Flipped the channel to the public television station and left that on for background morning chatter. The first thing I saw was a mini Neil Gaiman. Dispensing writing advice. From within a falafel.

Have you heard the story of astronaut pens? At the dawn of the space program, NASA encountered a sticky problem. They discovered that ball-point pens would not work outside of our atmosphere. The government quickly went to work developing a special new pen which could write upside-down, at any temperature from freezing to boiling, on any surface known to man, at any pressure, and in zero gravity. People were hired and ideas were considered, developed, tested, discarded, and considered again. Hours of research went into the project, and it was made top priority in the department. It took  many manhours and twelve billion taxpayer dollars to come up with the space pen, but NASA finally got it down. Whew. Crisis averted. The Russians, of course had the same problem. So they used pencils. Okay, fine… truth be told, this is just an urban legend.  It never really happened. But it’s still a perfect metaphor for the plot problems you might be having. Are you wrestling with why your protagonist would feel the need to serve as whistleblower on his company when he’s been working there happily for twenty-five years with no issues? Does it not make sense that the daughter would fall in love...

I was at my friend Cathy’s house for an overnight brainstorming session about the new blogging series we are putting together for Inkwell Basics. Between work sessions (okay, fine, and drooling over boys in movies, and eating tiramisu, and playing with her hilarious cats), we ventured into town, where she spotted some funky nail polish that was on sale. She doesn’t get to mix it up very often because she has a top-level day job in which order and corporate dress are the law, but she felt the urge and scooped them up anyway. When we got back to her place, she sampled it all by painting one nail in each color — blue, green, yellow, everything she’d bought. She gave a pleased smile and mused, “You know, there’s just something so freeing about having rainbow-painted nails.” On the way out of town, I stopped back at the shop she’d found them at and bought one of each myself.  Her comment and smile were a pleasant temptation, and I haven’t bought anything but Grownup Red and Look-I’m-Professional Pink in a long dang time. A few days later, I did the same thing she had done; I got out all my new cosmetic toys and...

Editor’s Note: During a conversation thread on author R.J. Keller‘s Facebook timeline, I was intrigued by fellow writer April Hamilton‘s take on a Youtube video featuring a few acting tips from Mandy Patinkin.  He’s one of my all-time favorite actors, so I was hooked already, and I loved hearing him speak so passionately. But when April started relating his tips to writing, I knew she was on to something, and I asked her to write a guest post. Below is her text (and then the video.).   Writing help can come from the most unlikely sources. I recently saw a video where actor and Broadway star Mandy Patinkin was being interviewed about his experiences with The Princess Bride film.  At one point in the interview, he talks about how, as an actor, he learned to boil down every scene he played to one word or a single sentence and use that as his grounding, or guiding principle for performing the scene. It occurred to me that writers can do the same thing when writing or editing scenes: distill the scene down to a single word or phrase that conveys the point of the scene (e.g., a specific action, a feeling, an incident that must...

From the far corner of the living room, our four-year-old G piped up and said, “We should get rid of all my toys, too. I don’t really need them.” So, we did.

He sits in it all the time. Usually, it’s an alien spaceship or a Pokémon ball or a house or a bed. Today, it was the casket for his baby-doll’s father. (So… him.)

Know what happens in a bookstore at night once everyone has left? This is awesome.

Optimism and faith. Maybe they’re the same. Whatever be the names of the things that make us stronger, make us better, make us stretch into whoever it is we’re becoming, I wish them all for you.