Thoughts on Writing – The Productive Author

Sabotage! 7 Ways to Deal with Writing Saboteurs

I don’t have any saboteurs of my writing at the moment–and it occurred to me, that’s just the time to write this post! Because I have had writing saboteurs in the past and human nature is what it is, I’m sure to have them in the future. I love this definition of sabotage by Merriam […]

by Cindy Grigg

Using Pressure To One’s Advantage As a Writer

Since I’ve been fairly immersed in pressure this week, I focused on finding more ways to channel it. Here’s what I came up with. Financial Pressure – Rar! I had some writing and publishing expenses beyond my usual monthly investment. Unusual outlays of cash have always created dissonance for me as an artist, because I […]

by Cindy Grigg

Increasing Writerly Decisiveness

A lot of us tend to wring our hands that we don’t know what to do about our problems, writing problems included. But fascinatingly, we do know what to do in many cases.

by Cindy Grigg

Writing and Creativity Podcasts to Love

These days I prefer listening to my reading, as opposed to absorbing books, news, and articles with my eyes. I discovered this while pursuing my initiative to sit less and move more. We’ve probably all heard by now that sitting all day is terrible for us, and as writers we tend to sit plenty! To fight […]

by Cindy Grigg

Why Writing a Novel Feels Both Expansive and Claustrophobic

An interesting phenomenon takes place as you increase word count. Over the past year, I have been writing works of speculative fiction to several different lengths including short stories (under 7,000 words), serial episodes (about 10,000 words), novellas (about 30,000 words), and novels (70,000+ words). A Novel’s Unique Spatial Paradox I’ve found that with novels, […]

by Cindy Grigg

Leveraging Writing Conferences

As a writer, I’ve learned to love the conference scene. Actually, I’m completely drained by large social gatherings–evidence that I am a legitimate introvert. But here’s why I have evolved to deem conferences worthy of the energy expenditure! This list is in context of a few highlights from Life, the Universe, and Everything 2015 (LTUE), […]

by Cindy Grigg

My Automaton Writing Self: A Modus Operandi for Maelstrom

This week was a tough one. No other way to slice it. Lawless internal bedlam. Can a writer be expected to create under such conditions? Here’s why my vote is yes and no. No, as in, on some level you can’t show up like you usually do. You’re taken, by your other problems. But yes! As in, […]

by Cindy Grigg

4 Resolves Inspired by Ray Bradbury

Last year I took on an overarching theme as my resolve for my personal and writing life: to become more congruent. I had never gone this route of approaching my goals thematically more than specifically and loved doing it. For now, my thematic goal is…CONTENTMENT. I want to be more content both personally and as a writer, […]

by Cindy Grigg

10 Ways Creative Writing Can Empower Your Entire Life

Today I’m marveling a bit about how many spill-over effects writing has had on my entire life, and how pervasively it has benefited me as a fumbling human. Creative writing has been part of my life in some form or another since I was little, though I was mostly dabbling in it or journaling. When […]

by Cindy Grigg

NaNoWriMo Dropout? 5 Ways to Succeed This Year

NaNoWriMo has come and gone, leaving victors and casualties in its wake. Even though I finished my NaNoWriMo this year and in fact produce enough fiction word count to call every month a WriMo, I identify more with the dropouts because I tried to do National Novel Writing Month several times before this year–all ‘fails’! […]