The Write Mind

Birds of a feather flock together—unless they’re writers, in which case they tend to fly solo. Solitude and independence are revered parts of the writing life, but pecking at the keyboard alone can eventually lead to feelings of disconnection and isolation.

Nobody better understands the struggles and triumphs of writing than other writers, and we can all benefit by forming groups to help each other achieve our goals. A good writers group not only provides a forum for critique and workshopping, but can also offer networking opportunities, professional partnerships, community building, and access to resources in other areas such as publishing, publicity, book sales, etc.

Established writers groups exist almost everywhere, but don’t always welcome new members and won’t necessarily offer the kind of experience you’re looking for. If birds of a feather prove difficult to find, form your own group. This allows you to set the tone and attract like-minded people. You may have to step outside your comfort zone to make it happen, but the payoff is worth the effort.

Here’s how to get started:

Define: What’s your group’s purpose? What are its goals? Who’s in it? Novelists? Poets? Published writers only? A combo? How many members will it have? How often will you meet? Is the group for encouragement only, or will criticism be part of it too? The more detailed your vision, the easier it will be to attract writers with whom you can establish mutually beneficial relationships.

Advertise: Put your vision out to the world. Design a flyer that describes your group and speaks specifically to the writers you want to work with. Post it where writers gather: coffee shops, book stores, libraries, universities, community colleges, writing conferences, etc. Post an e-version of your flyer in the community groups section of Craigslist (www.craigslist.com). People who are interested will find you.

Screen: Ask for details about what prospective members want from the group. Get writing samples and any other information you need. The idea is to create a group in which every member can contribute and thrive. The more screening you do now, the less likely you are to end up with people who don’t share your vision.

Meet: Coffee shops, community centers, libraries, college campuses, restaurants, bars, private homes, etc. are all possible venues. Launch your first meeting by getting to know each other and sharing ideas about how the group will operate. Every group is a work in progress. Details about how to offer critique, give support, lead workshops, etc. will evolve as you go (and I’ll address them in part two of this series).

A supportive, collaborative writers group can charge you with energy and inspiration, offer moral support and encouragement, help you brainstorm and problem solve, and provide a touchstone to your artistic growth and development. When like-minded writers unite around a similar vision and goals, their skills, talents and resources synergize for the benefit of everyone involved. And when that happens, the sky’s the limit.

Have a question for Doug? Click here to submit it to THE WRITE MIND.

Doug Kurtz is a published novelist, certified life coach and the owner of Write Life Coaching (www.writelifecoaching.com). He earned his MA in creative writing at the University of Colorado, where he also taught fiction writing. He currently lives in Boulder, where he’s busy coaching other writers and working on his next novel.

In writing, we can choose whether or not to begin in medias res—in the middle of things—but in life we’re there all the time, whether we like it or not. Our personal stories, episodes and epiphanies are constantly unfolding—sometimes all at once.

Ever find yourself revising your novel, mentally shopping for holiday gifts, worrying about the economy and brainstorming to-do lists all at the same time? In this scattered state, we waste precious energy, get less done, and tend to reinforce the cycle in a futile rush for denouement. We’re in the middle of the action, but we’re far from centered, and this can leave us feeling anxious, worried and spread too thin.

Conversely, when we achieve a centered presence, we concentrate energy, alleviate stress, function from a place of creativity, and become more effective at everything we do. Use the following exercise, adapted from Eric Maisel’s book Coaching the Artist Within, to center yourself whenever you feel scattered or undertake a task that requires your full attention—especially writing. Practice now, as you read through the steps...

First, take five deep breaths to ditch that scattered feeling. Inhale, and imagine your breath entering through the top of your head and stopping at your hips. Exhale, and imagine it going down through your legs into the ground and wrapping around a root or rock at the center of the earth. Now you’re grounded and ready to CENTER:

C: Come to a complete stop. Inhale while thinking or saying the words, “I am completely…” Exhale while thinking or saying, “Stopping.” Lengthen the statements as necessary to fully occupy the inhale and exhale. Do this for the remaining steps, too.

E: Empty yourself of expectations. Inhale while thinking or saying, “I expect…” Exhale while thinking or saying, “Nothing.”

N: Name your work. Inhale while naming the work at hand. For example, “I’m finishing chapter 26” or “I’m focusing on this exercise.” Exhale and name it again. Your work can be a task you want to accomplish, a quality you want to embody, a plan you want to implement, etc. To make this exercise more efficient next time, have your work in mind before the initial breathing step.

T: Trust your resources. Inhale while thinking or saying, “I trust…” Exhale while thinking or saying, “My resources.”

E: Embrace the present moment. Inhale while thinking or saying, “I embrace…” Exhale while thinking or saying, “This moment…”

R: Return with strength. Inhale while thinking or saying, “I return to the present…” Exhale while thinking or saying, “With strength.”

Once you’ve finished, pause to observe how you feel. Most people report immediate results, everything from feelings of confidence, energy and focus to a sense of connection with something larger than themselves. Adapt the statements in this exercise to suit your personal situation and needs. Practice centering as often as possible, and before you know it, you’ll be living in medias res without feeling lost in the plot.

Have a question for Doug? Click here to submit it to THE WRITE MIND.

Doug Kurtz is a published novelist, certified life coach and the owner of Write Life Coaching (www.writelifecoaching.com). He earned his MA in creative writing at the University of Colorado, where he also taught fiction writing. He currently lives in Boulder, where he’s busy coaching other writers and working on his next novel.

Mention the word “schedule” and it’s fight or flight for a lot of writers. Structuring life to make room for writing is often perceived as contrary to the creative spirit, but most writers will tell you they’re happier and more productive when they stick to a plan.

Whether you work full-time and juggle a family or have wide open days with no obligations, a schedule can channel your energy, focus your creativity and keep you sane when life gets crazy. Here are some tips for making one that works:

Anchor obligatory events: If you walk your dog every morning, barista in the afternoons and teach Thursday nights, anchor these events in your schedule. Now you have a basic structure to work from, and can position other activities, like writing, feng shui and Tango lessons, inside it.

Channel your energy: Position activities for the greatest benefit. Maybe this means writing before the work day starts and jogging in the evening to refresh your mind. Follow your natural rhythms insofar as the obligatory events on your schedule allow. Experiment until you find the configuration that works best.

Stay on task: Know what you’re supposed to be doing at any given time, and do it. A schedule trains your body and mind to perform on demand, and helps focus your creativity. Once you’re in rhythm, you’ll automatically click into whatever mode you’re supposed to be in without waffling, worrying or wasting time.

Make writing inviolable: Once you’ve determined your best writing time and have it anchored in your schedule, stick to it and eliminate distractions. Turn off the TV, don’t answer the phone or surf the Internet, and allow no interruptions.

Be flexible A good schedule bends and adjust as things come up, and so should you. If life demands that you miss a day of writing, or your weekly drum circle, that’s okay. Interruptions are inevitable. Think of your schedule as a calming, grounding force, and follow it as well as you can until the chaos settles.

Include flex time Set aside time during the week for getting random stuff done: running errands, taking naps, catching up, whatever. If you missed out on writing time because life got in the way, make up for it here.

Strive for balance A schedule isn’t an all-or-nothing proposition. Structure your writing and your life to whatever degree feels comfortable, and go stream of consciousness the rest of the time. The key is to strike a personal balance.

Creating a schedule that works is largely a matter of trial and error. Think of yours as a work in progress. Let it evolve to reflect the ebb and flow of your life, your writing and yourself. Design it to suit you, and don’t be afraid to revise. Here’s a quote from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard: “A schedule defends from chaos and whim.” Remember this next time you feel like baring your teeth or bolting for the woods.

To see a schedule example, go to: www.writelifecoaching.com/scheduleexample.htm.

Have a question for Doug? Click here to submit it to THE WRITE MIND.

Doug Kurtz is a published novelist, certified life coach and the owner of Write Life Coaching (www.writelifecoaching.com). He earned his MA in creative writing at the University of Colorado, where he also taught fiction writing. He currently lives in Boulder, where he’s busy coaching other writers and working on his next novel.

In the jungle of daily life, writing time is hard to find. Best intentions flag in the heat and rarely recover by morning. You want to write, you have to write, but it’s just not happening, and the guilt feels like monkeys howling in your chest. Job, kids, errands, friends, family, finances—the time and energy you need are nowhere to be seen.

Stop looking. When you can’t find time to write, you have to make it. Hack it out of the vines; coax it down from the trees. Elmore Leonard wrote parts of his first novel, The Bounty Hunters, inside a desk drawer at the ad agency where he worked. Plenty of writers juggle full lives and demanding jobs and still consistently produce. If you’re committed, you can, too. Here are six ways to make it happen:

1. Commit. If your heart and mind aren’t in it, making time won’t help. You’ll get nowhere, and the monkeys will only howl louder. Make a contract with yourself, and ask someone who’s invested in your progress to hold you accountable.

2. Prioritize. Where does writing fit in the hierarchy of your life? Do you spend more time on less important things, like Facebook or house cleaning? Have these things become excuses to malinger? Rank your writing among everything else and determine how much time and energy are required to serve it.

3. Streamline. Where are you wasting time that could be spent writing? Can you double up anywhere? Rehearse your presentation while you jog, or make calls on the drive home instead of at the office? Search for minutes under every rock, and list the ways you can become more efficient.

4. Eliminate. Look for things to cut from your day. If something non-essential is poaching your time, and is a lower priority than writing, kill it. TV, anyone? If you’re zoned out on sitcoms when you could be at the keyboard, see number one above.

5. Energize. If you’re not sleeping, eating and exercising right, you won’t have juice to write before or after a long day. Ditch the myth that writers have to be drunk, stoned and disturbed to produce good work. Good writing and high energy come from treating yourself well—physically, mentally and emotionally.

6. Schedule. When this topic comes up, it’s fight or flight for a lot of writers. But a smart, adaptable schedule is crucial for freeing up time and staying on track. Because scheduling is so important, I’m going to cover it exclusively in Part Two of this series.

If you’re driven to write and feeling lost in the jungle, don’t beat yourself up. Guilt is a disempowering emotion, and under its influence everything becomes difficult. Let your drive become a motivating force. Do something to serve it every day, and congratulate yourself for making progress. The time and energy you need are out there, hiding in the underbrush. Once you flush them out, the monkeys will quiet and your writing can thrive.

Have a question for Doug? Click here to submit it to THE WRITE MIND.

Doug Kurtz is a published novelist, certified life coach and the owner of Write Life Coaching (www.writelifecoaching.com). He earned his MA in creative writing at the University of Colorado, where he also taught fiction writing. He currently lives in Boulder, where he’s busy coaching other writers and working on his next novel.

Ever been asked a question that stopped you dead in your tracks? That hit a nerve and changed your outlook? That challenged assumptions and set you on a new course?

When it comes to communication and transformation, questions are among the most powerful tools we have—but not all are created equal. Take the ones I just asked, for example. Did you pause to answer yes or no? Do you even remember what they were?

Punctuation alone can’t elevate an impotent question to ‘powerful’ status. Simple, direct and open-ended, powerful questions come from a place of integrity and genuine curiosity. They stimulate discussion, encourage reflection, touch on deeper meaning and loose to the surface underlying information that often lies dormant within the recipient.
“So what?” you might ask. “What does that have to do with writing?”

Good question. See the difference? Powerful questions stimulate creative thinking, generate interest and open up vectors to explore. They typically start with ‘how,’ ‘what,’ ‘when,’ ‘who,’ or the writers favorite, ‘what if.’ Writers can use them to drill down into creative problems, flesh out characters, explore new angles and find solutions that might otherwise have eluded us. At its best, powerful questions can raise our awareness, jog us out of limiting habits and patterns, motivate fresh thinking and lead us to the future.

Notice how the following examples are structured to elicit meaningful responses, and that the answers are rarely known until the question is asked. Pay attention to how each question lands; you’ll know which ones are right for you. Create your own. Adapt and apply them to yourself, your writing, your characters, your business, your relationships and anything else in your life you want to grow.

Writers use intuition in all kinds of situations, from deciding what to write, to making plot decisions, to following creative urges that make no logical sense. Intuition is always trying to lead us to the right destination, and to get there we must learn to follow it.

Shakti Gawain, author of Developing Intuition, says that to capitalize on this innate faculty, we must pay attention to what’s going on inside us during our quiet, distracting thoughts and get in touch with the place where gut-feelings reside. In our logic-biased culture, this requires discipline and practice, but the benefits make it well worth the effort.

Here are some steps you can take to start developing and applying your intuition (for more detailed explanations, refer to Gawain’s book)

1. Quiet your mind. Allow 5-10 minutes for this exercise, and combine it with numbers 2 and 3 below. Get comfy. Close your eyes. Take deep breaths through your nose, exhaling slowly through your mouth. Imagine nourishing air moving into and out of your body. Focus it with each breath into a different body part—feet, chest, head etc.—allowing each part to relax completely. Let any thoughts that arise float away on your exhalations.

2. Review and learn. With a quiet mind, review your day in as much detail as possible, searching it for intuitive moments you may have overlooked. Did you have any hunches today? Any feelings of rightness or wrongness in your writing? Feelings of knowing something without knowing why? How did you handle these feelings? Did you act on them? Did you push them aside? How did you feel afterwards?

3. Shift awareness. Imagine your mental awareness moving out of your head and into your solar plexus or belly, where intuition resides. With each breath, go deeper into this place. Ask yourself, “What do I need to remember or be aware of right now?” Listen for thoughts, feelings or images that arise. Be aware of how your body feels during this process. With practice, you’ll be able to ask more pointed questions and become more adept at responding intuitively.

4. Take action. For one day, one week or longer, depending on your comfort level, imagine that your intuition is infallible. Give yourself permission to act on it every time it arises, in writing or any other area of your life. Let go of doubt and fear and see what happens. How does it feel to follow intuition? To ignore it? If you’re paying attention, you’ll notice a difference.

Once we’re tuned in, intuition can become a reliable guiding force in everything we do. You know those synchronistic moments that happen in writing, those insights and connections that infuse our work with meaning? They occur when we quiet our minds and let intuition speak. When we trust it and listen, we tend to experience an increased sense of aliveness, a sense that in spite of the circuitous route we might have taken, we have somehow arrived exactly where we’re meant to be.

Intuition Defined
Intuition Rationalized

Have a question for Doug? Click here to submit it to THE WRITE MIND.

Doug Kurtz is a published novelist, certified life coach and the owner of Write Life Coaching (www.writelifecoaching.com). He earned his MA in creative writing at the University of Colorado, where he also taught fiction writing. He currently lives in Boulder, where he’s busy coaching other writers and working on his next novel.

In the novel I’m writing, fire images recur ad nauseum. Boats burn, yards burn, dogs leap through flame, etc. The repetition eventually caught my attention, and my rational mind recoiled. Why so much fire? This is nonsense, man, stop it!

I made a conscious effort to snuff the flames, despite an urge to incinerate things in almost every chapter. Thousands of words later, I caught myself writing a scene in which an entire prairie burns. Then it hit me: Fire was the solution to motivation problems my protagonist had been struggling with since the novel’s inception. Intuition was trying to clue me in, but my rational mind with its insistence on reason wouldn’t listen.

How can intuition be accessed and employed in writing? What role does it play in the writing process? I asked a poet, a nonfiction author and a novelist how they harness their intuitive power. Here’s a summation of what they said:

Warm up: Read something before you write to create an aura of intuition and give yourself an opening into an idea or feeling. Take a word, phrase or mood and transfer it to the first moments of writing. Something emerges onto the page intuitively in the context of your project, and then you can develop it.

Listen: Open up to your inner voice and hear what it’s saying. It might be the voice of a character or a wiser version of yourself. Don’t force it; just wait for an idea, snip of dialogue, image, etc. that grabs you. If it rings true, use it.

Pay attention: Be aware of urges and hunches while you write. If you feel a pull in some direction, go that way. When you’re having trouble making a decision in your piece, there’s usually an intuitive wisdom that knows what to do. If you pay attention the decision’s already made.

Play: Intuition comes through most easily when you’re having fun. Stress and worry shut it down. If one chapter seems more fun than another, work on that one even if your rational side doesn’t like the sequence. You have to stay loose to open the door.

Interpret: It’s not always obvious what to do with intuitive insights. Sometimes you have to zoom back and ask yourself how they fit into the big picture. What do they mean? How can they contribute? Allow intuition to come through first, then let lefty figure out what to do with it.

Intuition is the spark that ignites great writing, but like the smell of distant smoke it’s easy to ignore and rationalize away. In most of us, the rational mind is well developed while intuition is largely suppressed. But where’s the logic in that? If both are needed to produce our best work, doesn’t it stand to reason that we should develop intuition?

Next time, with help from Shakti Gawain’s excellent book Developing Intuition, I’ll outline some steps you can take to get rational and light a flame under yours.

Intuition Defined
Intuition Developed

Have a question for Doug? Click here to submit it to THE WRITE MIND.

Doug Kurtz is a published novelist, certified life coach and the owner of Write Life Coaching (www.writelifecoaching.com). He earned his MA in creative writing at the University of Colorado, where he also taught fiction writing. He currently lives in Boulder, where he’s busy coaching other writers and working on his next novel.

Right now, intuition is telling me to do something writers are taught never to do: Open a piece with a dictionary definition. My rational mind is screaming, Don’t do it! But I’ve learned through experience to trust these intuitive nudges. So here goes…

Intuition (ĭn'tū-ĭsh'ən, -tyū-): The act or faculty of knowing or sensing without the use of rational processes; a sense of something not evident or deductible.

That was tough, but following intuition almost always pays off for me, sometimes in unexpected ways. Intuitive feelings are a natural part of the human experience. They happen to everyone, but in Western culture we’re trained to suppress them in favor of a rational approach. The rational mind is great at organizing and learning from experience, but it’s limited to computing information it’s already received from the outside world.

The intuitive faculty taps into knowledge of a different kind, related to less finite aspects of ourselves, such as creativity, higher purpose and personal growth. It’s another way we have of accessing information. To ignore it is to limit the very experience the rational mind is so adept at processing. Sometimes the rational mind discards intuitive knowledge so quickly, we don’t realize we have it at all

You know that pang in the gut that says it’s time for a new job? That internal nod that lets you know you’ve made the right decision? That nagging hunch that keeps you writing in a direction that seems to make no sense? Hello, intuition. The rational mind might rebel against it, but when we listen to those impulses things tend to work out for the best, even if we don’t immediately understand how or why.

Intuition tells us what feels right and true in the moment. If we listen, it can guide us to insights that are unavailable to the logical mind. It can infuse our writing with energy and creativity, and make those agonizing decisions that determine the course of a project easier to make. Ever hear a writer say her characters tell her what to do? Or that the novel “wrote itself?” These writers allow intuition to lead them, trusting it will take them somewhere, and use their rational minds to smooth the path.

I don’t mean to suggest that intuition is infallible. Four-hundred words into this column and I’m still not getting any love from that definition. But my intuitive gambles often pay off in unpredictable ways. Maybe when I shelve the dictionary, a postcard will fall out and solve a problem in my novel; one my rational mind has been banging its head against. Or maybe the definition itself, so orderly and precise, is saying that intuition and rationality are most powerful when they work together. This feels closer to the truth, and I think I’ll investigate the idea further in my next column.

Until then, read Shakti Gawain’s excellent book, Developing Intuition—Practical Guidance for Daily Life (New World Library, 2002.) It’ll help you wrap your mind around this mysterious faculty that we all possess.

Intuition Rationalized
Intuition Developed

Have a question for Doug? Click here to submit it to THE WRITE MIND.

Doug Kurtz is a published novelist, certified life coach and the owner of Write Life Coaching (www.writelifecoaching.com). He earned his MA in creative writing at the University of Colorado, where he also taught fiction writing. He currently lives in Boulder, where he’s busy coaching other writers and working on his next novel.

Last summer, single-handedly and ill-equipped, I began to remodel my kitchen. In a burst of novice enthusiasm, I sledged through studs and ripped up floors. I hung drywall and knifed mud. I tiled, grouted, griped and complained. Then, frustrated and over my head, I walked off the job. It’s now a year later, and unfinished trim work taunts me to this day.

Writers often face the same dilemma: After fits of inspired toil, they hit the proverbial wall. Sometimes writer’s block is to blame, but just as often it comes down to having the right tools for the job. Next time you’re stuck in construction, power up with these:

Photographs: Images are a great way to tap the visual cortex for ideas. Need to nail the description of a landscape or a character’s chin? Whip out a National Geographic or People and you’ll find dozens of each. Want to flesh out your antagonist’s history? Find an old yearbook or photo album and start lifting details. To really power up, create a collage by pasting hundreds of overlapping images on to a poster board. Unexpected contrasts will spark your imagination every time.

Objects: You know that kitchen drawer full of random junk? Or that trunk of memorabilia in your attic? Gather a bunch of items and lay them on a table. Each one will have a different function, association or story behind it. Who wears those old snakeskin boots? What emotions or memories do they evoke? How do they smell? Their history and tactile qualities can inform and inspire your writing.

Prompts: Writing prompts are an excellent way to tap into your creativity and move in directions you wouldn’t normally go. Use them to get warmed up, spark ideas, or generate fresh material. If you’re having trouble developing a character or engaging her in a plot, write a prompt from her point of view and see what happens. Find hundreds of free prompts at www.creativewritingprompts.com.

Therapy Room: Get comfy, close your eyes and breathe. Imagine an empty white room. Put a couch in there if you want, and invite your writing problems in for an interview. Maybe your protagonist lacks motivation. Sit him down to talk about it. Ask pointed questions, and listen to his answers. Structural problem in your non-fiction book? Invite it in for a session and see what it has to say. For a twist, put yourself on the couch and have your problem interview you.

Ever heard of a pneumatic angled finish nailer? Me either, that is until the Home Depot guy said it would make my trim work a snap. All kinds of obscure tools for all kinds of different jobs exist out there, each adaptable to your unique writing challenges. Once they’re in your hands and you know how to use them, few jobs are out of reach.

Have your own power tools that you’d like to share with other writers? If so, please click the link below and send them in with a detailed description.

Have a question for Doug? Click here to submit it to THE WRITE MIND.

Doug Kurtz is a published novelist, certified life coach and the owner of Write Life Coaching (www.writelifecoaching.com). He earned his MA in creative writing at the University of Colorado, where he also taught fiction writing. He currently lives in Boulder, where he’s busy coaching other writers and working on his next novel.

Whether you’re building a house or writing crime novels, it helps to have a good set of tools. Handsaws are great for some jobs, but mitering roof beams with elbow grease is murder. For the big stuff, and for extra muscle on small jobs, it helps to power up.

Like carpenters, writers have to plan, construct, problem-solve, improvise, repair and fudge angles. As it is with all jobs, the tools we use make a difference in the quality of our workmanship. This series of articles will plug you into a variety of literary power tools that no writer’s box should be without. First on the gear-list, three brainstorming techniques:

Freewriting: Many writers free write, but few use it for creative problem solving. Like the techniques that follow, it requires you to silence your critic and let your right brain run wild. Unsure how to motivate your protagonist? Bring the problem to mind, then write about it without pause for five minutes. If you’re unsure where to start, write nonsense until your left brain quiets. If you stray off topic, let yourself go. When you’re done, read what you’ve written and underline ideas that resonate. Look for patterns. The solution to your problem often hides, delivered by your subconscious.

Listing: This technique is great for finding answers to specific writing questions, brainstorming titles and nailing down details, etc. Start with a question, such as, “What does Gypsy do after Ed loads the gun?” or “What kind of car does Father Priestly steal?” Fire out as many answers as you can without thinking or letting your hand pause. Go crazy. Get weird. Maybe Gypsy nails a love letter to Ed’s head and your story takes a new turn. Priestly may steal a Model-T, sending your screenplay back in time. Listing can open hidden doors in your writing, by producing unexpected and engaging ideas.

Clustering: Write a word or phrase such as “elephant” at the center of a blank page and circle it. Then, brainstorm and circle words related to elephant, such as “gray” and “memory,” and join them to “elephant” with lines. You can continue to work off the center circle or follow the branches outward; i.e., from “memory” to “brain” to “surgery,” etc. Go until you’re tapped. You’ll end up with a cluster of circled words, and among them you’ll find unexpected connections, fresh ideas and unique organizational structures you might never have discovered otherwise.

Remember, a power drill isn’t just for making holes; you can drive screws and mix mortar with it, too. Adapt these tools to your needs. Make them your own. They can be applied to anything you’re writing, and are limited only by your willingness to use them.

If you have your own favorite power tools and would like to share them with other writers, I’d love to hear from you. Click on the link below to send me a description and a list of uses. And if they’re cordless, don’t forget to charge the batteries.

Have a question for Doug? Click here to submit it to THE WRITE MIND.

Doug Kurtz is a published novelist, certified life coach and the owner of Write Life Coaching (www.writelifecoaching.com). He earned his MA in creative writing at the University of Colorado, where he also taught fiction writing. He currently lives in Boulder, where he’s busy coaching other writers and working on his next novel.