What I learned this week
Sometimes, surprise yourself.
Sometimes, surprise yourself.
I’ve been lucky to be a freelance writer of nonfiction for many years. A fantastic tribe of readers — people like you — have supported my efforts by buying my books, attending my talks, sharing your thoughts and otherwise making my work a joy. Even those of you who send me notes from your prison…
When I first moved to Spain, I knew very little Spanish (“hola!” and “Quiero una copa de vino blanco”). As the months have passed and I’ve taken classes, my Spanish has improved. I’m still at a beginner level but I know more than I did when I got here. People talk a lot about how…
In which the plan is made. Now, 50,000 words in a month is a lot of words, especially when you’re working them in around the day job and the kid and the etc. So it’s important to have a way to measure progress. You can write 50,000 words in a month. What you can’t do…
As regular readers know, I am very excited about the re-release of Dojo Wisdom, which will be out July 1. (You can preorder it here.) To that end, I’m planning to excerpt a few of my favorite lessons from the book. Here’s one. #84: Embrace the Dragon According to martial arts legend, Shaolin temple…
As I think is crystal clear for readers of this blog, I am doing my level best to add some serenity to my life, but my main problem in achieving this goal is how impatient I am with the process. Am I serene now? How about now? Now? So a couple weeks ago I leaped…
If you’ve been a writer for any length of time, you’ve experienced the “this is total crap” moment. You’ve also experienced the existential despair of “I’m never going to finish this!” These feelings don’t magically go away when you’re published or under a deadline. In fact, you can pretty much count on battling “this is…