I loved reading Dani Greer’s " Word " yesterday; it spoke to me on many levels. One thing I particularly liked is that she makes us aware of non-fiction writing we might tend to overlook because it might not be seen as the "real writing." As for my "real writing," like Dani, the number of words I’ve written for any fiction project can be counted on one hand. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been writing, however. And the writing I have been doing has helped to keep my creativity thrumming while I’m on a fiction writing hiatus ("writer’s block" just sounds so harsh). How has non-fiction writing helped my creativity? I connect with people . Last year, I joined CLMOOC , Connected Learning MOOC - a massively open online collaboration. During one of its cycles, I participated in a postcard exchange where we all sent postcards to random people who signed up for the cycle. I received postcards from the US, Canada, and overseas, and the postcard writ...

Write every day . The above statement is often given as advice to writers. It’s good advice—for the right writer. I say this because every writer has his or her own way of getting the words on the page. Some of us are daily writers. Some of us set specific days to write, and some of us write when the urge strikes. The problem with writing when the urge strikes, however, is that sometimes—for long moments of time—the urge is dead. At least the writer affected thinks so. Whether you call it writer’s block or a drought (or whatever name you come up with), most writers have moments when the urge to write just leaves. You wake up, and there’s a Dear John (or Johnetta ) letter from writing ... to you. It’s not you; it’s me , writing states. You feel like a failure, you wonder if you will ever write again, you hear or read advice like “write every day,” and you think you can’t possibly be a writer if you can’t write every other day, let alone every day. I’m sure you kno...