One morning last week, I woke up feeling vaguely guilty and rather like a failure. Now that isn’t terribly unusual, but I didn’t know what was wrong this time. As I thought about it, I realized my feelings were somehow connected to the fact I had been to the grocery store the previous evening.It so happens […]
Always Something In The Box
September 5, 2013 by
There’s an exercise that Patricia Ryan Madson describes in her wonderful book, Improv Wisdom. (Ms. Madson taught improvisational theater at Stanford to standing-room only classes for twenty years.) Here’s the exercise: Imagine a box with a lid. Hold the box in your hand. Now open it. What’s inside? It might be a frog, a silk […]
No Rush
March 3, 2013 by
Sometimes I look at what I’ve done in my life as opposed to all of the things I still want to do. That’s almost always a mistake. It’s really easy for me to think I have accomplished very little. Then I judge myself and tell myself I should have gotten a lot more done […]
Focus
February 21, 2013 by
I’m usually pretty good about coming up with goals. I can shower you with goals. I can smother you with goals. I can write a sonata of goals. But keeping my focus long enough to actually achieve goals? Well…let’s not get crazy here. If I’m in the happy and unusual situation where I can maintain a stable […]
Why, Not When
January 8, 2013 by
What do you want? To write a novel! When do you want it? NOW! March, struggling writer, march! When it comes to goals, I think the question we should be asking is not necessarily “when” we want to achieve the thing. Of course we want it immediately. Better yet, we want it yesterday, with little […]
Clean Out The Closet
October 14, 2012 by
If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you may have seen that last night I dreamt I cleaned out my closet and got rid of a lot of stuff. When I woke up this morning and remembered the dream, I was kind of amused. I’ve been determined to get organized this fall, so I’ve […]
