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How to Cope With Clueless Questions, Crass Comments, and Crazy Conjectures
Oh, the things people say to writers! “What do you do?” “What do you write?” “Is there any money in that?” “Where have you been published?” “How’s the book coming along?” (Alt: “When will you be done with that thing?”) “Why don’t you just sit down over a weekend and just finish it?” “You should…
Read MoreSummer 2013 Workshops: Hartford, Hyannis, Boston, and Online!
Check out the Events Page and register soon!
Read MoreAcademic Mug Shot
Many Authors Also Can’t Figure Out How They Wound Up With Weird Covers on Their Books
Michael Chabon on True Novelists versus “Rebel Angels”
From Wikipedia: In a 2012 interview with Guy Raz of Weekend All Things Considered Chabon said that he writes from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. each day, Sunday through Thursday. He tries to write 1,000 words a day. Commenting on the rigidity of his routine, Chabon said, “There have been plenty of self-destructive rebel-angel novelists over the years, but…
Read MoreFor Kids: Fern’s Writers Block (from Arthur)
Note Fern’s situational perfectionism, caused by: *being told her story will be the “main event” at the next day’s Fiction Forum *being told a famous author will be there *being labeled as “creative.” Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck says that when you praise kids for attributes–by calling them, for instance, “smart” or “creative”–they freeze up, in…
Read MoreOn the Other Hand, This Little Duck Seems Plenty Empowered
Starting tomorrow, we’ll resume our normal non-duck-centric programming.
Read More“Mean” Duck Mom and Unhelpful Bystanders!
So…check out this video of a mother duck forcing her ducklings to jump down a high ledge onto a concrete walkway: Ouch! I found it painful to watch. The Mom Duck is just doing her thing, but I’ve seen similar videos where a kindly bystander finds a plank or other mechanism to give the baby…
Read MoreTiger Moms Don’t Just Suck, They Don’t Even Exist as a Category
Slate writes up the study by University of Texas psychology professor Su Yeong Kim analyzing children of so-called Tiger Moms. Yes, “tiger parenting” stinks: “Authoritarian parenting combines coercion with less responsiveness, and leads to higher depressive symptoms and lower self-esteem…. [they] produced kids who felt more alienated from their parents and experienced higher instances of…
Read MoreHave a Puppy. Have Two.
Sometimes, after a hard day of writing about perfectionism, all you want is a couple of puppies.
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