29 Aug 2017 2 Comments

My First Story: Dana Rodgers

by Dana Rodgers in mermaids

Let’s start by saying that every published author I know has a stack of rejection letters stuffed in a drawer or boxed up and safely tucked into a dark closet along with their insecurities. Those same writers also have a stack of incomplete manuscripts tucked away somewhere. Those starts and stops, poorly developed stories and half written best-sellers are an evolution as a writer develops their craft and comes out the other side as a multi-published butterfly.

But just like everything else in life, you can’t begin your evolution into that multi-published butterfly unless you pick up that pen and get started. My own humble beginning started in the third grade with a writing prompt about two brothers swimming in a lake. My story began with the brothers splashing…
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25 Jul 2017 2 Comments

Writing Nowhere

by Masha Levinson in mermaids

Where do I write?  These days, nowhere.  Not in my head, not on my keyboard, not in a creative nook, not in a fancy writing office with a cantankerous cat.

Nowhere.

Life has gotten in the way.  Not an excuse for some, but it is for me.  And I’m okay with it.  This is the first time I’ve touched the keyboard in months.  How many, I don’t know.  Lost count, to be exact.  And so that’s where I am.

Nowhere.

Not developing new story ideas.  Not creating new characters.  Not writing fast drafts.

Nowhere.

Except is that really where I am?

I stop by my parents’ house.  My gaze falls on a poem I wrote to them, years ago.

We still remember where we came from The withered birches standing tall The dachas with their secret gardens That rolled from summer into fall.

As children we knew very little Of all the hardships they endured They did not want us bearing witness To those same struggles, as we matured.

…
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