Lisa Young

It's Moosemeat time again. I will be reading one of my new stories. I like to begin with a quote that relates to what I'm going to read. Here are the quotes I found...(but I've decided to use a quote from Fight Club ). It is never too late to become what you might have been. ~George Eliot How full of trifles everything is! It is only one's thoughts that fill a room with something more than furniture. ~Wallace Stevens It may have happened, it may not have happened but it could have happened.  ~Mark Twain There are chapters in every life which are seldom read and certainly not aloud. ~Carol Shields There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered. ~Nelson Mandela A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it. ~Jean de La Fontaine There is a limit to how much you can change to be liked for who you really are. ~Robert Brault, Basically we are all looking...

Novelist   Heather J. Wood shares the benefits of limitations... Heather J. Wood One often thinks of creativity in terms of the blank canvas or the blank page—i.e. the freedom to be able to write about anything one's imagination can conjure up. Some writers chafe at the thought of restrictions. Yet, having set limitations can also be an immense source of creativity. For myself, at least, boundaries have allowed me to go in unexpected directions. I would not have imagined myself writing a teen-oriented novel involving roller derby. In fact, I would have thought the idea was ludicrous a few years ago. Yet when I was offered the opportunity to write "something about roller derby", which eventually turned into my recent book, Roll With It , I was given a wonderful creative gift. The project turned out to a liberating rather than a restricting experience. For one thing, I wasn’t worried about being "literary", so I felt free to write more naturally a...

Last Friday the Moosemeat writers descended upon the Arts & Letters Club for our annual chapbook launch. Note to organizers: if you want a great event  –  do it at the Arts & Letters Club! You have to experience it to believe it. I was mesmerized by the readings...then I was off to a poetry weekend up north the very next morning. At one of our afternoon workshops, one of my friends who rarely writes poetry, asked me why we edit poems. She wanted to know because she felt that in the moment of writing she was expressing something  –  whereas when she went to edit  –  it felt like manipulation - a kind of false tinkering with the original intent. A great discussion ensued among all of us at this point. Everyone had a different idea about the editing process. A few people spoke about how they had ruined their poems by editing. I've done it myself and seen others ruin their work too. As you weed out all the "mistakes," you can sometimes pull the poem...

I'm feeling pretty quiet - in need of hiding away - turtle-style. It's my introverted side rearing its head. But that's okay - I don't really have time to hibernate - but whether I'm out and about or not - the feeling is with me - quiet. Even in the busyness. What I've been slow to accept is that the life of an editor means always being busy. Hello denial. I kept thinking if I could just get a handle on things - it wouldn't be so busy. Wrong. After almost six years as an editor, I'm starting to realize busyness is a way of life. I mean of course all the deadlines that surprise, surprise, never stop. Writing of course has deadlines - I guess all of life is a kind of deadline. But the thing is, I'm learning to accept my lifestyle/career. I don't run around telling everyone I'm busy (as much). I'm not constantly surprised anymore by the piles and piles of paper on my desk. Eventually the deadlines get done and the paper is recycled and the...