I’m still working on my book at The Hambidge Center. Only nine more days left of my residency! You requested more photos, so I’m sharing them today.
I expected to write a lot at this residency. I’ve already had several breakthroughs on that front, including producing a new first chapter that I shared with the other artists here. They say it works. I think so, too. What I didn’t expect from this experience — because I knew it would include many hours […]
“You've got the cabin in the woods,” said the woman who showed me to my writer's studio. She wasn't kidding. I had followed her in my car about half a mile away from the main Hambidge facilities to a small cottage surrounded by trees. This was where I would spend the next five weeks as […]
One of the great things about writing is that it can be done anywhere. My family vacationed last week in the middle of nowhere, Virginia. No, I didn’t write while lounging on the dock or sunbathing on our pontoon boat. I took this week off! The only book work I allowed was thinking, since I […]
An author wrote to me last week with this advice: “There’s no substitute for finding your voice and writing brilliantly.” While he seemed to think my travel memoir had potential, he told me, very frankly, that I was spending too much energy figuring out the publishing industry when I should be focusing on writing a […]
Little by little, my travel memoir is coming together. I’ve got a big (self-imposed) deadline coming up: I’m trying to finish the first 2/3 of the book — that’s 10 chapters — by Aug. 1. As I connect with more writers of memoir on Twitter, I’m thinking of organizing a #memoirchat. Let me know if […]
Sometimes when I wake up in the morning and sit down in front of my computer, preparing for a productive day, I remind myself: Lexi, you have lots of information here — advice from authors; instruction on how to write a query letter and find an agent; ideas for staying motivated — and you could […]
Gasp! I’ve been spelling roundup incorrectly for five weeks — with a hyphen — and none of you told me?! You know I’m finicky about grammar! (Had to dig out the trusty AP Stylebook.) I feel like I’ve had spinach stuck in my teeth for 40 days. A handful of helpful links I came across […]
Pieces of my book are starting to come together. I’m now plugging a few holes in Chapters Seven, Eight and Nine, and should soon be able to read straight through ’em. A few links that helped focus my writer’s mind this week: * A hilarious post on how to be a good local author. Note […]
Working at home is not turning out to be one of my strong suits. Aside from visiting the kitchen pantry every half hour, I’m easily distracted by everything from the mailman to the dust accumulating on my office windowsill. So it seemed fitting when a friend forwarded me an article about how to stay focused, […]