Some evenings during our writing residency, we hit our stride, writing the best, swiftest paragraphs of the day. Other evenings, we spend reading our work aloud to correct and rethink what we’ve accomplished that day. Sometimes, though, we are spent from the day’s work and cannot sit upright at our desks for another couple of hours, let alone think clearly enough to form our own … Continue reading A Writing Residency: On the Shelf
We have returned to the Dorland Mountain Arts Colony for some focused time on writing. In some ways, the experience is the same: TIME We are not setting the alarm clock. Last time, this un-scheduling created a natural regularity to our days, increased our energy levels and focus, and synced up our sleep patterns with each other and with long writing days. EXERCISE We plan … Continue reading A Writing Residency: Some Things Change
As we begin 2014, we take a look back at Lofty Ambitions over the last year to see where we have been and where we might be going, to see how our interests emerge and shift, to share a few highlights in hopes that our readers take a few minutes to re-read one of our posts. We continue to focus on aviation and spaceflight, science … Continue reading Recap of 2013: 5 Posts to Re-Read
We have perused science writing handbooks and anthologies before, and we’re at it again for the recently published anthology The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2013. It’s the time of year for “best of” lists, and this book is chockfull of great articles on a wide array of subject matter from the past year. This year’s iteration is edited by Siddhartha Mukerjee, who is … Continue reading The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2013
When Anna’s mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in March 2012, we were upset. But we weren’t shocked. Age increases a person’s risk of cancer. Though in otherwise good health, she was in her seventies. She lived pretty much exactly as long as Centers for Disease Control statistics estimate for someone born when she was. Statistics are tricky, though. At birth, a white woman born … Continue reading Cancer, Risk, & Otherwise
FIVE TIPS ON WRITING RESIDENCIES TO ADAPT AS NEEDED Prepare for the kind of lodging you’ll have. Read the information on the website, and ask questions before you get there. We knew that we’d have to buy our own groceries and cook for ourselves, that we’d have to clean the cabin before we left, but we didn’t have to bring towels and sheets unless we … Continue reading A Writing Residency: Five Tips (Part 4)
As we post this, we’re in the midst of a week of meetings—all-day meetings, back-to-back meetings—and trying to catch up and keep up with the uptick in work email and other tasks that mark the semester’s beginning. Only days ago, we were at the Dorland Mountain Arts Colony, and here’s how it panned out in the end. PART 1: Days 1-5 PART 2: Days 6-12 … Continue reading A Writing Residency (Part 3)
LOFTY: AUGUST 14: A Writing Residency (Part 2) We arrived at the Dorland Mountain Arts Colony on Saturday, August 3, and now we’re heading into the last days of our two-week residency. To read about how we found Dorland and got settled, click HERE. The days have been going very well since last Wednesday. Without the usual day-to-day obligations and goings-on of life—an alarm clock, … Continue reading A Writing Residency (Part 2)
Last time either of us was at a writing residency, we spent two weeks at Ragdale together. Those two weeks in February of last year were the most productive writing time we’ve ever had, separately or together. As if that accomplishment weren’t enough, fellow resident Emily Gray Tedrowe suggested we contact her agent, Alice Tasman. Alice was thrilled to represent us and our project about … Continue reading A Writing Residency
NOTE: If you didn’t see our article at The Huffington Post last week, please read “The Nobel Prize: Where Are the Women?” It’s a piece we generated as participants in the Santa Fe Science Writing Workshop earlier this summer. For all the Launch Pad posts, click HERE. Recently, we completed our second science-writer workshop of the summer, and it was purposefully more intense on the science side. If … Continue reading Launch Pad: The People
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