Ease Lessons for Writers
In your writing life, no matter how hard you work or how well you plan, things won't always unfold the way you'd hoped. In Ease Lessons for Writers, we explore what gets in the way of our writing, why that happens, and why it matters. Together we learn how to make our writing easier and more joyful. I'm your host, Monna McDiarmid, a writer and coach based in Japan and Nova Scotia. Website: monnamcdiarmid.com/ | Newsletter: monnamcdiarmid.com/subscribe/ | Instagram: @monnamcdiarmidwrites/ | Patreon: @MonnaMcDiarmid
Ease Lessons for Writers
25. Elizabeth (Season 3, Episode 1/3)
ABOUT TODAY'S GUEST: ELIZABETH
Today's episode is my first with Elizabeth who is in the process of becoming. She currently does laundry, dishes, drives carpools, and fills remaining “confetti time" with reading, writing, playing piano, thinking, and staring at a screensaver of a vine-covered tree. Along with her husband, she cares for two human children and an elderly pug in Richmond, Virginia, USA. Prior to this all-consuming undertaking, she worked as a writer and professional naming consultant for 20+ years on more than 150 product and corporate naming projects. In 2010, she published Finding Thalhimers (Dementi Milestone Publishing) about her father’s family and their department store, which existed for 150 years. Elizabeth loves breakfast, expensive dark chocolate, unapologetic authenticity, and laughing really hard.
Thanks for this conversation, Elizabeth.
Elizabeth's Invitations from Episode 1:
1. Couldn't get it wrong | What would I do if I couldn’t get it wrong?
Write about this idea or dictate your thoughts, or make a poem.
2. Ritual | Create a ceremony for the letting go.
Employ a ritual that will deeply communicate this letting go to the current version of you, and help set you free.
3. Letter from your protagonist
Write a letter from your protagonist Emilia to you, The Writer, explaining why it’s important for you to write this book. What does this novel mean for her? What does the novel create or set in motion or set free?
4. What cannot be destroyed
Write a poem about the idea of what cannot be destroyed. You have given me the same homework ~ a delightful invitation that I happily accept.
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ABOUT EASE LESSONS:
Music: “Meekness” by Kai Engel, used under Creative Commons Attribution license
Editor: Damien Pitter
Host: Monna McDiarmid (pronounced Mona McDermid) | Coach, Writer and Counselor
Website: MonnaMcDiarmid.com
Newsletter: The Sunday Reader
Patreon: where I share monthly excerpts from my writing memoir in progress
Instagram: @monnamcdiarmid
