Posts by author:

Barbara McAllister

Cakepan Manuscript – Chapter Two: Playing Games

October 4, 2011

This is a creative writing experiment, shamelessly stolen from the Chopin Manuscript: a serialized story where each author writes a different chapter. The members of this blog are each writing their own chapter, and we’re calling ours the “Cakepan Manuscript”. You can start reading at Chapter One, which began with the premise: “An unemployed teacher, [...]

Read the full article →

Exercise and Writing: Majoring in the Minors

September 8, 2010

Image via Wikipedia I cannot believe I am even putting these two activities together in a title. Individually, each carry enough anxiety to my heart and in some cases a huge amount of disappointment. At any given point in time, there is a huge possibility that goals set for either task are slipping further and [...]

Read the full article →

Writers Write!

April 14, 2010

The poem below is inspired by the day to day minutia experienced by writers that have every great intention of writing but things gets in the way. Fortunately, I was able to stop myself this week to get this poem finally out of my head. Let me know how you are moving along with your [...]

Read the full article →

Poetry 1-2-3, Easy as Writing About a Tree!

February 10, 2010

There is really no “rhyme or reason” on how to write a good poem. Most people think of poetry as short creative pieces with rhythm, stanzas or some musical flow. However, many strong poems are written that do not rhyme at all. The Haiku poem is a great example of this. My love of poetry [...]

Read the full article →

Writer’s Block Is Not Terminal

January 20, 2010

Writer’s Block is not terminal although it certainly does feel that way when you are in the middle of  one.   Deemphasizing the block and increasing your awareness of when you are in an optimal writing zone is key to unlocking your block.  If you haven’t been in a successful writing zone for a while, consider one [...]

Read the full article →