Why We Get Stuck—and What It Really Means Slumps happen. I’ve seen them strike new writers, MFA graduates, and published authors. You sit down, ready to write, but nothing clicks. It’s not laziness. It’s not fear. Most of the time, it’s confusion. Something in the story isn’t working, and it slows everything down. I’ve worked […]
He watches me on the stairs. He counts my pills. He follows me around the house. Ever since last May, Frank has hovered over me. He holds onto me when we walk from the front door to the car. He carries my bag while I climb into the driver’s seat so I can go to […]
We all have certain gifts. Mine is the ability to read a story and immediately recognize the underlying structure. It’s in my DNA. After one read, I can provide a writer with the structural fixes they need to tell their story. This has paid the bills for a long time, with jobs as a reader, then developer and producer.
In the past few months, I’d gotten dizzy and trembly. I couldn’t do Tree Pose at yoga anymore. I fell on the escalator at the airport and blamed the new rolling bag.
My younger brothers and sisters excelled in sports. Competitive swimming. Gymnastics. Hockey. Anything physical, they jumped on it. Me? Not so much.
I wrote this piece for Writer’s Digest in Script magazine in March 2003. Twenty years ago! A small and select group of people know this secret. Ready? Listen. It’s not that hard to get started in Hollywood. In fact, it’s simple. And I’m not just talking about being lucky. Yes, luck can play a huge part, and […]
Writing a memoir is scary. Many of my clients fear what their friends will think. What their relatives will think. The critics! The recent firestorm of scorn speaks for itself.
My mother wrote the poem the above stanza is taken from years ago, when I was a kid. She told me when, but I don’t remember exactly. “Trey” is my family nickname.
Three years ago, I hired a website designer because I’m not tech savvy and I couldn’t possibly do it myself. Paula was brilliant. She set up this blog. The newsletter. My store. I wondered how she learned all this stuff.
A few years ago, I found myself in the Sandwich, as in “the sandwich generation”. Frank and I cared for our three remaining parents while launching our two adult children into the world. When it was over, I remember thinking it was the end of everything.
