I’ve just landed back at home this week from over a month of work-related travel. I love my work but I’m not gonna lie: four weeks of travel still feels like a few weeks too many.

The last week was part vacation and my daughter was able to join me at a game reserve in South Africa for 3 days. We had a great time (Lions! Giraffes! Elephants! Sunshine! Oh My!) and I’m super grateful that we were able to have the time together.

But in the end: 32 days away, and not a single typical writing day in the mix.

There’s a dangerous myth about writing that I think does real damage to our sense of ourselves as writers. It’s (repeat after me): Real Writers Write Every Day.

You and I know that’s just 100% fresh elephant dung, but the myth still persists. I think it’s connected to the myth of the Big Man, or the Great Writer. Hemingway standing over his typewriter in Key West, working away for HOURS at a time, shifting his weight from one leg to the next. Or Stephen King, writing 1,000-2,000 best...

Look! Squirrel!

Distracted is my middle name.

Or maybe it’s more of a problem than phrasing it that way let’s on. As in: “Hello, my name is Rhonda and I am distracted." But in all caps: DISTRACTED.

Not all the time, but I do watch for the signs.

Today, before sitting to write I did the following 7 things:

1. Made coffee (essential)
2. Checked Instagram (clearly not)
3. Ate some toast with peanut butter (essential)
4. Cleaned last night’s dishes (not right now)
5. Checked FaceBook (sooo not)
6. Took the garbage out (not right now)
7. Checked CNN (definitely not)

That’s about 90 minutes of flaffing about before I made myself start my writing ritual and get down to it. If I’d spent that time working on my novel, I’d probably have 3 more pages done.

Sometimes I get to the page out of sheer boredom with my own monkey mind and ancient patterns. And I’m okay with that.

I’ve been at it long enough now to know that it’s possible to settle the mind to write even when my monkey mind has spent the mo...

Writing retreats are hands-down my favourite way to make substantive progress on a manuscript.

At one point in my life, I was a single mother of a young child, doing a Masters degree part-time and working a full-time management level job in the non-profit sector. People would say to me “I just don’t know how you do it!” and I would secretly think “Gah, I don’t know either!”

But it’s also true that I had discovered a secret weapon.

I would organize writing retreats for myself.

Not the kind where you spend a month or so in the woods with a group of fellow writers, where there’s a lunch buffet every day (Hello Banff Centre!) or someone brings lunch to your studio door (Hello Yaddo!), but private self-directed retreats that gave me some much-needed alone time with my writing project. 

Organize Your Own Writing Retreats

Here's how I did it...

I would look ahead on the calendar, identify a time when I could arrange childcare for my daughter and book a long weekend.

And I mean “book” ...

Wondering why writing is difficult sometimes?

Last week I met up with a colleague and friend I hadn’t seen in over a year. It was SO GREAT to see her. We connected as though we’d just been together yesterday and both the wine and conversation flowed freely.

I wish it worked that way with writing.

But the truth is, the longer I abandon my writing, the harder it is to get back to it and the more awkward and difficult it feels when I do.

(BTW, I don’t use the word “abandon” lightly – once a few weeks have gone by, that’s how it feels to me. Something in me is terrified that this time I’ve given it up for good.)

Although I don't feel you "should" feel that you have to write every day, the reality is that we can’t let our creative work go for a long time without experiencing a sense of disconnection – both from the writing and from ourselves as writers.

If you’re wondering why writing is difficult, could it be because you’ve been avoiding it for too long?

We can get into these cycle...

Does anyone remember a time when they weren’t crazy busy? [sits on hands]

I have a vague feeling that those halcyon days once existed, along with plaid bell-bottoms and rotary phones, but most days I suspect modern life was essentially constructed with this much overwhelm baked in.

I am of the generation that can still remember when we couldn’t carry $800 computers in our pocket and this whole Internet nonsense was merely a glimmer in some engineer’s eye. (Also, we had Atari and Fun-Dip so those were good days.)

It may be entirely true that it’s never been harder to focus on creating one’s art. But you know what? Even if it is true, it doesn’t matter: art must still be made. (Maybe now more than ever? When the world desperately needs to be brought to hush for a minute or three.)

So if the overwhelm isn’t going away, we must find ways to still make art in the middle of everything, to create in the chaos.

My experience is that just like everything else meaningful in our lives, we ca...

Curious about how to publish a book of poetry? In my experience, these are more or less the basic steps...

1. Read other people’s poetry.
2. Write poems.
3. Get feedback.
4. Hate feedback.
5. Revise anyway.
6. Subscribe to 5 poetry journals (or read them monthly at the library).
7. Read other people’s poetry.
8. Send poems out.
9. Get poems rejected.
10. Be hurt.
11. Deal with it.
12. Revise anyway.
13. Send poems out again.
14. Read other people’s poetry.
15. Publish a poem!
16. Receive ZERO DOLLARS for publication.
17. Revise anyway.
18. Send more poems out.
19. Read other people’s poetry.
20. More poems rejected.
21. Be hurt.
22. Deal with it.
23. Read other people’s poetry.
24. Revise anyway.
25. Send more poems out.
26. Publish more poems!
27. Receive $25-50 for publication.
28. Read other people’s poetry.
29. Attend poetry workshop.
30. Get feedback.
31. Hate feedback.
32. Hate the douche giving you the feedback.
33. Revise anyway.
34. Get another poem published!
35. Big AHA moment: douche was right!
36. Revise again.
37. Read chapbooks.
38. Research chapbook publishers.
39. Submit c
...

What's up with the writing police?

Experts abound in every field and every expert offers advice from their own world-view. The writing advice most often offered to new writers is:

“You should write every day.” 

I hate this kind of writing advice.

To be clear, I’m not saying you shouldn’t write every day -- it’s not the specifics of the writing advice that bothers me in this case, it’s the should.

Any time someone hits me with a should, I want to hit back. That’s their truth, not mine. I’m turned off right away and just not interested. It’s like I have an inner 12-year old who sticks her fingers in her ears and yells NANANANANAH. (She’s a cutie-pie, that girl: red pigtails.)

This kind of writing advice seems to imply that “real” writers write every day, making the rest of us feel like imposters if we can’t get to our desks 365 days of the year. As though the rest of us just have "cute little hobbies."

Assuming best intentions though, the advice to write every day is about staying...

Many of us wish the world was a kinder and more compassionate place. We’re clear that political dialogue should be constructive rather than destructive, and people attacking one another will not help us solve our problems or heal the world’s seemingly intractable divisions.

We’re good humans, or we try to be.

We know that being kind to one another is essential to combat the isolation and loneliness generated by an increasingly online lifestyle where we don’t speak with people face-to-face anymore as much as we used to. We make conscious efforts to reach out with grace, kindness and compassion when we see people suffer.

Except maybe when it comes to ourselves and our own writing. Then, we say things to ourselves about ourselves and our creative work that we would NEVER say to another living being EVER. Things like:

• “Yeah, I knew you couldn’t do it.”
• “Kids in grade school write better than this.”
• “This story is awful. I’m embarrassed for you.”
• “How can you even call yourself ...

Are you a published author who’s organized in your own life and loves to support other writers so that they achieve their writing goals too?

Then please read on…

Resilient Writers works with women writers to help them finish their books and create a writing life they love.

We do this with our monthly membership program, The Writer’s Flow Studio, which helps writers go from a state of fear to a state of flow in their writing lives so that they can sustain a consistent and rewarding writing practice.

We also support writers who’ve started a book but struggled to finish it on their own through our signature 12-week group coaching program, First Book Finish, which teaches them the First Book Finish Framework and provides the mindset and writing craft support they need to finish their draft and/or revise it and submit for publication. We have a 90% success rate for the writers entering this program.

We also do some limited 1-on-1 developmental editing support, primarily for clients in ...

Friend, if you are paying attention even with just one eye open, it’s a hard hard world. My heart goes out to everyone affected by the horrible acts of war unfolding day after day in Ukraine.

For the first time ever, scientists have named a heat wave -- Zoe has devastated Spain and caused many deaths. It used to feel like climate change was the future, but now it's all too real.

The US and China are at loggerheads again, this time over Taiwan.

When we wake up to this kind of thing, it’s tempting sometimes to just pull the covers over our heads and stay in bed.

And it doesn't end... there's always something happening on either a global scale, or locally, or (sometimes more devastating still) within our own families and circles of loved ones.

But what if you have an antidote?

Bear with me here: I’m not saying that you personally are saving the world through poetry. It might be true that your short stories, and mine, won’t resolve climate change or stop the next terrorist act. And o...