His story is simultaneously inspiring and horrifying. After ten years in the rat-race of London, James Rhodes returned to his true passion, the piano. He dedicated himself to achieving the mastery he had dreamed of as a youth. And now, after years of dedication and hard work, James is a concert pianist. In his essay …
Month: April 2013
Guest Post: Creating the Workshop of Your Dreams
Three weeks ago I wrote about how award-winning writer and stellar writing instructor Robin Hemley no longer has patience for writing groups; instead, he has a trusted fellow writer with whom he mutually shares his work. Both in comments and email, I encountered some pushback to Robin's choice, with many defending writing groups and others …
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Own Your Identity as an Artist
I savor the comments readers leave on this blog. But often they are apologetic in tone, along the lines of "I'm not really a writer," or "I aspire to be a writer." In the technical sense of the word "writer," at least as I see it, these statements are a lie. They "wrote" a comment, …
What I Learned from Being Freshly Pressed
When I tweeted one of my loyal readers yesterday--a memoir guru and creativity instructor--that my post on avoiding "truthiness" when writing about yourself had been featured on WordPress' Freshly Pressed, she tweeted back that she already knew. She was subscribed to comments on that post, and her inbox was filling up with a tsunami (her …
When Did You First Embrace Your Creativity?
There were many commonalities I found among the creatives I interviewed during my 2010 cross-country U.S. trip. One was that my interview subjects all discovered their own creative side at a very early age. Fortunately for them--and for us--they held on to that creativity, and didn't let the "I can't" and "I don't" forces of …
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A Model for Feedback on Your Creative Work
"Writing is a solitary pursuit," said award-winning author Robin Hemley, explaining why he has "no patience" for belonging to a writer's group. You might argue that Robin has reached a level in his career where he doesn't need feedback from other writers. He is an accomplished writer of fiction, nonfiction and poetry. He directs the …
The Artist's Road 