Every writer has stones, treasures gathered along the path of life. They weigh us down and require our attention, time, and daily sacrifice. Every creative person has them, in fact, which is to say everyone. We know from birth what treasure stones are. My easy-going Ellie and my take-charge Charlotte have collected stones since they could walk. As a writer, I’m a
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This morning, I headed down to the pond and caught a frog. I'd never have seen her if she hadn't leaped from the wooden bridge. But when she landed amongst the rocks and ferns, I trapped her with the girls' butterfly net. She was big and made no sound, so I assumed her female, an orangey-brown wood frog with a
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John Updike once wrote that “writers walk through volumes of the unexpressed and like snails leave behind a faint thread excreted out of ourselves.” (“The Blessed Man of Boston”) As an editor, I’m fairly gastropod-like myself. I leave my trail of commentary on a manuscript as evidence of where I’ve been (in fact, I may have an even
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Is a book only as good as the feedback it receives? I've made this claim in my "benefits of membership" at my site, but I think this is one of those questions that’s really hard to answer definitively. Can a book be written without receiving direct feedback? Of course. But will it be as good a book as it could
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