will have to give up
See it to achieve it
Washing the dishes
Write slowly
A celebration of the pause
Monday, a run through the driving rain
Zen accident
Get out of your comfort zone

Follow Liz Shine elsewhere and share these posts!

To Be Of Use–

From “To Be Of Use” by Marge Piercy:

The people I love best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure storkes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

For the next several days, I want to manifest this work energy and jump into writing head first. So far today, I’ve edited three short stories. Tonight, I’ll write something new before getting back to the editing. 🙂

Buy my books here.

Interested in hiring me as a coach to get you boosted with your writing goals?
Find free resources and information here.
Some past posts to keep you making time: 
Adjust your pace accordingly.
It’s about the routine and how you shake up the routine
There are things you will have to give up
See it to achieve it
Washing the dishes
Write slowly
A celebration of the pause
Monday, a run through the driving rain
Zen accident
Get out of your comfort zone

Follow Liz Shine elsewhere and share these posts!

Escaping To Write: Day 1

12:15 PM Saturday
Sitting in a cute little café getting started with my own personal writer’s retreat. Over the next several days, I’ll be writing to you from Ocean Shores, where I’ve escaped to write, write, write, until my fingers ache from over use. As soon as I’m done here, I’m getting warmed up with editing my short story collection. I intend to keep you posted several times a day on my progress and whatever random observations and insights I think you might be interested in.
So, how do I get started? First, I’ll blog about my plan (did that!), then I’ll dive into the first story on my list. Now, to that—

Interested in hiring me as a coach to get you boosted with your writing goals?
Find free resources and information here.
Some past posts to keep you making time: 
Adjust your pace accordingly.
It’s about the routine and how you shake up the routine
There are things you will have to give up
See it to achieve it
Washing the dishes
Write slowly
A celebration of the pause
Monday, a run through the driving rain
Zen accident
Get out of your comfort zone

Follow Liz Shine elsewhere and share these posts!

Not writing lately?

Not writing lately? Check out these tips for overcoming so called “writer’s block”.

Interested in hiring me as a coach to get you boosted with your writing goals?
Find free resources and information here.
Some past posts to keep you making time: 
Adjust your pace accordingly.
It’s about the routine and how you shake up the routine
There are things you will have to give up
See it to achieve it
Washing the dishes
Write slowly
A celebration of the pause
Monday, a run through the driving rain
Zen accident
Get out of your comfort zone

Follow Liz Shine elsewhere and share these posts!

Lopate: An Interview On Literary Nonfiction

Here’s a great interview with Philip Lopate on literary non-fiction. Note what he has to say about our infamous James Frey. Also, what he says about “reflective nonfiction” , which I think is very wise and so necessary in a world where writers are so concerned with “the market”: “You could finesse a certain amount of technique, scenes, and dialogue, but it’s hard to finesse having or not having an interesting mind. I try to read writers who are better than I am, or who have deeper minds than I do because I need to learn.”
I read Lopate’s book Being With Children when I was studying to be a teacher. It was cool to stumble upon him again and to find in his interview unexpected wisdom in the middle of my day, this time on writing, reading and living, “One issue is the limits of our sympathy, and that we can’t always sympathize with people in need or in trouble. We wrestle with our solipsistic condition, and most people fall into a kind of self-absorption. We know that we should be open more to others, but we’re very self-pre-occupied. But, if we become friends with our minds, we will be less harsh on ourselves for not being perfect, for not being saints. We’re not saints, for the most part.
One of the things that literature does—and here I’m not just talking about essays, but about Greek tragedy, Shakespeare, the great novels of the nineteenth century—is it allows us to be more understanding about human frailty, about error, tragic flaws, and therefore, makes us more forgiving, and more self-forgiving. That’s a kind of wisdom.”
Amen.

Buy my books here.

Interested in hiring me as a coach to get you boosted with your writing goals?
Find free resources and information here.
Some past posts to keep you making time: 
Adjust your pace accordingly.
It’s about the routine and how you shake up the routine
There are things you will have to give up
See it to achieve it
Washing the dishes
Write slowly
A celebration of the pause
Monday, a run through the driving rain
Zen accident
Get out of your comfort zone

Follow Liz Shine elsewhere and share these posts!