Welcome to guest blogger Becky Sansbury, author of After the Shock: Getting You Back on the Road to Resilience When Crisis Hits You Head On. Becky and I worked together for many months on her book. I can assure you she draws on deep personal and professional experience when she talks about crisis and resilience. […]
Craft
Stop Labeling Yourself: Getting Beyond the Plotter-Pantser Dichotomy
I was puzzled by these drafts. My client had presented this material a thousand times. Why, then, did it sound like the concepts were being explained for the first time? When I finally asked, I got a laugh. “Oh, you know me, I’m a pantser.” The Plotter – Pantser Dichotomy If you hang out in the writing […]
How Not to Schuss: The Four Steps for Developing a New Skill
In my wilder and [much] younger days, I spent two glorious years as a ski bum in Steamboat Springs, Colorado (peak elevation 10,568′, vertical drop 3668′). As a Midwestern girl, I’d learned to ski on icy artificial snow at Mount Kato (peak elevation 840′, vertical drop 240′) near Mankato, Minnesota, and Fun Valley (peak elevation […]
Judge not? Judge a lot! Learn to Assess Writing Quality
While there’s something to be said for “Judge not lest ye be judged” on a personal level, if you want to quickly gain an understanding of how to improve your writing, take advantage of opportunities to play judge. When you teach a skill, you reinforce the learning for yourself. When you judge a skill, you […]
Freshen Your Eyes; It’s Time to Revise
I have a confession: I am a lazy poet. I’ve been writing poetry for many years, taking class after class, workshop after workshop. Sometimes all that learning shows up in my poems, but recently I’ve become lazy. I blurt something onto the page, make a few changes, and call it done. My poems have become […]