Learn to squelch the inner critic. Very hard, but start by giving yourself short holidays from it. Tell yourself you’re going to impersonate a very confident person for a while (I tend to ask myself “what would an American do?”)

Recently:
   Checking In With Burnt Bridge
   Fictionaut Five: James Lloyd Davis
   Monday Chat with Michelle Elvy

The greatest influence for me as a writer, the book that most challenged my view of the art was Richard Brautigan’s Trout Fishing in America, which is, or was, a revolution in perspective. It taught me that there are no limits, no rules, no boundaries, that you can write about anything, absolutely anything.

Recently:
   Monday Chat with Michelle Elvy
   Checking in with Kaffe in Katmandu

The most important thing is to be a reader first. You’re training your ear for rhythm and pacing. You’re learning how to hold someone’s attention. You’re learning how to pull multiple threads through a story. You’re learning how much you can say in a small space, and all the ways you can explore a topic or a relationship on the page.

Recently:
   Fictionaut Five: Dorianne Laux
   Fictionaut Five: Ramon Collins
   Monday Chat with Doug Bond

I’ll ask students to go someplace they love, or someplace that scares them or makes them angry or sad, and just sit and feel that for a while before writing. The trick is to hypnotize yourself back into yourself, back into your body and into the deepest part of you psyche or farthest reaches of your imagination so you can say something that surprises you, a thing you don’t yet know.

Recently:
   Fictionaut Five: Ramon Collins
   Monday Chat with Doug Bond

I honestly believe Micro & Flash stories are online fiction’s future. It’s the way people read. The phenomenon has something to do with the TV-20-second attention span and the decline of reading comprehension.

Recently:
   Monday Chat with Doug Bond
   Fictionaut Five: Jonathan Evison
   Valentine’s Day Massacres

When I was drowning in research for West of Here, I asked my friend David Liss (who writes excellent historical fiction) how I would know when it was time to stop researching, and he said: when the research starts getting in the way of the story you want to tell. That was amazing advice.

Recently:
   Valentine’s Day Massacres
   Fictionaut Five: Erika Dreifus
   Monday Chat with Linda Simoni-Wastila
   Introducing Fictionaut Selects

Now that I’m working full-time in a staff job instead of teaching, my personal mentoring takes place in the form of trying to advise and assist writers online, more or less en masse, via my website, blogs, and newsletter. I am also proud to say that I am the family go-to source when it comes to encouraging reading and writing proclivities among the little ones.

Recently:
   Monday Chat with Linda Simoni-Wastila
   Introducing Fictionaut Selects
   Checking In With Dark Chaos
   Line Breaks: “The Right Thing” by Robert Boswell

When stuck, which seems to be much of the time with me, I usually watch tv. If nothing else, I begin feeling guilty about not writing, so that’ll maybe get me back to it. A better thing to do is read.

Recently:
   Monday Chat with James Lloyd Davis
   Checking In With Midwestern Gothic
   Fictionaut Five: Roz Chast
   Luna Digest, 1/18

I can’t believe how unselfconscious people are in public, from chomping away on a banana or smelly sandwich on the train to talking really loudly into their cell phones about their cousin’s infection or whatever. [Read more]

Recently:
   Luna Digest, 1/18
   Fictionaut Five: Jessica Anya Blau
   Checking In With Fwriction

Writing is revision. Once you accept that fact, you can write. [Read more]

Recently:
   Checking In With Fwriction
Fictionaut Five: Kit Reed
   Luna Digest, 1/11
   Monday Chat with Phoebe Wilcox