Fri, 14 Nov 2008 12:51:15 +0000 Maine, www.carolineallen.com When you write a novel, you become fully and deeply immersed in a fictious world. When you write memoir, you dive into a past that is so visceral it feels like you're living it over again. The single most difficult aspect of writing for me and for some of the other writers I coach is how to enter that other world fully AND…

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 16:42:31 +0000 Friends, Budapest, Hungary, www.carolineallen.com I had dinner with a friend last night and she asked if we could set up some time to get together and break some plates. "I really need to smash something," she said, over roast chicken and garlic potatoes. We were both in a rage place with men who dominate conversations, what I call "dominating the storyline". If you don't hear…

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:50:52 +0000 Weeds near a sidewalk, Seattle, www.carolineallen.com Imagine yourself as a field. Well, a clearing really. One one side a muddy expanse, leading to an area of long grass, abutting scrubby low-lying bushes whose branches intertwine like a spider's web. The grass is too tall to mow, and someone has run a tractor over it and it lays on its side like thick lime green hair.…

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 13:46:49 +0000 life drawing, www.carolineallen.com I have spent the past few days or weeks in a torpor. Is anything worth it? Finding it harder to write, harder to do my visual art. Finding it just plain hard. Beneath me, I feel a sucking undertow, a dark energy yanking at me like a persistent dog. I know this isn't just me. I know my psychic self well enough…

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 16:57:49 +0000 Republic Square at night, Yerevan, Armenia, 2008, www.carolineallen.com I was sent recently to Yerevan in Armenia on a media development project for a nonprofit. My role on the project was to help several media outlets redesign their websites -- TV, radio, online magazines. There is so much to blog about from the experience of visiting and working in the former Soviet country that I don't…

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 17:14:18 +0000 Life drawing class, 2008, www.carolineallen.com As a writing coach, I've worked with several women writers on memoir. Again and again, the following scenario happens. The writer submits a well-written chapter focused on one area of their life that had particular importance. Perhaps the chapter is on their only brother, with whom they've shared many events of epic proportion. Again and again, the writer writes these…

Sat, 17 May 2008 14:49:01 +0000 self portrait, acrylic on canvas, www.carolineallen.com You want to write, but you're staring at a blank screen, and you don't know where to begin. Or, you keep rewriting the first sentence over and over and over again. Stop. Think rough. Think rough draft. It's impossible to edit something that isn't yet on the page, and that's what most new writers do. They self edit before…

Mon, 19 May 2008 14:22:24 +0000 village, acrylic on canvas, www.carolineallen.com I'm trying to get Earth published, my novel, and I've joined the ranks of the first-time novelists trying to get noticed in the sea of submissions agents and publishers receive. I had this dream around it: the fact that you are different is what will sell this book. In the book, Pearl Elizabeth Swinton, the main character is "different". She's…

Fri, 23 May 2008 14:44:46 +0000 Long Hill Estate, Beverly, MA, www.carolineallen.com I've just bought and studied NewNovelist 2.0, by Creativity Software. You can use the software to help you write your existing novel, or even, according to the reviews, write the novel you've always wanted to write. I cannot recommend it enough. It's blowing my mind and blowing my writing open. Run, do not walk to buy it. (I got…

Fri, 30 May 2008 13:31:36 +0000 Chains that bind, digital photography, Lowell, MA, www.carolineallen.com, part of Dirty Smelly Noisy Exhibit, www.dirtysmellynoisy.com I'm a writing coach now, but used to be a tarot reader/healer and I still give tarot readings upon ocassion. An artist in a nearby art studio, D, asked me for a reading recently. The information in her reading helped me understand why as writers we feel stuck; we feel…