1) Know this: there is no such thing as writer’s block. There is you, in front of your screen or holding a notebook on your lap, typing or moving the pen over the page. This can always happen. Even if you don’t know the direction the work is going. Even if you feel like every word is awful. You know how to write, so do that. An idea I’ve always liked is, “You have to get through the bad stuff to get to the good.” And I’ll repeat it again, stop expecting literary gold every time you sit down to write. The beauty comes by way of revision.
Poetry
Elegy
Just look at her. My grandmother, Dorothy Lorena Davis, was– as Maya Angelou would say– my “rainbow in the clouds.” I know this is what so many of our grandmothers did for us. She saw me, made me feel recognized and she waited for me to see the same things she did. Continue reading