I feel like I can’t write anymore. This thought has been stuck in my head ever since I took a memoir workshop with a well-respected former editor of a national magazine. She had nothing good to say about my submission. She went through everyone else’s submissions line-by-line. She left mine for last. She gave a sweeping critique basically saying what I’d written wasn’t good and I should scrap it altogether. No positive feedback. I literally felt like a failure. My hope was to start writing my memoir book using some of the tools she would give us, but she only praised […]
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Tips to Overcome Writer’s Block
Tips to Overcome Writer’s Block For the first time, in a long time, I couldn’t write. Some people call it writer’s block. I never liked that term and in his book Writing Tools, 55 Essential Strategies for Every Writer, Roy Peter Clark (Poynter Institute) says we should think of this as a time of “rehearsal” or the process of “mental preparation,” but whatever it is, it’s definitely not good when you’re a writer. For those of us who make our living as freelance writers, the problem becomes exacerbated with looming deadlines – article for a publication (print or online) or content for a client. […]
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