BRILLIANT MYSTERY WRITER ELIZABETH SIMS 
has a new, short e-book—a collection of four short stories, titled, I AM CALICO JONES, from her imprint, Spruce Park Press. AND her short story “Untold Riches” is available in another new anthology, LESBIANS ON THE LOOSE: Crime Writers on the Lam, from Launchpoint Press. AND LEFT FIELD, the fifth in her Lillian Byrd series, was a finalist for a ‘Goldie’ at the recent Golden Crown Literary Society‘s conference in New Orleans! Way to go, Ms. Ez!
Posts Tagged ‘reviews’
Writing Prompt: Got Journal? Tarot’s Kelly-Anne Maddox
FOR WRITERS, THE SIMPLE (NOT EASY!) act of writing every day keeps us in the game. Not working on a creative project? A daily, intrapersonal chit-chat keeps our writing arm loose and warm. 
Whether we call it “journaling” or “writing practice” or “morning pages,” daily writing knits us closer to our selves. Then, when do write for public consumption, we’re already in the habit of uncovering content unique to us.
In fact, author Heidi Julavits’ latest book, THE FOLDED CLOCK, collects two years of her daily jottings, each launched by the flood-gate-opening phrase, “Today, I …” Listen, as Heidi discusses her process with DIANE REHM.
Writing prompt
Need encouragement? 750 Words: Write Every Day offers a playful way to a consistent daily word-count. And Kelly-Ann Maddox’s excellent video Tips for Journaling and Automatic Writing reveals detours around journaling resistance, shares tried-and-true approaches to automatic writing—and includes a rock-star list of resources to blast your journaling practice into the end zone!
Writing Prompt: Cool Tools
I LEARNED TO PLAY BASS on an old, semi-hollow body—devoid even of a maker’s name. With her short-scale neck (and the constellation of diamond-esque rhinestones I glued to her chunky black self), she was perfect for me. Sure, she fed back, but I just stuffed her full of newspaper and thrummed away.
Once I joined a band, I needed (I thought) a cool, grown-up bass—a Fender Precision bass, to be exact, like the one Aimee Mann played. So I bought a too-big, too-heavy bass that I never enjoyed. And gave the little black bass away.
Sometimes, an imperfect tool is actually just perfect.
The 2009 rockumentary IT MIGHT GET LOUD is a paean to the perfect tool: In it, Jimmy Page, The Edge, and Jack (Oh-My-God) White spend ninety-seven on-screen minutes playing dueling guitars and reminiscing about Axes of Christmas Past.
But more to this point: As the film opens, a black-and-white Holstein moos at Jack White as he hammers nails into a plank, secures a length of wire down the plank, shoves a juice glass under the wire, and attaches an electronic pick-up to the contraption.
Plugging in to a handy front-porch amp, Jack whacks at the newly-created thing. As the resulting fine, big, garage-worthy noise sends his bovine onlooker galloping, JW glances at the camera and gruffs out, “Who says you need a guitar?”
When writer/designer/bookstore co-owner/technophile/nano-shaman Writing Wench found herself stranded at work, tarot-less and needing answers, she, too, improvised. Imagining the objects scattered across her desk as symbols, signs, omens to be read, Wench invited a response. What called out was a tiny, broken-handled, toy-sized pair of pliers she’d found in the office parking lot. 
Giving this awkward little tool her attention, WW heard: Use the tools that are given to you—even if they seem too small, even if they appear broken—because the tools that come naturally have been designed especially for you and your work.
Writing Prompt
Start by making a list of tools in your life that don’t quite fit the bill: Car window stuck in the down position? Monitor too small? Still using a not-very-Smart phone? Let your annoyance to rise as you create your list—then pick the most irritating not-quite-right tool in your life and give it a voice. Allow it to tell you why it’s exactly what you (or your character) need at this moment.
Patti Smith: Rock Poet God Queen
I FIRST HEARD PATTI SMITH’S ALBUM HORSES at my friend Barbara’s flat in Watertown, Massachusetts, where she lived with her guitarist roommate, John. We were all musicians, then. Or artists. Poets. Dancers. And we each had our own god. Mine was Talking Heads. Not least because they had a girl bass player and I was a girl bass player. Bebe’s god was Patti Smith. Not least because Beebs looked a bit like Patti.
Back then, the early 80s, we were not so far from living the life Patti Smith writes about in JUST KIDS, her National Book Award-winning memoir of her NYC years with Robert Mapplethorpe. Well, except for the fame and critical acclaim. Except for that.
But then . . . my band broke up, and I became an office manager, and Barbara moved out of Watertown and went to work for Houghton Mifflin, and Barbara’s roommate became a high school English teacher, and our poet friend became a programmer.
And Patti? For a while, she, too, ducked her rock-poet-goddess status, slipping off to suburban Detroit with her husband, Fred “Sonic” Smith. But even then, unlike me—or Barbara, or the other dancers/musicians/writers among us—Patti Smith kept on. She wrote. She recorded. And when Fred Smith died in 1994, Patti Smith came roaring out of the suburbs, touring and releasing ten albums in twenty years.
What’s the difference between Patti Smith and those of us of whose art/music/poetry washed out with the tide of the 1980s? I’m not sure. Not sure the difference between those who do and those who just used to. Maybe there’s a clue in JUST KIDS. I don’t know. But I do know this: Patti Smith, still writing, still rocking, is—still—a fierce god to follow.
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Writing coach
Need help with your book? I’m available for book coaching and manuscript review!
Click to read Should I Hire a Writing Coach in THE WRITER magazine.
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Writing Prompt: Poemcrazy
I REACH FOR SUSAN GOLDSMITH WOOLDRIDGE’S POEMCRAZY whenever I need a dose of creative encouragement. Wooldridge invites such playful abandon with words, it would be a stiff upper lip indeed that didn’t curve reading her!
In “The Answer Squash,” Wooldridge talks about labeling objects in her home with word tickets. A squash in its basket bears the label answers, and a worn scrub brush at the sink, diamonds. Like all innovative use of language, these labels make one rethink the objects to which they are attached—see them in a new light.
And “new names seem to change people,” too, Wooldridge says, offering us a chance to reconsider our identities using randomly chosen word tickets. In “Our Real Names,” Ronnie, a young man doing time in juvenile hall renames himself thus:
Let’s talk about death.
Yesterday my name was James.
Today, it’s tossing helium dream.
Tomorrow, my name will be
Gerald Flying off the Cliff,
Dave Mustang.
Inside my name is
dying heart,
sorrow
guilt
and a lotta hope.
Writing Prompt
Try it yourself! Make a batch of scrap-paper labels and affix them, willy-nilly, or with poetic precision, on items around your abode. Take a break for a cup of tea, then wander up to one the newly-christened items and find some writing inspiration in the quirky tension between the object and its moniker.
Alternatively (or additionally), add a word ticket to your mirror. How does what the word say alter how you see yourself? Start writing to find out!
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Writing coach
Need help with your book? I’m available for book coaching and manuscript review!
Click to read Should I Hire a Writing Coach in THE WRITER magazine.
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Gary Carries the Prairie: A Poet Gets Published
POET. PHILOSOPHER. PROFESSOR. PSYCHOTHERAPIST. And, oh, yeah, Montana farm-boy! All these hats 
hang on Gary Whited’s hat rack. Gary’s poems have appeared in SALAMANDER, PLAINSONGS, THE AUROREAN, ATLANTA REVIEW, and COMSTOCK REVIEW. His collection, HAVING LISTENED, won the 2013 Homebound Poetry Prize and a silver medal in the 2014 Benjamin Franklin Book Awards.
About HAVING LISTENED, Roger Dunsmore, author of YOU’RE JUST DIRT, says,
What gives this love-song to the prairies of Eastern Montana its heft and depth is not only the poet’s deep affection for ‘rattlesnake skins fluttering in the wind’ and ‘the perfection of still water’ just below the muzzle of his father’s white horse, but the way this love occurs amidst the disturbing sorrows and unspoken loneliness of these families in their struggles with themselves as well as the land….
HAVING LISTENED has recently been translated into Russian—which is appropriate, as Gary will be teaching in St. Petersburg this spring! But wherever he goes—from Montana, to Massachusetts, to the far reaches of Russia—Gary always carries the prairie inside him.
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Writing coach
Need help with your book? I’m available for book coaching and manuscript review!
Click to read Should I Hire a Writing Coach in THE WRITER magazine.
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The Millions: An “Indispensable Literary Site”
THE NEW YORK TIMES CALLS THE MILLIONS “the indispensable literary site.” You might want to subscribe to the blog—and get “indispensible” coverage on books, arts, and culture, including THOUSANDS of relevant book reviews—or you might consider submitting work of your own. If you’d like to write for THE MILLIONS, you’ll find an email link on the About page that invites you to contact Max!
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Writing coach
Need help with your book? I’m available for book coaching and manuscript review!
Click to read Should I Hire a Writing Coach in THE WRITER magazine.
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The Buried Giant: Kazuo Ishiguro
JILL SAID, “I FINISHED IT, BUT I’M still not sure what it’s about. I mean, I know what happens. But I have this niggling feeling there’s a dimension that’s eluding me.”
I said, “Isn’t it just about memory? About the costs and convenience of forgetting?”
“Maybe,” said Jill. “But maybe not.”
Reading THE BURIED GIANT, 
the latest novel by Kazua Ishiguro (author of NEVER LET ME GO and Booker Prize-winning THE REMAINS OF THE DAY), I felt I was underwater, watching shadows waver back and forth on the surface above me. Bits of the story expand, dreamlike, as the light of remembering plays across the long lives of its main characters, aging husband and wife Axl and Beatrice—illuminating a corner of the legendary Matter of Britain, in the process.
Enter the dream yourself, or listen to Ishiguro discuss THE BURIED GIANT on this Guardian Books podcast.
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Writing coach
Need help with your book? I’m available for book coaching and manuscript review!
Click to read Should I Hire a Writing Coach in THE WRITER magazine.
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(It’s Not too Late to) Develop a 21st Century Mind
WHEN I LIVED IN SEATTLE IN THE EARLY ’90s, I found Marsha Sinetar’s DEVELOPING A 21ST CENTURY MIND oh-so-helpful. 
A little lost, I hadn’t given up my dream of making music, but was also interested in creative writing. But I didn’t know how to make the leap.
Some of my clients find themselves in a similar position: Quite accomplished in their working life, they have an unanswered passion for writing. And they’re left with a chasm to leap. A wide chasm. There are people who pace along the edge of that chasm for years, trying to figure out how to clear it in a single bound, how to go from having no committed writing practice to having a novel on THE NEW YORK TIMES bestseller list.
And that’s just not going to happen. Not because the publishing industry is filled with a bunch of meanies, but because we make our way—we live our way—to our bigger goals through the accomplishment of smaller goals.
In 21ST CENTURY MIND, Sinetar outlines a process for getting from where we are to where we want to be. First, we explore what we want—let’s say, “mental flexibility.” Then, we create a small-scale model for that goal. For instance, if we connect mental flexibility with physical flexibility, we might take a yoga class. Having increased physical flexibility via yoga, we might choose a ropes course next, which requires both physical and mental flexibility.
Likewise, if we want to serve as mayor of our town, we might first make a bid for a seat on our home-owners’ association board. Or we could sign up to play Facebook’s Social City, an online game that allows us to create and run our own city!
If we want to publish a book, but haven’t been writing consistently, we start small. We blog! Tweet! (There are writers creating their novels 140-characters at a time!) We submit letters to the editor! We join a writing group and publish an anthology of members’ work as a first foray into making our work available in book form.
Our models—small, interim goals—help us foster a sense of success and increased capability. No need to invest in a jet-pack to power us across that gap. We take it step-by-step. The possibilities, the models that will get us there, like our 21st century minds, are limitless.
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Writing coach
Need help with your book? I’m available for book coaching and manuscript review!
Click to read Should I Hire a Writing Coach in THE WRITER magazine.
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Writing Prompt: 99 Bottles of Beer?
IN NO PLACE LIKE HOME: A Memoir in 39 Apartments, author Brooke Berman
—who struggled both as a playwright and as a room-renter, sub-letter, and couch-surfer—shapes her story around the 39 spaces in which she lived during her early New-York-City years. Brilliant!
But if we haven’t occupied 39 places? What imaginative boxes could we use to divvy up and examine our lives? How about 39 cats? 12 breakups? 7 toaster ovens? 100 trips to IKEA? 17 head shots? 10,000 journal entries? 99 bottles of beer on the wall?
Writing Prompt
Make your own list! What organizing principle would best serve your memoir?
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Writing coach
Need help with your book? I’m available for book coaching and manuscript review!
Click to read Should I Hire a Writing Coach in THE WRITER magazine.
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