Katiaesque

  • Not A Daily Writer 2: On Superheroes Versus Champions

    This is a follow-up post to my last rather embarrassing admission of not being a daily word count superhero anymore. Okay, maybe you guys didn’t think it was embarrassing, but I did! Allow me now to present the other side of the issue. Because ever since the last post, I’ve been thinking… It is true that…

    Katia Raina

  • Gasp! I Am Not A Daily Writer, After All

    Daily writing goals are alluring. They keep the writing brain in shape. They keep the writer satisfied: “Hey, look at me, I’m writing!”, keep the writer with the story. They feed the muse. It’s easy to feel productive that way — and to be productive, too. WHY IT’S NOT FOR EVERYONE (i.e. why it’s not for…

    Katia Raina

  • Mid-Semester Progress Report

    So, the whole slowing down and letting go thing? It took just under a month, both a hard-work month and a vacation of a month. Letting go meant songs on the piano, meant Friday night candles, movies, nothing grand. Slowing down meant looking up, looking left and right, too, just paying attention. Playing meant new rituals (and some old ones too),…

    Katia Raina

  • Blank Page Fears

    I am re-reading a wonderful book, The Creative Habit, by Twyla Tharp, a dancer and a choreographer. The book aims to help artists of any kind take control of their routine (so that within their writing hours, they can surrender to their art even more effectively). In the very first chapter Ms. Tharp talks about facing down…

    Katia Raina

  • The Hardest Homework

    I am smack in the middle of my second VCFA semester, and, along with a new essay, and the usual reading and writing, my wise teacher gave me the hardest, most impossible homework of all. She told me to stop working. 🙂         Not to stop writing, to stop working. So damn hard. She told me…

    Katia Raina

  • My Ideal Reader

    One of our VCFA teachers has her students write an essay about who their ideal reader is. She isn’t my teacher (I swear I wish I could have them all!), but I want to do this little exercise anyway. Just for fun. My ideal reader is 15 years old. Medium build, medium height, and she…

    Katia Raina

  • On Voice And Love

    Aaaaaah! How is it already August 20th? And how has it been a month? How? How? How? Okay, now that that’s out of the way, I bring you a long-promised nuggets-of-wisdom post from my last residency at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. While my first residency back in January got dubbed as “The Plague” residency,…

    Katia Raina

  • Own It

    Hi all, It felt a little surreal to come back to Vermont for a second residency as a seasoned second semester. The ten days flew by. Friends, teachers, dancing, writing, soaking in new knowledge and old, soaking in the love. Yes, love. This was mainly what this residency, known as “summer of love” was all…

    Katia Raina

  • Hanging A Shingle

    Hi all, A couple of things this week. First, I would like to welcome the new subscribers. Every time someone new joins the small but beloved audience of this blog, I get nervous. I feel like going, “what me? What would they want to hear from good old me for, when there are so many other great,…

    Katia Raina

  • Childhood Fear: A Door In A Dead-End Hallway

    A huge part of being a writer, of being an artist of any kind, of making or doing anything worthwhile, is facing your fear. Sometimes it means digging in, far and deep, all the way back to the root of who you are, back to your childhood. Last month, fear was a big theme in my…

    Katia Raina