Author Archives: mabujones

How do we learn the craft of writing? First, we learn it as we learn to speak in the music, rhythms and imagery of our first language. We learn it as we put our words on paper. We cannot write … Continue reading →

When we reread our own work, what are we reading? I recently had a conversation with a fellow writer in which they said: When I first wrote this, I didn’t like it, but now, a year later, I think it’s … Continue reading →

Isn’t that just like her! No human being is perfectly predictable, but most of us have personalities and characteristics that are founded in our experiences. We show our individuality as we reveal ourselves through the responses we have to what … Continue reading →

A question came up recently in one of my workshops: ‘Is it a good idea to share our work with family and friends?” My simple answer is: It depends. Of course the follow-up question is: Depends on what? And the … Continue reading →

Could the questions that unfold in Ernest Hemingway’s story “A Clean Well-Lighted Place,” have happened anywhere else but a café? Possibly, but not as surgically and eloquently. The café is as much an essential character as the old man and … Continue reading →

Winter, with its long nights and voices reaching across continents, is the time for ancestors. It’s a time for listening to the old stories, even the ones we’ve heard from our beginning. We hear them and we hear them, and … Continue reading →

Why is it so difficult for so many people to say they are writers? When asked what we do, shouldn’t it come naturally to say: ‘I’m a writer?’ The statement is true because, in fact, we write. We do it … Continue reading →

This week was all about the Autumn leaves rattling and crashing in the air, swirling on the ground, scratching and unwilling to settle as they were swooped, shoved, tossed, flung, and rocketed. I was trying to rake. I was trying … Continue reading →

A trope is a repeated concept that appears throughout literature: an older husband with a young hot wife cheating on him. To write this story as a cliché would be every bodice ripper novel in the airport bookstore. So how … Continue reading →

You live in a dream world. For all the years of my childhood my mother’s words floated over my head. She wasn’t wrong. I consistently drifted out of my known world into surroundings full of imagined characters. Putting my shoes … Continue reading →