Sometimes — annoyingly, confoundingly, impossibly! — the first draft you write is the best draft you will write. What gives?

It’s hard to write. It’s even harder to be written about. So what do you do when someone you love takes issue with the story you’re trying to tell?

Does your creative work pass the Rapture Test or is it destined for obsolescence?

And does it really matter anyway?!

My writing posture might not pass an ergonomist’s test of fitness, but two-fingered typism keeps the ideas flowing in a season of life defined by confinements and confined by realignments. And I have David Sedaris to thank.

Stop trying to train your brain out of creative processes just because they’re rambling or inefficient!

When it comes to getting writing done, the long way round isn’t necessarily the wrong way round.

The problem I have with Reflexive Thankfulness Mandates is the problem I have with all blanket religio-socio mandates: they seem engineered to encourage complacency. What if the correct response, upon assessing one’s station in life, is not thankfulness, but hostility and disappointment?

I came to Catcher in the Rye late in life, all things considered. But I’d always had a rebellious streak, just like the novel’s salty anti-hero. What wouldn’t there be to like? Quite a whole lot, as it turns out.

Is social media reciprocity really ever owed? Are the folks you connect with via digital platforms actually your friends, or is it all just posturing and empty Phony-ism? Let’s dissect the messy, mixed-up business of digital tit for tat.

Really Good Art feels almost suspiciously true and accurate in a way that can engender great discomfort in the creator. What are we to make of creative work that seems to come through us more than from us?

Mediums matter, but the key to unlocking true creative potential lies in finding a subject or niche you’d be happy to spend the rest of your life exploring. Let’s talk about the magic of Golden Thread.

Menial errand or essential escape? COVID has rearranged our views of many mindless tasks, and the weekly grocery run is no exception. Here’s why I miss it so much.

Turning down work is hard for most freelancers. But setting limits with clients is acceptable and essential! Here’s how — and why — to start saying no.

How do you trust strangers, when strangers have proven themselves so deeply unworthy of trust? This is the greatest paradox of the Pandemic.

How can we cope when a complex writing project threatens to overwhelm, overpower and deeply annoy us?

Do people look to art to solve their problems, or are they after a subtler kind of validation?

Feeling the squeeze? Once in awhile, set out to accomplish less.