The Spaces

The Spaces is a place to explore writing, the source of writing, the drive to write, the words we love and the words we decide to choose and share.

Where ever we go, here we are, carrying our creations within us. We are the creators and the destroyers. May we choose to be creators.

May we be the source of good in the world.

Category: writing

  • Control

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    How many thoughts do you have in one day? Probably a billion. Just now, mine quickly jump from this sentence, to tides, to a far-away person, to breakfast, then to writing. It is action that is difficult for me, because I live so much in my head and I’m full of ideas. This is why… Read more

  • Valentine

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    I read this in the NY Times recently; it’s from “The Painted Drum by Louise Erdrich: “Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here… Read more

  • Create

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    This month everything seems a muddle and a trouble, and I cannot wrap my arms around the sentences in my brain. Ideas slip away like alligators, twisting and refusing to be held; like clouds, shrugging at attempts to define their edges; or like water, uninterested in diversions, and seeking only to return to the sea.… Read more

  • Time

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    A writer-friend recently expressed her discouragement about how long it is taking her to write her current story. She’s written several, so she knows the ropes but this latest one seems to be more of a burden than a joy. I reminded her that all things take time. She’s inventing a world after all, and… Read more

  • Walk, walk, walk

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    Writers live in their heads a lot. It’s part of the job, imagining revealing dialogue, location layouts, the clothes your character must wear, and why a character refuses to travel or love or die. In addition to imagining, there is calculating. How long would it take to ride a horse from an imaginary town to… Read more

  • Writers

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    Writers are natural questioners. But why? But how? When? Writing allows our questions to flow from our heads to our hands and rise from the page in stories. There, inside the story, we attempt to answer. We know or have an inkling of what we want our lives to be because we sit in chairs,… Read more

  • Fantasy

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    I recently finished writing a fantasy novel that I’d been working on for some time. A beta-reader sent some feedback and asked if this story was really a fantasy. I was puzzled at first; I thought it was obviously in the fantasy genre, about ghosts and witches, but then I realized (to my horror) that… Read more

  • Impossible

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    My sister and I were talking about all of the self-imposed tasks and projects in our lives and how it seems impossible to get them done. The word ‘impossible’ brings to mind two quotes: The first is from ‘Alice In Wonderland’ by Lewis Carroll: “There’s no use trying,” she (Alice) said. “One can’t believe impossible… Read more