Editing is for your words, not your personality. Here's how and why to avoid changing yourself for others.
Essays
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Things I Did Today After I Missed My Flight for the First Time Ever
I missed my flight today. It's for a trip I have been looking forward to, but somehow I just had my timing all wrong.
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Inside My Writing Process: What I Need to Write
The writing process is personalized for every writer. I've found it evolves over time as what you need to enter that creative space morphs.
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Thoughts on Two Dozen Years of Being Watched
I can’t remember the first time I got recognized in public. In the early years of my career, before print news really embraced the digital first atmosphere brewing, I was known by name but not face. And in those days, that was startling enough. I’d receive letters in the mail…
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How Re-Reading My Own Journals Helped Me Break Out of Writer’s Block
Deep in writer's block, I wondered if my career was done. Here's how rereading my childhood journals changed that.
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Writing Emotions to Create Connections with Readers
At a writing camp when I was 15, a professor told me that when I deeply cared about a subject, it reflected in my writing. But when I was disinterested, the writing became flat. At the time, it felt like a biting criticism of my work. I was ashamed that…
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Maybe I Just Wanted to Be Martha Stewart
Martha Stewart has built a storied career spanning decades and mediums. As I look back, I realize maybe I just wanted to be Martha Stewart.
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When I Am Weightless
In the water, time washes away. Worries are diluted. There’s just my strong, weightless body and laps that I lose count of.
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My John Bender
Maybe we’re all a little John Bender. Acting out to see what happens, pushing back against the rules, insulting everyone and no one.
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What I Am Thinking as I Stare Down an Empty Nest
This is the paradox of parenting. I've raised them to be secure enough to forge their own paths, while I enter my empty nest phase.