It’s a cliché in art to have a sudden burst of inspiration. I was just looking at the bird, and boom, the poem just…came to me! Or, I was scuba-diving off the coast of Fiji and I couldn’t believe it — the song just wrote itself! I think of that quote from Anne Lamott’s Bird […]
Jane
A couple weeks ago (or the other day, I’m not sure which since time all blends together now), I put a cup of sugar out for a neighbor who complained she couldn’t find any at the store. As I turned to go inside, I saw our mail carrier walking up the flight of stairs between […]
The afternoon Seattle schools closed, I sat at my desk, pretending to work as if our society weren’t being turned upside down. When I looked outside, I saw a gaggle of girls in private school uniforms. This is normal; I often see kids on my street walking home from school and to one another’s houses, […]
There’s a certain jolt that accompanies a good story idea. For me, it’s a physical sensation, as if I can feel my brain clicking all the right pieces into place. In a fleeting instant, I see the whole thing: the plot, the characters, the conflict, the brilliant overarching themes that really say something about our […]