Ty's Blog

I write about writing, mostly.
Work-life

Work-life

Teaching full-time, tutoring on the side, wrapping up a Master's degree, editing a novel. It might sound like I have too many irons in the fire, but I'm actually doing well. Here's how. Marie Kondo those priorities Like the Japanese organizing consultant advises,...

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Sailor Moon Meets The Wheel of Time

Sailor Moon Meets The Wheel of Time

My current WIP is Sailor Moon meets The Wheel of Time, a YA manuscript. It features a brown-skinned 16-year-old island girl who is a bit of a goofball, a hopeless romantic, and a certified scaredy cat. She's also a loyal friend and an unfaltering optimist who cannot...

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2022: Five Journal Questions for the New Year

2022: Five Journal Questions for the New Year

Instead of making resolutions this year, I'm going to accept Suleika Jaouad's invitation to reflect on the past year through a five-part series of lists. This activity prompts us to journal about five questions, in whatever format works for you: What in the last year...

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Ritual Begets Habitual Creativity

Ritual Begets Habitual Creativity

Rituals. In her practical guide, The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life, Twyla Tharp, renowned choreographer, refers to these as "automatic but decisive patterns of behavior" (15). By thinking of an activity as a ritual, a rote behavior, you eliminate the...

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Open Your Heart Before You Write

Open Your Heart Before You Write

Toward the middle of my stay on the Big Island, I attended a yoga class at Old Airport Beach in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. It was phenomenal. (Above, you can see the view I had from my mat). I almost didn't go that morning, but somehow I did, and I managed to be in the...

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5 Ways You Can Support Diverse Writers

5 Ways You Can Support Diverse Writers

At a panel discussion in 2015, editors gathered to discuss the lack of diversity in the publishing industry. Editors noted that "writers of color [WOC] face insurmountable challenges," acknowledged that "the game has always been rigged," and concluded that "publishing...

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