Writing LifeTag
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June 19, 2021
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 ...
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June 05, 2021
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 ...
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May 14, 2021
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 ...
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April 27, 2021
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 ...
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December 18, 2020
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 ...
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November 30, 2020
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 ...
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November 20, 2020
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 ...
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October 21, 2020
How to Engage Online
Online engagement is a reality of the modern writer’s life. It’s rare now for an author to create a story in solitude, and then remain there once their book is out in the world. Digital media now ...
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October 08, 2020
On Querying into an Apocalypse
"I feel so cooped up in my house with this smoke and the moths that keep flying by my window. Is a weekend really a weekend in 2020 if it doesn't include plague, pestilence, and Hell fire?" - @a_h_reaumeI ...
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September 18, 2020
How writing rituals saved me from quitting as a writer
I define my writing ritual as a series of unique actions taken that tells my brain it’s writing and creation time. This is part preparation, part boundary-setting, part protective aura. I know that ...