If someone is trying to solve a murder mystery, or even write one, they need to provide the suspect with three things. The suspect has to have means, motive, and opportunity.
When you’re writing, your work has to have a story to tell (means), it has to be told in a palatable way (motive), and it has to be made available to people to be read (opportunity).
And sadly, all three of these tasks fall, to a certain extent, under the heading of Read more
“Writing practice is like making bread!” I’d said, though I wasn’t sure at the time why I’d said it.
It started while I was making bread, I’d gotten a message that my turn to post here on our blog was fast approaching. I don’t know how you deal with, or feel about deadlines. For me there is a combined sense of excitement … and of dread.
I don’t share this here much, but I have ADHD. Deadlines are the enemy of many of my Read more
I love dramatic statements. It’s something like swearing in church. Or at least swearing when people aren’t used to you swearing.
I try to control my language as much as possible. Not because I feel I need to be polite all the time or because I fear any great risk for my afterlife or even for my reputation.
No, I refrain from swearing when I think to, because that way, when I do let fly with some expletive, people F*cking well believe that I am serious. (sorry, but you get my point, right?)
I’m many things. I’ve had many jobs. I’ve had several educations in various things.
Yes, I’m a writer. And yes, I know a lot of very unusual things, trivia, minutia, facts and factoids, things that I almost have no business knowing.
It all comes from having been so many things in life and done so many jobs.
I’ve talked occasionally about some of those jobs. I’ve worked in kitchens and on construction sites. I’ve worked in a printing plant, and on farms. I’ve been an auctioneer and I’ve been a second hand dealer and I’ve been an antique dealer. I’ve been a computer programmer, and I’ve been a computer technician.
So, you’re stuck at home, work’s on hold, and you’re struggling to stay on task … or even remember what day it is.
I get it. I truly do.
I’ve been working from home for a few years now. And I understand very well how difficult it is to concentrate on something you don’t normally do at home when there’s all those home things to do.
I mean, how long have you been promising yourself that you’d reorganize that room, clean out those closets, alphabetize your spice rack?
Yes. I know, you thought I was going to say “Write, Dammit!” Read more
That’s right. I said it. It will all soon be over. The end is coming faster than you think. And there will be no way to stop it, and no way to save yourself from its coming.
The end of 2019 is just a day and a half away.
And when it gets here, you are required by tradition, and by your anxious nature, to take stock of your declared resolutions and admit failure and defeat.
The thing is that you didn’t fail so much as you miscalculated.
You swore you’d have written that book. You resolved to have submitted a short story every month. You decreed that you would create a schedule and then stick to it.
No, not that you made resolutions. Your trouble is that you worded them wrong.
Listen, you’re a writer. How many times have you rewritten some sentence or paragraph or even just a phrase or a word? Read more
As a writer, I spend a lot of time … not writing. If you don’t believe me, just ask our blog wrangler, the inimitable Lori Twining, she’s always trying to get me to write my blog post. The funny thing is that blog writing is half of what I do for a living. Ha ha …
… oh, Lori doesn’t think that’s as funny as I do …
But I have a life. I have a lot of things going on in that life. The website I work for locally was recently hacked and it’s one of my jobs to see that that doesn’t happen again.
How am I supposed to write while the bad people are trying to use our site to get sensitive info from our readers.
My boss asked me recently, “Why don’t you write for our site any more?”
Read more