In a slight departure from the writing tips posts, I want to share some photos of the homesteads where Laura Ingalls Wilder lived. I just returned from touring sites with my youngest daughter and her two girls (ages 6 and 8). My granddaughters read the Laura books this past year, and my own three girls […]
Kristi Holl
Blasting Off: Reclaiming a Daily Writing Habit
I launched my writing rocket 35 years ago. With a daily writing habit, it took off and kept my career orbiting, despite getting off-course sometimes and necessitating a re-calculation. In theory, a re-launch would never be required. But the last couple of years have wreaked havoc with my writing routine. Breaking my left wrist in […]
ARGH! I’ve Done It Again
As I announced before the holidays, I planned to take a break from social media for a month. I did that, and soon I will write about some of those results. But lately I’ve received several emails asking if something was wrong and why I didn’t resume the blog in January. Well, it’s because I […]
Digital Detox: My Christmas Gift to ME
This fall, I read many books on habit formation (in the hopes of building better writing and health/healing habits). Several have been terrific, helpful, and practical (see below). I have already blogged about a couple of them here and here. While each book had a different focus, at least one chunk of each book was […]
Minimalist Living and the Internet: a Productive Partnership
Today I read a blog post in my Inbox about making great use of the Internet and smartphones without wasting time and trading your life for it. The web post by Barking Up the Wrong Tree author (Eric Barker) is HIGHLY worth your time. Please head over there right now. You’ll find yourself nodding and saying, “Yes! […]
Domino Effect: Watching Good Habits Fall into Place
I read a lot about habits. I used to focus on breaking bad habits because I had a lot of them. Then I had a few so-so years where things were mediocre. That was better, but not the life I wanted, especially in my health and career. Enter the studies on building good habits that […]
Wounds from the Game of Writing: Earning Battle Scars
Wounds: we all get them. During the 1988 Jamboree encampment of 32,000 Boy Scouts, one troop (38 Scouts) led the entire Jamboree in cuts treated at the medical tent. The huge number of nicks from busy knives sounded negative until someone toured the camp and saw the unique artistic walking sticks each boy in that […]
Six Days Until NaNoWriMo–Time to Gear Up!
NaNoWriMo (the shortened name for National Novel Writing Month) begins November 1st. I wasn’t planning to join this year, but I realized this week that (for several reasons), I had lost momentum on my novel since coming home from England. So what better way to get back in the writing habit pronto than joining NaNoWriMo […]
Fight Back: The Importance of Reading and Writing Fiction
Not everyone understands why we love to read fiction. With a sniff and upturned nose, it has been called a “waste of time” by many. And when we first begin writing fiction, we may also have trouble justifying using precious free time “just to write stories.” Reading is more acceptable to some if you read […]
The Fun Side of Research: Local Color
Even though I had done months of reading and research before my stay in the Yorkshire village of Settle, I learned so much more by living there a month. How I loved all the small town events in the village: folk singing many nights in the pub, a weekly market day every Tuesday, the weekend […]