by Jamie Chavez | Feb 4, 2016 | Creativity
The ability to listen is a skill we are honing. … Art is not about thinking something up. It is about the opposite—getting something down. The directions are important here. If we are trying to think something up, we are straining to reach for something that’s just...
by Jamie Chavez | Dec 10, 2015 | The Writing Craft
You can ignore everything else in this lecture except number eight. It is the only absolutely twenty-four-karat-gold-plated piece of advice I have to give you. I’ve never taken it myself, though one day I hope to. The advice is as follows. When you finish your novel,...
by Jamie Chavez | Nov 30, 2015 | Books You Might Like, Miscellany
My parents always had a huge built-in bookcase wherever they lived (my father built them). They were primarily filled with the novels my mother had accumulated in her youth and all sorts of books my folks acquired as a young married couple, including museum exhibition...
by Jamie Chavez | Nov 26, 2015 | Miscellany
I’ve been blogging for more than five years now. Today seemed like a good day to repeat an article I ran on my first Thanksgiving … Most of us labor in obscurity of one type or another. Let’s face it, that star-maker machinery has moved on its rattle-trap tracks right...
by Jamie Chavez | Nov 19, 2015 | Creativity
The conversation focused on the unavoidable uncertainty, vulnerability, and discomfort of the creative process. … Absolutely no amount of experience or success gives you a free pass from the daunting level of doubt that is an unyielding part of the process. … [I call...
