The Writerly Tumblr of Lane William Maxfield

In our era of reboots, remakes, and beyond unnecessary sequels, the problem is not that quality, original content is not being made. Rather, it is flying under the radar of popular chatter. One such original show, which my husband discovered and made me watch, is Netflix’s The Diplomat. The title character is Kate Wyler, a smart, principled woman who has scrapped her way up from being a low-tier…

When I was growing up, in an evangelical right-wing family, gay marriage was assumed to be unethical. The line was that God created marriage for one man and one woman, and gay people were capable of learning to disown their sinful urges and live happily in straight relationships. We did not see this as evil. We felt persecuted, surrounded by a world that failed to see all the ways we were trying…

So, the world got exponentially scarier in the past few months. Worse, it was already scary. In fact, it has been on a “let’s get increasingly scary” track for about a decade, and whenever we thought we were due for a bit of normality, the world said, “nope, here’s more scary.” This prolonged, exhausting terror gave me a reason to think long and hard about resilience. I have struggled with panic…

I love Halloween. I love seeing the world covered in skulls, vampires, bats and zombies. I love the excuse to watch scary movie after scary movie. I love the way that, once out of the year, the world is joining me in contemplation of the grotesque and horrifying. I have some issues with anxiety. Even when nothing is wrong, my brain likes to pump my head full of scary juices. In fact, it’s worst…

I’m not sure how to categorize this post. It’s certainly not a review, and its not exactly writing advice either. I suppose, in a way, its my own personal PSA. I just read yet another book where the author went on a rant about what would happen if we had medicated Van Gogh. Psychiatric drugs are turning us all into zombies and the negative feelings in life fuel our art and many great geniuses…

…Been a While, Hasn’t It?

Hello, my lovely followers. I’ve been struggling for a while to decide what this blog should be. I have been blogging elsewhere, though. I started an Enneagram project that was initially directed at writers, but is now also directed towards Enneagram coaches, therapists and educators who want to use stories to teach the Enneagram in a way that is accessible, without resorting to the utter…

Explaining the Enneagram, Part Two: Countertypes and Health

Let’s start by admitting something: the Enneagram is always evolving, and that makes teaching the “true” Enneagram a bit hard. One of the stumbling blocks to writing this post is that different authors have some different perspectives, particularly on the countertypes. There are three basic reasons why people might disagree, on the Enneagram or just about anything else. Two people have different…

Explaining the Enneagram Part One: Essential Types

This thing is confusing and I sincerely apologize There are two aspects to your Enneagram – your basic nature, and the various ways that can be shaped by your environment, especially in early childhood. Too many Enneagram educators don’t explain that well. Part of the problem is that early educators tended to sometimes use “personality” to mean your type and sometimes to mean ego-driven,…

Imagine your Dad walks up to you and says “I’m worried for the calendar. It’s days are grouped into segments of 28 to 31.” He stares at you, and you force a laugh, then spend hours afterwards wondering if that was a joke. It had the structure of a joke. He told it like it was a joke. Was there some obvious point he was getting at, or a pun that you missed? Then, after thinking about it way too…