Tasha Seegmiller

Several years ago, as part of my day job, I attended a conference “dedicated to educating leaders in higher education, K-12, and non-profit organizations on experiential and project-based learning”. The principles discussed here fit in with the model established by David Kolb. There is lots of information about the Kolb cycle online, but one of the key factors that I think should be woven regularly into the process of writing is that of reflection. The idea of reflection is not new. If you are like me, you may do this often after a situation has gone wrong. In those situations, you may think “I could have…” or “I should have…” or even…

“Any creative pursuit judges its artists harshly and swings wildly. Don’t let the gatekeepers take away your joy of creating. It’s not about them ultimately. It’s about you and the page.” – Heather Webb It was this snippet in an online conversation that made me stop, made me re-read, made me ponder. We would like to think that it will be different for us, we have probably all imagined how it is different for us. We think of the agents who will swoon over our query, request a full, and swoon again. We think of the editor who will fall in love with our writing, the sales teams who will fall…

One of the greatest struggles I see in my writing students is understanding the balance of pacing. Many MANY of them talk about how the first chapters of The Hunger Games were boring, which is evidence of their lack of reading experience, but because of this attitude, they tend to think everything needs to be fast and furious. To let them understand this concept better, I let them dabble in the genres of horror, mystery, and thriller. Before they write, we discuss what it is about each genre that amps up the tension, and how that tension needs to manifest in order to hold the attention of the audience. Every year, during…

“It’s amazing, in this game played on a 120-yard field, how many times inches make games.” This is the statement Cris Collinsworth said during the Sunday Night Football Game I was watching last night. The Packers were playing, down, and almost out of opportunities to tie up the game. It’s not the first time that I have heard such statements, but as I was thinking about writing and habits, craft and successes, I became quite aware of what this really meant. In order to make the big things really happen, there is a necessity to make the small things happen too. Yes, you have to be able to draft and…

I like to think ahead. Nope, that’s a lie. I can’t help but think ahead. If something is coming up on a weekend and I’m not sure how it is all going to unfold by Tuesday – Wednesday at the latest – I start getting antsy. I want to know when I need to leave or what the responsibilities are, if everyone who is involved is aware and prepared. Which means I’m looking at how to make 2018 better than 2017. Yes, already. I haven’t started planning yet, but I have been taking windows of time to reflect and understand. I’ve been taking time to be honest with myself, about…

I have had numerous conversations lately with people who have had questions about something related to publishing, something that their agent or editor might know, but for reasons including mental health issues, insecurity about writing, or a desire to not be that client, they have each paused and let the stress fester a little. It can be a very scary thing to send an email to someone who you respect, but with whom you have some feelings of frustration, whether it be something that you don’t understand as well as you should or feedback that wasn’t provided when you thought it would be or writerly imposter syndrome in general. For these kinds…

I went months without writing. I sent lots of emails and drafted blog posts and proposals and such, but when it came time to really look at my fiction, to really dive into the craft, I could find all kinds of things to do besides write. There were some big life changes that happened. I’d like to say it was just that. There were some nuances I had to figure out with my mental health and body chemistry. I’d like to say it was only that. But the reality was I was in a sort of writing depression. I felt like, for the most part, I’d gotten the big D…

About five or six weeks ago, I rolled my ankle while walking to work. It wasn’t significant, I didn’t even lose my balance. Just a slight not okay and then okay and I continued on my way to work. To you, this may seem like a non-story. People roll their ankles ALL the time. But this ankle has been traumatized. Many times. Over many years. This ankle was first really sprained when I was 14 years old, then again throughout the rest of high school. This is the ankle that I had reconstructed in 2012. This ankle still swells when there is a massive switch in the weather patterns, one that I…

There are a lot of spaces on the internet. I’m very glad you have stopped by mine. My goal for this space is for it to feel like if four or five of us were gathered and chatting about the things we feel like we should already know and understand, but don’t. For me, these tend to surround the themes of womanhood, mental illness, allyship, families, and sometimes faith. This will also be the place where I share updates about my writing career and events I will attend. Please feel free to read a little more About Me and check out my Substack to subscribe to more long-form conversations.