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Here’s a peek into THE RELEASE, which comes out this October!

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Your writing projects are your babies.  Sometimes you dream about them before conception; sometimes they emerge in a passionate rush.  You raise them with care, patience, frustration, labor, and abiding joy.  Like child-rearing, revision is long, arduous, and meaningful.  Often it seems the kid will never grow up.  Then your baby is grown.  The project is complete—more or less.  It is …

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What’s at Stake?

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After a year of drafting my first young adult novel, I ran it past my trusty writing group (of twenty-five years!) and was unsurprised at their critique:  The plot doesn’t yet spring from the desires of my characters.  “What’s at stake for them?” my colleagues asked.  “What are their burning passions?  What obstacles do they face?  …

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Receive the Blessings of Failure

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There’s an old Taoist story about a farmer whose horse ran away. His neighbors on hearing this came to him and said, sympathetically, “Such bad luck!” “We’ll see,” the farmer replied. The next day the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “So wonderful!” the neighbors exclaimed. “We’ll see,” the farmer said. Then …

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The Interior Hearth

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Highs in the negative digits. Ice so cold it squeaks when you skate on it. Gwyn pedaling the tagalong with a scarf completely covering her face. Minnesota January: Not for the fainthearted. But it’s perfect for those (like myself) who love hearth and home, who in the glory days of summer dreamt about sorting photos …

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Coming Alive

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I can’t remember the last time I finished a book, thought to myself, “I will never be the same again,” and began rereading to figure out why. Richard Rohr’s Immortal Diamond did this to me. What changed? Rohr reframed the story of Jesus—the Christian story—as an invitation for human transformation. Writing this makes it sound …

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Accepting Rejection, Rejecting Acceptance

Publishing, Spiritual Growth, The Writing Process, Uncategorized, Writing

(A big thanks to participants in the Book Binders’ Salon for a stimulating conversation last night about rejection. I’m indebted to you for most of this post!) “Rejections slips,” wrote Isaac Asimov, “however tactfully phrased, are lacerations of the soul, if not quite inventions of the devil – but there is no way around them.” The …

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