Writing Life Archives - Miranda Liasson Romance Author

How My Writer’s Space Feng Shui Has Gone Awry

By Miranda Liasson on Friday, Jan 4, 2013 | 4 comments

Happy New Year--does your office embrace the principles of good Feng Shui for writers? I called upon the expertise of Pam Gaulin, Kerrie Flanagan, and Regina Paul who wrote online articles about this topic if you're interested in reading more.There is probably something to be said--a lot, actually--about having a tidy, neat, calming writer's space to cause [...]

Creativity: Getting Out of Your Own Way

By Miranda Liasson on Tuesday, Nov 27, 2012 | 2 comments

As a writer, don't you think about creativity a lot? What is it, what enhances it? And, most importantly, HOW DO I TURN THIS @#!*$% INTERNAL EDITOR OFF INSIDE MY OWN HEAD??This weekend I heard a really interesting piece on NPR on creativity from the show Studio 360. You can listen to all the segments at http://www.studio360.org/2012/nov/23/In the [...]

Why They Call It “Revision Hell”

By Miranda Liasson on Sunday, Oct 7, 2012 | 2 comments

I've recently had the great pleasure of coming back into the real world after a month of revisions. How you know you might need to detox if you've had a similar experience:--An entire wardrobe of sweats is critical to survival (including my favorite sweats I call my writing pants). But the one time you wear them out (because [...]

A Writer and His Editor: Fitzgerald and Perkins

By Miranda Liasson on Friday, Jan 20, 2012 | 0 comments

Yes, I am actually going to write about F. Scott Fitzgerald and his editor, Maxwell Perkins! (No, this is not a topic related to Regency or Victorian England!) But I came across this remarkable book that illustrates this amazing relationship. The letters exchanged between the two show so clearly the universal dreams and aspirations, doubts, [...]

Write and Live in 2012

By Miranda Liasson on Tuesday, Jan 3, 2012 | 2 comments

As we welcome the new year and set our writing goals, I'd like to share something I heard yesterday on NPR that stayed with me on a very gutteral level.As writers, we (well, okay, I) tend to define success based on outcome--did we publish? This amazing story I heard on NPR yesterday helped me to [...]

High Concept Tree

By Miranda Liasson on Wednesday, Nov 23, 2011 | 0 comments

I have never (until now) seen a pine tree that changes colors and LOSES its needles. A deciduous pine?!!! Even scarier, I saw it and thought, this tree is EXACTLY the kind of thing we strive for as writers of fiction. That unique twist on the usual that is so compelling it makes you immediately turn [...]