And I bent to its broken face

I think it's a mistake to ever look for hope outside of one's self. One day the house smells of fresh bread, the next of smoke and blood. One day you faint because the gardener cuts his finger off, within a week you're climbing over corpses of children bombed in a subway. What hope can there be if that is so? I tried to die near the end of the war. The same dream returned each night until I dared not to go to sleep and grew quite ill. I dreamed I had a child, and even in the dream I saw it was my life, and it was an idiot, and I ran away. But it always crept onto my lap again, clutched at my clothes. Until I thought, if I could kiss it, whatever in it was my own, perhaps I could sleep. And I bent to its broken face, and it was horrible...but I kissed it. I think one must finally take one's life in one's arms.

—Arthur Miller

Voices: an exercise

A way to listen for your characters' individual voices.

Go here and get a random number between 1 and 24. Get your noun from the list below. This is what your character is looking at. Set the timer for seven minutes and write what s/he sees, in her voice.

Now choose another character and have her describe the same object for seven minutes.



1 ice


2 rain


3 light


4 sparks


5 flame


6 crack


7 storm


8 bone


9 blood


10 animal


11 eyes


12 teeth


13 birds


14 snow


15 path


16 tunnel


17 twig


18 shadow


19 leaves


20 doorway


21 moon


22 dust


23 darkness


24 stars

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Keeping Going

The name of this online class was suggested by my friend Aoibheann Sweeney, inspired by Seamus Heaney's poem.

This is an ongoing fiction writing group that "meets" by email all year, in four-week sessions. You can choose when to drop in, or keep going all year. It's for people working on any longterm fiction project: a novel, story collection, or just personal writing practice. Maybe you're trying to find your voice or discover something to write about. You're welcome too!

Officially, I send out two emails a week to check in on how your writing is going and give brief exercises. In practice, our small-group email conversations range freely throughout the week.

You're encouraged to share your answers and exercises with the group, but if you prefer to answer me privately, or if occasionally you can't answer, those things are also fine. The class exists only to serve the writers who are in it, so you can't do it wrong!

Note that this is not a workshop class, but I do respond to all the exercises you send. If you want to have me read pages in addition, speak with me about it.

Use the contact form on the website to let me know if you'd like to join the class, or if you have questions!

Applications open for Jack Jones Literary Retreat

Applications are open again for the Jack Jones Literary Retreat, open to women of color. I am offering four fellowships and travel stipends. Please do apply. https://t.co/DGnbK2pbgE

— roxane gay (@rgay) March 1, 2018

A prompt for when you need something new

The more time you spend on an old idea, the more energy you invest in it, the more solid it becomes, and the more it will exclude new ideas.

—Brian Eno


I think often when we get stuck, it's because we're holding onto an old idea about what our project is, or should look like. It's scary to let go of this, the comforting idea of what will make it "good" or "worthwhile" or "interesting".

But it's possible and it's very, very freeing. Sometimes a project is untenable and has to be put away altogether. But sometimes it's just a matter of approaching it from a new angle, or stepping back for a while.

This morning, I invite you to step away from your project for fifteen minutes and start something completely new, with no expectations attached to it.

Get a random number from 1 to 24 here and then go here to get a character.

Get another number from 1 to 24 and then go here to give your character a problem.

Write for fifteen minutes.