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Creativity, writer burnout, Writing

Why Success Doesn’t Always Fuel Creativity

Mona Alvarado Frazier

Sometimes, it fuels a Netflix binge

July Substack Post:

Revisions and rewrites. I’m sick of it. I have a complete manuscript that I keep messing with after several rewrites and I’m stuck on how the first chapter reads. Do I start here or in chapter three? Maybe I’m listening too much to my critique partners, but what if I’m not listening enough to them? Could the current state of political affairs in the US have me discombobulated?

For two weeks, I have gone through the same thing. I light my candle each morning, sip strong coffee, and reread my opening pages. I make a few strikethroughs, make a few editions, delete, and redo. It’s like being on an exercise bike; I’m cycling and getting nowhere, not even expending calories. I’m stuck, which translates into closing out the manuscript file. Again.

That in-between state of ‘start here or there’ leaves me adrift, and I don’t like it. I wonder what other writers call this stage of floundering with their manuscripts—maybe floundering, :). The bottom line is that I do not like not writing and finishing a manuscript. I’m out of sorts.

I’ve consoled myself and been momentarily excited about other positive news in my writing life:

Read the rest here

Book Review, Books, poetry

Summer Reads and Snacks: Book Recommendations with a Twist

Mona Alvarado Frazier

In my June Substack Post, I had fun matching summer reads to food and beverages. Although summer is half over, reading and snacking are not.

I recently finished two more books and recommend you borrow or buy them and take a read. (scroll to bottom)

Mona’s Substack

Two additional books:

If you’re a poetry fan, especially vivid poems that tell a story, then Richard Blanco’s HOMELAND OF MY BODY is a book you’ll love. The 117 poems focus on he and his mother’s homeland, identity, and the body. If I paired this with a beverage it would have to be non-alcoholic (water) because I’d be drunk and crying halfway through the book. Instead I’d have pieces of Ferrero Rocher chocolates to accompany the richness of the poems.

You know when a book is just so good you don’t want it to end? That’s how I felt about THE BERRY PICKERS by Amanda Peters. An indigenous family (Canada, Mi’kmaq) travel to Maine every year to harvest blueberries. Their four-year old daughter, Ruthie, goes missing from the fields, setting off a tragic mystery that haunts the survivors. In alternating chapters we hear from Ruthie and Joe, her brother, who was the last to see her. Pair this with iced tea and chocolate covered blueberries. But drink and eat slowly because you’ll read long into the night.

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If you’ve read a great story, pass it along in the comments and thank you for being here.