Writer, reader, traveller, nature lover, storyteller, poet, cat lover
I remember only one story I wrote as a kid. Later, I wrote funny poems about people, long letters to my dad, and then some little stories and poems for my writing class. I know people who’ve taken 50 years to write what’s in their heart, because a school teacher or someone in their family criticized them. For me, it took about 30 years, and publication in an anthology. Starting small. Slowly getting serious.
My oldest writing friends have been hanging out with me, drinking coffee, workshopping and writing for all of those 30 years or more. We started together…
Write about what is around you and within you with a foraging poem
There is a long history of landscape poetry, which has offshoots now such as environmental, climate change, nature, natural world, animals and so on. You could argue that simply being in the world and writing about what is around you is a landscape poem.
But our world today keeps us busy, we rush from place to place, and it seems amazing landscapes have just become something to put on Instagram as people gather in crowds and jostle with their selfie sticks for the perfect photo. What happened to simply looking and listening and taking it all in? Have we become…
Nobody knows how they will react to a cancer diagnosis
Nobody really knows how they will react to a diagnosis of cancer.
You may think you’ll be stoic. Or freak out. You don’t know. You hope you will never know.
Your family and friends don’t know how they will react to your diagnosis either. They may believe they’ll be stoic and brave, selfless and supportive. They don’t know. They hope they will never know.
Both of my parents died by the time I was 25. My mother died when I was 14. You could say this traumatized me for life. It doesn’t feel that way to me. It was so…
How a week or a month of dedicated creative time can re-charge your writing
One of the hardest things about writing is maintaining focus. It seems the writers who have no trouble with this also often have no other job. Or they are so committed to their novel that they get up an hour earlier to write — every day.
The rest of us continue to struggle. …
Ekphrasis is not about just describing, it’s about “seeing” in a different way
The painting, the sculpture, the vase — they’re often in a museum or gallery, and they’re often cordoned off so you can’t get close. You may be surrounded by dozens of others, or able to sit alone on a seat and gaze. But for artworks that stir us in some way, the poets among us feel the urge to write a poem.
An ekphrastic poem is a response to the artwork, but not just how you feel about it. In fact, those often make the worst kinds of poems. Those feelings come from mind and heart and can be mostly…
A Western suburbs poem
It’s also often the most fun and the least stressful
If you’re struggling with your first novel, you probably think I’m crazy to say this. But it’s true. When you write your first novel, you have dreams, ideas and determination. Sure, your determination might falter, but if you really want to write, you’ll overcome the lows and get it finished. Eventually.
We know what’s hard about first novels
Firstly, most people don’t really know what they’re doing, even if they’ve attended fiction writing courses. Because a novel is HUGE. While you struggle to get 200 or 500 words down, those 80,000 words or so seem an eon away. …
Sherryl Clark
Writer, teacher, editor, book lover — www.sherrylclarkwritingcoach.com is where I offer editing and manuscript development services.
