<p>Last week’s post was for my fellow fiction writers. Today I’m reaching out to my fellow depressives. The last few days have been challenging for me. This has been another one of those weeks where I’ve felt like I’m mostly treading water, and not always keeping my head above it. Professional goals seem far away, &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2019/05/28/treading-water/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-reader-text">Treading Water</span

<p>[Note: the illustrations in this post are the sketches I drew when building the fictional world of my second novel. Disclaimer: I&#8217;m not and never will be a visual artist. 😉 ] Recently I read a short article about Neil Gaiman, legendary author of American Gods. In the article, his agent, Merilee Heifetz, reminisced about having &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2019/05/21/why-should-anybody-want/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-r

<p>Thinking about paths today. Where have I come from? Where am I going? What has the path looked like so far, and when I look back on it, what do I think? Artists have an unusual challenge. Because what we do is essentially original, and comes from us in a way that isn’t true of &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2019/05/14/honor-the-path/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-reader-text">Honor the Path</span></a></p>

<p>In my post last week, I looked at what it’s meant for me to come into writing “sideways,” and find my own path in the profession. This week’s post will continue and hopefully expand on that subject, while also picking up some thoughts I’d originally wanted to write about last week. Recently, a writer passed &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2019/05/07/the-work-we-leave-behind/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-reader-text">The Work We Le

<p>Apologies for the slightly later blogpost this week. I had something I especially wanted to write about, so I took some extra time to think it over…and it still ended up being too hard for now. Today’s post is the easier option. Hopefully next week I’ll be able to take on the bigger challenge. Today’s &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2019/05/02/sideways-writer/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-reader-text">Sideways Writer</span></a></p

<p>The waiting game has started up again this week. It was good to take a break from it, and it was also good to have an enforced break from worrying. Having a cold meant not having the energy to fret (or do much of anything else!). It’s funny how sometimes you don’t realize how chronically &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2019/04/23/work-as-service/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-reader-text">Work as Service</span></a></p>

<p>Today&#8217;s blogpost will be a little different. I&#8217;m still catching up after a week-long cold, which in some ways was a welcome break: it was hard to worry about things like work and publication when I pretty much just wanted to read and sleep all day. A lot of reading got done, especially several books &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2019/04/16/very-small-post/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-reader-text">Very Small Post</sp

<p>A slightly later blogpost this week… I’ve been down with a cold for a few days, and my brain has been pretty scrambled. Working on getting back into gear. This week I thought I would explore the “ministry” aspect of writing again; it’s something I’m thinking about a lot. One of the fascinating, and challenging, &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2019/04/10/music-words-and-community/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-reader-text">Music, Wo

<p>It’s been another quiet week on the querying-and-waiting front. Part of me understands that this process simply takes a while; another part of me protests things like I didn’t think it would be this long! Waiting can be exhausting: riding the daily rollercoaster of bracing yourself for the worst, relaxing for a while, trying to &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2019/04/02/good-and-not-so-good/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-reader-tex

<p>Today’s blogpost may be more in the nature of a vent (oh dear!), but I’ll try to keep it concise… If you’ve followed the blog over the past couple of months, you know that my second novel, Fourteen Stones, is currently on submission with agents. A few agents have been checking out the full manuscript. &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2019/03/26/work-that-matters/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-reader-text">Work that Matters</span></a

<p>Lately I’ve been thinking – and posting – a lot about forgiving mistakes, recognizing when I don’t know how to do things, and accepting my imperfections. All of these are important and challenging things for me to contend with, because of that “need to be perfect” and “need to know” I’ve written about before. This &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2019/03/19/success/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-reader-text">Success?</span></a></p>

<p>Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about mistakes, learning, and growth. More on that shortly… Today I had reason to look over the different kinds of work and jobs I did last year. Often, when I look at things like my jobs and income, it turns into an exercise in embarrassment and self-criticism. Seriously, what’s &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2019/03/12/reaching-for-the-new/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-reader-text">Reaching For

<p>I’ve always been the kind of person who needs to know how things are going to go. When I drive anywhere, no matter how familiar or innocuous the route might be, I always visualize myself getting to my destination and then getting home again. When I get ready for any kind of event, a class &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2019/03/05/need-to-know/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-reader-text">Need to Know?</span></a></p>

<p>There’s a wonderful passage in the novel Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett. My copy of the book is buried in a stack somewhere, so I can&#8217;t pull up an exact quote, but the passage goes something like this: Two deities are talking about their respective groups of followers. One of them, a “small god,” has &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2019/02/26/one-equals-fifty-one/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-reader-text">One Equals Fifty-On

<p>Ministry. What does that word mean? What, especially, does it mean for a writer? Lately, I’ve been thinking about this a lot. As a writer, and a teacher of creative writing, and a musician more than sometimes, what’s the main direction for all of my work? What am I doing in the world? What is &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2019/02/19/ministry/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-reader-text">Ministry</span></a></p>

<p>Riffing off of last week’s “Conversation with the Zhinin”… You’ve been hanging out with your characters again lately. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, because you’ve finished writing the book they feature in. (At least, you’ve finished it as far as any project is “finished” until publication, when it’s too late to find &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2019/02/12/experiments-in-dream-space/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-reader-t

<p>You go for a walk, alone. Maybe it’s the kind of gray-sky winter day with a breeze that makes you walk faster: a good day to eat up the miles. Maybe it’s the kind of early-spring day when you can feel the season turning, but it hasn’t quite happened yet. Or maybe it’s summer, in &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2019/02/05/conversation-with-the-zhinin/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-reader-text">Conversation with the&nbsp;Zhinin</span

<p>Thinking about challenging times, here on the blog. Last week I wrote about the struggle many artists face as they try to keep doing their work after, maybe, learning when they were young that they were wrong to be “that kind of person.” A lot of us did absorb that message: if we were writers, &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2019/01/29/doing-the-work/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-reader-text">Doing the Work</span></a></p>

<p>The blog reawakens after a long sleep… Hoping this is a return to some regular posts. Today’s post falls under the header of Random Thoughts and Reflections for 2019. If you’re like me, an artist who needs some encouragement in going about your work, I hope this helps. As artists and creative people, some of &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2019/01/22/being-loved-because/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-reader-text">Being Loved &#8220

<p>Welcome back to the blog! This week&#8217;s post is a little different. I love featuring the work of my literary-fiction colleagues, and look forward to going back to that for our next post, but this week we&#8217;re taking a step into comic fantasy. &nbsp; Along with Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, Christopher Moore is one &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2018/02/09/zen-for-ten-36-beethoven-and-lamb/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-