Renee is Writing

Darkness unfolds like a cape over the earth turning the sky a deep blue and draining color from every object outside my window. The dark trees are illumined with holiday lights and inflatable Santas and snowmen decorate the front lawns of neighborhood houses. In my writing room I am gearing up for the coming new year. Today, being the first day of winter, seems like the perfect time to make my writing plans for 2015 and they are many and varied. The novel is taking a back seat to some other writing projects and upcoming online classes as I assess the things I want to do with my writing life in conjunction with the amount of time I have to spend on each work-in-progress. The classes that line up for January include a six month long memoir course, a course in getting short stories published (because it's time I sent out my little flash fiction darlings to some journals so they can grow up in the world of literature,) and a journaling class with Amber Starfire. This class wi

Where do you set yourself when you begin to write? Do you have several fave spots or one particular corner that beckons your muse? Natalie Goldberg in "Writing Down the Bones," as well as other writers of inspirational writing books, suggests going to public places like libraries, cafes, diners, the park. They claim the noise and chaos of such places helps to dispel the inner critic so you can get down into that deep place in your soul where poems, stories, and personal reminiscences begin. I've tried it with minimal success. I have strolled quiet arboretums and grasped a few poems that flitted through the air, inspired by a rippled river, a particular dahlia blossom or the erratic walk of a heron poking in the mud for a midday snack. I have forced myself to write in the cafe at Barnes and Noble when I had a plot snag to work out. And a few poems emerged there while being nosy and spying on other people enjoying coffee, tea and perhaps a scone. But in bookstores

It's cold here in the northeast. The days are so short you barely feel sunlight on your skin. I wake and leave for work in the dark and get home in the dark. I only see daylight if I find a brief few seconds to go for a walk at lunch time or sneak next door for a hazelnut coffee from Subway, which I have become quite enamored of. I wouldn't say I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder but the winter certainly is not a warm and happy season. But there is always light. I mentioned already that I have plotted a novella-in-flash-stories and will write it as a chapbook for the Rose Metal Press chapbook contest in November. I have a second idea for another flash fiction chapbook as well as a flash nonfiction chapbook. So I will be writing quite a bit in 2015. Although will take a lot of my creative time, there are still other creative projects brewing. Rose Metal Press just announced a mixed-genre contest with a May 30 deadline and I need, badly need, to take advantage of this o

As most of you readers know I write in a variety of genres and never seem to be able to focus on just one. I write poetry, short stories, novels, memoir and essays. I also dabble in art journaling and mixed media. But the combining of genres into one project is something I've only touched on, having once written a memoir in poetry and short fiction. A few weeks ago, while taking a short hiatus from my novel, I had an idea for a novella in flash fiction. And now I have learned this is not a new concept. Rose Metal Press just released a book titled "My Very End of the Universe" which is a collection of novellas-in-flash. It is comprised of winning entries from their annual Chapbook Contest in which the writers had a unifying plot that connected each flash story, despite the fact that individual stories were self contained and complete. What I like best about this collection is that each author has written an essay that describes their process in composing a novella in