When I first began writing novels, the most difficult emotional challenge was rejection. I had recently retired from a law teaching career, during which I published several successful casebooks and legal treatises, gaining a reputation as a very good writer. I somehow assumed that kind of success and recognition wouldContinue Reading
Introduction: Journalist Lori Tobias arrived on the Oregon coast in 2000. After freelancing from Newport for several years, she signed on with the Oregonian as a stringer then staff writer, covering the entire coast—one person for more than three hundred miles. Tobias’s story is as much her own as it is theContinue Reading
Like many of people writing fiction, I have a background writing non-fiction for my day job. Over the years I’ve written lots of business reports, market overviews and policy outlines for public bodies, some published, some very definitely for internal use only. I’ve always wanted to write fiction, but afterContinue Reading
Self-doubt is the biggest emotional challenge for me. Writing is manageable to work through tough times and rejection, since it’s a way to escape the then-unpleasant world around me. As for writer’s block, I’ve been fortunate to experience it on a limited basis. Although I was once blocked about 14Continue Reading
The poet Robert Frost once said, “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.” This sums up the emotional challenge of writing for me, which is to place myself so entirely in the world of my characters that readers experience their joy and sadness. A recent example fromContinue Reading
If I whittle away all my excuses, I’d have to say the two biggest issues are self-doubt and perfectionism in my work. Since my early teens, I’ve struggled with depression. Writing became a way to combat the darkness. It helped to sort out the confusion and the emotions that wantedContinue Reading
Through conversations with other writers over the years, it’s become clear that issues including fear of rejection, occasional self-doubt and writer’s block simply come with the territory for novelists. I’ve experienced all of that, but for me, the biggest emotional challenge to writing on a regular basis is struggling toContinue Reading
My first sweet romance was self-published in March 2019. It’s exciting to have two books self-published already this year, but even though the books are doing well, I still struggle with self-doubt. I dabbled with writing in the past few years, but this year decided it was time to takeContinue Reading
I would say my biggest challenge is being low income, as a result of writing even though my novels don’t generate enough income to justify the time/energy investment. Self-promotion is also a big emotional challenge. My low income status (very small social security check) is a threat to my abilityContinue Reading
The two greatest challenges for me are self-doubt and finding the mental energy to write after being tapped out from a day’s work. I put in 10-12 hour days at a physical and emotionally challenging job, and some days I can’t even decide what to have for dinner when IContinue Reading
by Lisa Steele-Maley I began writing very soon after my Dad died, trying to make sense of what he and I had just been through together and hoping to write my way to some sort of understanding of how to move forward with the new experiences and insights I hadContinue Reading
Author Linda Osmundson shares her true story behind her children’s book, “Papa’s Changes.”