writing advice – Caroliena Cabada

Hopelessness

A photograph of a watercolor sketch of a landscape scene with a vermillion sculpture in the background.

Near the end of the first-year composition class I taught this summer, one of my students asked, How do you pay attention to the news without feeling totally hopeless?

Sept/Oct 2021 issue of Poets & Writers: My MFA

I talk about Iowa State’s Creative Writing and Environment MFA in the September/October 2021 issue of Poets & Writers!

Being green (with youth, with envy)

I am 26 years old now. This coming week, I’ll be turning 27. I’m still laughably, sickeningly young, and yet also worried that the youth card will be revoked soon.

Author Toolbox Blog Hop: Building a reputation (beyond writing and publishing)

Building your writing reputation can help you get off on the right foot when you start gaining traction with your writing.

Author Toolbox Blog Hop: Keep a little of your self for yourself

I sometimes worry that, although I am writing fiction, readers may try to “decode” the story by retracing my steps to find the original sliver of my reality that served as the starting point, and then take it one step too far to try and decode me.

Author Toolbox Blog Hop: Duotrope and the resume of failures

Alongside the resume I regularly update, I have another document that gets a similar treatment that’s almost like my resume’s shadow.

Author Toolbox Blog Hop: Practicing voice

Over the course of the four novels, I became so familiar with the voice of the point of view character, a woman named Elena Greco, that I felt myself unconsciously starting to write in it.

Author Toolbox Blog Hop: Creating writing prompts

I’m happier with my prompted writing because it allows me to tailor my prompts to what I’m working on, which allows me to be more productive with my time.

Author Toolbox Blog Hop: Learning how to write

I was most excited about writing when I felt I was learning the most about it.

Author Toolbox Blog Hop: The balancing act

I am the type of writer who would much rather be writing something new rather than editing a project I’ve already started. Even when I know that something isn’t ready for publication, is nowhere near “finished,” I have a hard time sitting myself down to edit. It’s not even that I dread the task ofContinue reading “Author Toolbox Blog Hop: The balancing act”