Writing LifeTag

How a Filipino Breakfast Changed My Writing

June is Filipino Heritage Month, and to close out the month and my time here as writer-in-residence, I wanted to talk about Filipino breakfast. Specifically, one that influenced both my novel and my life.The ...

What Makes a Good Writing Routine?

As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm fascinated by other people's writing routines. Not only am I just a somewhat nosy person (as many writers are, I imagine), but I don't have much in the way of a ...

5 Tips For a DIY Writing Retreat

Now that we're peeking around the corner at a post-pandemic world, I've been starting to crave a DIY writing retreat. I don't get to do them as often as I'd like, but there's something magical about blocking ...

On Writing Essentials

Much as I admire highly regimented and disciplined writers, that's simply not me. Believe me, I've tried! However, no matter how unstructured my writing day might be, there are five essentials that I ...

When Research Influences Life

In my novel The Quiet is Loud, tarot cards form an integral part of the life of the novel's main character Freya Tanangco, a tarot reader. They serve as a career choice and legitimate outlet for her prophetic ...

My Top Ten Tips for Making a Living as a Writer

Writing is a lousy way to make a living, but a great way to make a life, I said when I started this residency. I’ve been doing both for thirty years. So here are 10 points that I’ve learned about ...

How Writing a Grant App Can Make You a New Person

This month I broke down while revisiting the statement for my Research and Creation grant app with the Canada Council for the Arts. I cried because I saw – for what felt like the first time in a while ...

I Wrote 100,000 Words in a Month: Or When Productivity is Really Crip Grief

(This is not a ‘How To’ article. This is also not an inspiring story about a disabled person doing an extraordinary thing. There is nothing extraordinary here. There is only a dispatch from a place ...

When old ways, thoughts, beliefs, and people no longer serve you

“Every moment is a fresh beginning.” —T.S. EliotLately I have been thinking about the act of releasing the things in my life that no longer serve me. When I revise a piece of writing, the first ...

Writing Beyond the End of the World

We spend our days scrolling through countless words. Many of us are fixated on screens from the moment we awake until the moment we return to the same bed to sleep. And from day to day, not a whole lot ...