Category Archives: A Room Of Your Own

Submissions? Submission? Same difference. ;)

I submitted a story this morning to Our Stories Literary Journal’s Emerging Writer’s Contest. 🙂
I currently have three stories and a chapbook of poems out there. I’ll send more out this week and do some research on what the next step is with my novel.

Happy Monday!

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

Home again…but still writing

So, I’ll be attending the Rainier Writer’s Workshop this August to begin work on my MFA in Creative Writing-Fiction. Thing is, PLU requires proof (signed by a doctor) that you’ve had your MMR. I called my mom, my high school, the county health department in–don’t tell–Grays Harbor, and my childhood pediatrician. Nothing. So, my current doctor took a blood test–a titer–that could identify whether I had the antibodies, thus proving I’d been immunized. The first blood test, he only had them check measles, not mumps and rubella. So, I had another blood test. Now, the second test shows that while I’m immune to measles and rubella, I’m not immune to mumps. So, I have to get an MMR. I have an appointment today at–guess where my doctor sent me–the Safeway pharmacy. At least while I’m at it, I can pick up some groceries, eh? Anyway, I hope to be done with that today, as it is the one thing holding up my registration.
As for writing, I’m getting back to that this morning too. I’m glad I escaped to Ocean Shores so early in the summer. It’s set a tone for a focused, productive summer. 🙂
Particular goals? I’m working on self-publishing some poetry chapbooks, looking for an agent for my novel, and writing some new fiction.
What do you listen to while you’re writing? I listen to all sorts of things or nothing at all, but today I’m listening to jazz.

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

Escaping to Write: Day 4

7:39 AM
This is my last full day of writing at the beach. Checkout is tomorrow at 11 AM. Since I’ve already accomplished more than I thought possible, I’m going to see where the wind takes me today. With pen in hand, of course. 🙂 I’ll keep you posted on how that turns out.

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

Excerpts from Writer’s Block Moves

An article entitled Writer’s Block Moves appeared in the June 2008 issue of Writer’s Digest. The article’s subtitle calls it an “irreverent guide to pushing past writer’s block.” Here were my favs:

Marc Norman: “I see if I can steal from somebody else.”

Joe Survant: “I go out back and plink at squirrels with a BB gun.”

Barbara Kingsolver: “I don’t have time for writer’s block. I’m a working mom.”

Luc Sante: “I do the Sortes Vergilianae–hold a book upright and stick a knife between two random pages, then look at the first line.”

Peter Coyote: “I write at a desk with six drawers. The top two are catch-alls, crowded with pens, batteries, business cards, eyeglasses, paper clips, and other essentials. Cleaning and ordering these drawers becomes important in inverse proportion to how stuck I am as a writer. Thankfully, most of the time, they’re a mess.”

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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