tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-49158140266358714302011-04-21T14:25:42.359-07:00A writer's website meant to inspire, inform and support.Karen Karleski Huggnoreply@blogger.comBlogger111100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4915814026635871430.post-42559608019584862702008-05-04T22:26:00.001-07:002008-05-04T22:32:17.717-07:00

In the March/April issue of The Writer's Chronicle, teacher Catherine Wallace wrote an interesting article on how to solicit feedback from editors, teachers, classmates, friends, family, whomever. I found it helpful. She discussed the dangers of fault-finding criticism while outlining what kind of feedback she believes is most helpful, arguing that caring for a manuscript is not unlike raising

Karen Karleski Huggnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4915814026635871430.post-15459478077453183762008-04-14T20:36:00.000-07:002008-04-15T22:31:21.681-07:00

Television is a powerful medium and yet one rarely sees fiction authors on it, not non-fiction authors, but fiction authors. This explains why Philip Roth isn't as popular as Paris Hilton (not to mention he may not be as cute -- arguably). Still, despite not receiving the widespread promotion that TV offers, fiction is discovered anyway. People find good books, read them, tell friends about them

Karen Karleski Huggnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4915814026635871430.post-5824981664073758132008-03-31T22:08:00.000-07:002008-03-31T22:56:17.692-07:00

In an interview in Novel Voices, author Richard Bausch talks about the need for emerging writers to accept failure as a destiny. While rejection stings and we often feel as if we are the lone person whose work is being rejected, it's a much more universal and integral experience than that, so much so that Bausch believes it's imperative writers make it a part of their life's outlook.In the

Karen Karleski Huggnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4915814026635871430.post-33199461781774265442008-03-22T21:15:00.000-07:002008-03-22T22:15:26.500-07:00

I write about three to four full days a week. I own a part-time gardening business where I can (blessedly) set my own schedule. I take weekends off as I try to take care of household chores and tend my own garden and spend time with my husband and animals. But when I'm away from writing for just even a few days, whether it's due to work or my own self-inflicted break, I find it's sometimes

Karen Karleski Huggnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4915814026635871430.post-15789319342393230562008-03-22T20:26:00.000-07:002008-03-22T21:14:08.968-07:00

A few months ago I discovered a wonderful new resource that helps me learn more about writing fiction. It's The New Yorker Fiction Podcast. It's a free subscription that you can find by searching on "New Yorker: Fiction" in iTunes. (You can also access them through The New Yorker website.) I love it. Every month Deborah Treisman, the magazine's fiction editor, asks an established author to choose

Karen Karleski Huggnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4915814026635871430.post-51052632532880297962008-03-14T22:40:00.000-07:002008-03-14T23:10:36.321-07:00

When I was in college, way back in the late '80s (ancient times), Random House had just launched a papberback imprint called Vintage Contemporaries. Joy Williams was on it, Thomas McGuane, Jay McInerney and a bunch of other literary authors who were finding readership through the line's more mass produced runs and cartoonish book cover art. I'd been assigned The Sportswriter for a

Karen Karleski Huggnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4915814026635871430.post-71203824563374315982008-03-14T22:25:00.001-07:002008-03-14T22:37:56.062-07:00

Name Recognition Often, in the dailyness of life, I'm overlooked -- not by my husband or mother or best friend, but the people unfamiliar to me who serve the public in a brief but bettering way. For instance, more than once when I've checked in at the doctor's office, I've sat and leafed through magazines for forty, sixty minutes before inquiring at the desk. Thereafter the receptionist

Karen Karleski Huggnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4915814026635871430.post-42849022834880568992008-03-13T19:52:00.000-07:002008-03-13T21:06:25.014-07:00

I tried to name this blog "First Draft" as a reminder to myself not to become stressed out by the need for perfection. I didn't want to be swallowed into the albatross-laden mania of endless revision and persnickety fine-tuning and an ambitious amount of content. Not for here. It was only a blog after all. But of course, the names First Draft and My First Draft and The First Draft were all

Karen Karleski Huggnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4915814026635871430.post-49620862670452156992008-03-13T18:05:00.000-07:002008-03-13T21:18:50.030-07:00

I have my friend M. to thank for helping me realize this blog's purpose and how to approach it. M. is a colleague of my husband's, a twenty-something San Franciscan, who likes to write as well. He came to Tucson recently to visit my husband and me. When the two of them weren't working, the three of us would hang out, going for bike rides, drinking coffee, touring Tucson and doing silly

Karen Karleski Huggnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4915814026635871430.post-2858927574553028152008-03-13T17:59:00.000-07:002008-03-13T21:13:28.000-07:00

I've decided to throw away my goal-setting ambition right now because well, I'll just say it: I Am a Libra. I know that sounds like woo-woo psychic mumbo-jumbo and true, there's little scientific evidence for astrology, but I can't seem to sum it up any more precisely than that. (And I've always felt this way.) I could say, "I'm indecisive" or "I like balance" or "I can't ever settle and

Karen Karleski Huggnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4915814026635871430.post-48585210420245895202008-03-13T17:47:00.001-07:002008-03-13T21:13:58.811-07:00

Welcome to my blog about writing, a website meant to inspire, inform and support all those out there who love language and love to express themselves through it. This first post is the outcome of my reading Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert's first-person account of her spiritual journey. If you're not familiar with this funny, vivid, contemplative memoir, please seek it out either through

Karen Karleski Huggnoreply@blogger.com0