“Write the ending.” That was the point I took away from a blog post I read recently, by a writer whose work I greatly admire. And it’s the type of advice I especially love – simple to understand, easy to do, and it helps me not only in my writing but in other work I’m doing, and in my life in general. In this particular post, the writer said she had just written the ending of the novel she’s been working on. She pointed out [...]
The first order of business this week is for me to let you know when you can watch the episode of “It’s a Woman’s World” that I mentioned in a column a few weeks ago. I was one of three writers on the panel that day, and in addition to discussing writing issues and attitudes, we each read an excerpt of our recent work. I read one of my Villager columns. If you’re in the metro area of the Twin Cities, you can see the [...]
“Quiet on the set!” Yes, they really do say that. At least, they did last Sunday when I was in St. Paul for a taping of the show, “It’s a Woman’s World” for SPNN – the St. Paul Neighborhood Network. But they – meaning the producer of the show – said it just once, when two of the people in the room were having a whispered conversation on the side and didn’t realize that an individual recording of one of the show’s participants was about [...]
“I found my voice. Now what do I do?” That was the subject of a session I presented at the Toastmasters District 6 Fall Conference last Saturday, and it’s a question I spent a long time trying to answer for myself. When I first joined Toastmasters, one of the reasons was that I felt I could express myself fairly well in print, but not when I was speaking out loud. I didn’t have any noble or global ambitions at the time, I just wanted to [...]
I didn’t ask for a message or a miracle, but that’s what I got. I was sitting on the sofa in my family room, doing my prayer exercise. This is a ritual – part prayer, part journal, part asking God for advice – that grew out of a class I once took. Now it’s something I do every morning. The past few weeks had been extremely busy, with the kind of work that made me feel like I was taking one step forward and two [...]
I need to lighten up. I realized this after talking with a friend of mine who was telling me about the yoga class she’s taking. At one point, she asked me if I’ve ever done yoga. “You should take a class,” she said. “I think you’d really enjoy it.” Actually, I have taken a yoga class. It was years ago, and I continued it until the day I got hit at a stoplight on my way to class. I don’t hold it against the yoga [...]
A few of the things I learned in Uganda: What ostrich meat and boiled goat taste like; How to say “How are you,” “Fine,” and “Thank you” in Lugandan and Swahili, and how much fun it is to say names like Musa, Magala, and Busembatia out loud; That if you can drive a car in Kampala and live to tell about it, you can drive anywhere in the world. I also learned how isolated and alone it’s possible to feel, even when surrounded by large [...]
I was out of town for a few days last week, even though I couldn’t really afford the time away. But that was the point. The trip was a 3-day Writers Retreat in Hinckley, with uninterrupted time for the kind of writing that most of us can’t find time to do in our regular and overly-busy lives. There were 15 women at the retreat, all with different types of businesses, and different types of projects they wanted to work on. We spent most of each [...]
The theme of one of our recent Toastmasters meetings was “The Secret Ingredient.” The person who was serving as the Toastmaster that day was someone who loves to cook, and whenever she gives a speech or responds to a question on the subject of food, I always find my mouth watering just listening to her. Throughout the meeting, she made references to her grandmother, who always included a secret ingredient in her cooking. No matter what type of food she was preparing, Grandma gave it [...]