Extended metaphors in prose resonate with the reader, even if she isn't sure what it is the author has done to trigger that resonance. In Part One of this series I explained that making use of a recurring metaphor advances both plot and character development. We looked at how to identify a key theme that needs …
Continue reading Using Extended Metaphors in Your Writing — Part Two
Long before Committed: A Memoir of the Artist's Road was published, I had been sharing wisdom on the creative process I learned from artists interviewed on my 2010 cross-country road trip here on this blog. Now I've distilled five of them for a guest post on The Loft Literary Center's Writer's Block blog. Those who have read Committed …
Who writes a travel memoir and doesn't include photos? Well, Committed: A Memoir of the Artist's Road is consistent with other literary memoirs in that the burden is on the author to place you in the scene solely via prose. But we all love pictures, right? That's why I was thrilled to be invited to participate …
Continue reading Traveling the Artist’s Road: A Photo Collection
Michelangelo believed the art of sculpting was liberating existing art from hiding. I cite that belief in a new guest post on the remarkable blog by Elizabeth Spann Craig. Titled "Allowing Your Book to be True to Itself," I share a story familiar to longtime readers of The Artist's Road, namely the years-long process by which an …
Continue reading Liberating Your Book From the Sculpting Stone
Very few creatives completely support themselves financially through their art. It is those who struggle to find the time and creative energy to produce while managing other work responsibilities that I am thinking about today as those of us in the United States celebrate Labor Day. Take the more than forty creatives I interviewed on …
A memoirist always runs the risk of offending the living when capturing them in prose. But he also runs the risk of offending them by omission. In Part One of this series I discussed how I have reduced my manuscript of Committed: A Memoir of the Artist's Road over the course of the last year, in anticipation …
Continue reading Road to Publication: Killing Your Babies Part Two
"Your reader will never miss what she doesn't know was once there." I frequently told this to reporters in my news-editing career when I would trim their stories for length. Often what I was cutting was their favorite part--their baby, if you will--but it didn't sufficiently inform the reader on the main point of the …
Continue reading Road to Publication: Killing Your Babies Part One
With a thousand things to do before Committed: A Memoir of the Artist's Road publishes this fall, I've found it difficult to return my focus to this blog. There's the heavy-duty editing I'm doing to the manuscript, a final pass-through by me before the publisher takes a shot at it. And there's crafting my promotional …
I just now, moments ago, finished the first draft of the last chapter of my book-length memoir. I am alone in my basement, full of joy and excitement and wonder, but I am not alone, because I know that the readers of this blog are with me. I still have a ways to go on …
Continue reading When the End of the Road is Just the Beginning
The Artist's Road 