<p>I didn&#8217;t think I was going to write a post this week. My husband and I are spending a couple of days at the coast, so I&#8217;d planned on a blog hiatus until next week, but somehow this evening &#8211; as I&#8217;m sitting in the living room at our rental, listening to the ocean outside &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2019/10/22/coming-back-changed/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-reader-text">Coming Back Changed</span></a></p

<p>Thanks for visiting, as always! This week I&#8217;ve started a new project, and thought I&#8217;d post a short teaser from it here. The very short story below is going to be part of a larger collection, all dealing with the experiences and challenges artists face. Quick explanatory note: Vera is an artist; her discipline is &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2019/10/15/teaser/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-reader-text">Teaser</span></

<p>This one is for my fellow artists, especially the writers&#8230; A number of years ago now, I read an article by a writer whose name I&#8217;m sorry to say I don&#8217;t remember. In the article, this writer was talking about the experience of getting her first book published, and all the challenges and setbacks that &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2019/10/08/why-imagine/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-reader-text">Why Imagine?</spa

<p>Two blogposts, two weeks in a row! Maybe I&#8217;m getting better at this&#8230; 😉 Last week I wrote about anxiety, as related to the performance I was scheduled to give that afternoon. I&#8217;m glad to report that &#8211; as was maybe expected &#8211; the performance went fine, and my well-seasoned performer training kicked in and &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2019/10/01/keep-on-keeping-on/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-reader

<p>Thank you for visiting the blog again. Trying to stay a bit more reliably up and running! 🙂 This afternoon, I&#8217;m giving a lecture-performance about my book To Love A Stranger. Before I started having major anxiety struggles this summer, this kind of performance was a little nerve-racking, but mostly no sweat. Today, I&#8217;m considerably more &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2019/09/24/trusting-it/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="scre

<p>Apologies for the longer-than-expected silence on the blog. If you&#8217;ve been following it, you know it&#8217;s been a pretty challenging summer. As the fall routine starts up again, I&#8217;m planning to get back to regular posts, as much as possible! This week&#8217;s post will be rather short, and mostly consists of a question (more on &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2019/09/10/how-can-i-help/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-re

<p>Following up on the very short post of a couple of weeks ago: today marks the launch of a project I’ve had in mind for a long time. 😊 Musical Meditations is a new, fully self-guided course on my website. It combines three elements: musical inspiration and space for journaling; features on four major composers &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2019/08/07/musical-meditations-launch/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-reader-text">Musical M

<p>Today&#8217;s very short post is only to share that something new is coming soon to the website. A project for writers, music enthusiasts, and anyone looking for inspiration for their creative work, or simply something new to relax and open the mind, will be live most likely within the next week. This project has been &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2019/07/23/stay-tuned/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-reader-text">Stay Tuned&#8230;

<p>If you’ve been following the blog over the past few weeks, you know that one of the big things I’ve been writing about is recent experiences with anxiety. While panic attacks are familiar territory for me, the higher level of pretty-much-constant anxiety I’ve been living under is a new and highly unwelcome situation. I know &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2019/07/16/growing-pains/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-reader-text">Growing

<p>The blog is late again this week: it’s been a very busy teaching week, which has helped with my need to keep my mind busy. 😊 I’ve been leading a summer writing workshop with Writopia Lab in Washington DC. Writopia is a terrific organization that works with young writers, ages 7 through high school, and &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2019/07/10/musical-meditation/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-reader-text">Musical Meditation</span

<p>My new post is a little late this week: it took an extra day for me to gear up and put some thoughts in order. These past couple of weeks, but this past week in particular, have been incredibly challenging. I’m writing about it as a shout-out to all artists who deal with depression and &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2019/07/03/centering/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-reader-text">Centering</span></a></p>

<p>As promised, new content on the blog today. Last week, my husband and I went on vacation to north-central Pennsylvania. We were in an area known for its beautiful night skies: we rented a cabin close to Cherry Springs State Park, which is actually an international dark-sky park where amateur stargazers can take in their &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2019/06/25/how-long-will-you-let-them/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="screen-reader-text"

<p>Re-posting another &#8220;old&#8221; favorite today. Life has been hectic lately, but also, this post helped me in the writing and I wanted to share it again. The blog will be on hiatus next week. It&#8217;ll return &#8211; with a brand-new post 🙂 &#8211; on 6/25. &#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;- There’s a wonderful passage in the novel Small Gods, by Terry &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2019/06/11/re-post-one-equals-fifty-one/" class="more-lin

<p>Today, mostly as a reminder and encouragement to self, I&#8217;m re-posting an old favorite from earlier this year. Apologies if you&#8217;ve read it before; but maybe, like me, you&#8217;ll find it helpful to read again. 🙂 &#8212;&#8211; You go for a walk, alone. Maybe it’s the kind of gray-sky winter day with a breeze that &hellip; </p> <p><a href="https://krisfaatz.com/2019/06/04/re-post-conversation-with-the-zhinin/" class="more-link">Continue reading <span class="scr

<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>