This little girl knows terror. She knows how it is to wake in the night to the sound of her mother vomiting and her father’s panicked whispers. It will be a few years until she learns that her father had made her mother drink a quart of milk without stopping. He had hoped it… Continue Reading >>>
Category Archives: Breakthrough Tip of the Week
“I want to write, but there are no stories…” Breakthrough for March 11, 2022
You have come to the opening of the Maze. There are no instructions. There is no map. You have been here before – and you will be here again. Or not. The Mojave desert sun is soft. It might be November. Or mid-March. You may have brought yourself here with nothing but paper and pen.… Continue Reading >>>
Win a Free One-hour Writing Session with me
A generous couple have given Breakthrough a generous donation. I want to pass the generosity forward. I invite you to apply for a one-hour mentoring session with me. You can use our time any way you want – break it into segments, use the whole hour. I work with non-Flagstaff writers on-line and by phone.… Continue Reading >>>
Re-run of Breakthroughwriting Needs $$$$ Help
I wish I didn’t have to ask again for financial help, but only one person responded to my recent request. (Thank you, K. Thank you so much.) I know times are hard for many of us, but even a little bit helps. Some of you know the value of working with me as a writing… Continue Reading >>>
Nowhere to Run: Covid and Your Writing – Breakthrough for the week of February 7, 2022
Martha and the Vandellas recorded Nowhere to Run in February 1965. Today, fifty-seven years later, there is nowhere to run. The reality of a pandemic that can kill you cannot be alchemized by prayer – or by telling yourself that Covid is an opportunity for spiritual growth. I’ve found myself beginning this post for Breakthrough… Continue Reading >>>
Writing About Not Writing
WRITING AND COVID I asked writers to respond to this: “ I’m working on a piece about the impact that the presence of Covid (not having the virus, but the presence of the general anxiety around the pandemic) is having on writers. Are you interested in responding to that question? I’d been noticing that I… Continue Reading >>>
Surviving Purgatory: Breakthrough for the week of 1/24/2022
Here is Mary Liz. She climbs trees; carries a tall stack of books home from the Irondequoit Public Library every other day; once rode a neighbor’s pony through a blooming peach orchard, picked a ripe peach, ate it, and knew herself to be the luckiest girl in the world. She also crouched at the foot… Continue Reading >>>
January 2022: Hope is only a story…
If you are hoping for a surprise, you will be disappointed. Surprises are always greater than hope. Story is greater than hope. Making is greater than hope. One of the wisest women I have ever known told me that hope is a con – while we are hoping, we are not taking action. I am… Continue Reading >>>
Kinship: Breakthrough Writing for Now, 1/6/2022
I invited all of you to write about the eerie Now for Breakthrough. Cin Norris responded: The days are bleeding. There are some vagaries of wind and weather in Nature’s futile effort to break up the monotony, but frankly I don’t think She cares that much. I was distressed, at first, by my apparent inability… Continue Reading >>>
I write in the last of 2021 grateful to those of you who have donated to BTW
You know who you are. All two of you. Your donation will not only relieve my stretched-to-breaking budget (I can hear my mother’s spirit gasp: “We never discuss money, Liz.”), but your kindness feels like an affirmation not just for BTW, but for the importance of good writing. My good writing. And, yours. And, because… Continue Reading >>>
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