Gnome’s-Eye View of My Herb Garden
Wow, speaking of a fresh perspective! A few weeks ago, my husband recycled the base of an old, rusted basketball hoop into a container garden for me. It wasn’t that I asked him to – I think he realized, finally, that showing me the second copperhead snake he found outside our door had deterred me […]
360° Panorama, featured, galaxy, gear 360, note 8, photograph, samsung, VR
Here, There Be Dragons – Plot Dragons!
My fellow Write Triber, Vinodini Iyer wrote, in a comment on my Plot Bunnies, Ninjas, and Tales of Derring-Do, “My plot bunnies sometimes start dragging a bit and I need to turn them into plot dragons to make worth a read.” Naturally, my plot dragons wanted to meet her plot dragons! Forever Friends My first plot dragon […]
Plot Bunnies, Ninjas, and Tales of Derring-Do
Have I convinced you to throw yourself into the fray? To sharpen the nib on your fountain pen, dip it into the purple ink, and write perspicacious prose in that delightfully madcap literary adventure known as NaNoWriMo? I hope so! Now, if you’re already addicted to writing, you know the drill. But if you’re still […]
action, chekhov's gun, featured, fiction, nanowrimo, plot bunny, plot ninja
NaNoWriMo Math
I remember thinking I’d never be able to break the 6,000 word barrier, let alone write 50,000 words during my first NaNoWriMo. I had something to prove, that first year – to myself. “Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something—anything—down on paper. What I’ve learned […]
October, or “NaNoWriMo Prep Month”
Some of us don’t like to color inside the lines, and November isn’t the time to start. At its core, National Novel Writing Month, or “NaNoWriMo,” is about writing fast enough to drown out the sound of the inner critic in the frantic clacking of fingernails on a keyboard. 50,000 words in 30 days, or […]
Always Look for the Helpers
I’m proud to live in Houston, Texas, and have never been more proud than now, in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. For over a week, the world watched images of the devastating Category 4 hurricane and the slow, drenching rains of “Biblical proportions” that engulfed our part of the state, covering large parts of it […]
Struggling to Find the Writer’s Voice
Struggling to “find your voice“ as a writer? How can it be that you’ve lost it? It’s like looking for the car keys clutched in your hand. What IS Voice? It’s helpful to define what “voice” is and what it isn’t. Jon Jorgenson wrote, “The artistic voice is a longing to create what does not yet exist, […]
Technologically Challenged and Chuffed!
Technologically Challenged Ever have one of those weeks when everything with electronic, electrical, or mechanical parts would do well to grow legs and run from you? We never even lost power during Hurricane Harvey, but in the few weeks since, the DSL modem fried itself (I didn’t even look at it funny, I swear!) and […]
chuffed, featured, hard drive replacement, humor, technology
Both Sides, All Sides, Your Side, My Side
Both sides, all sides, your side, my side. Can’t we all just try to see things from others’ point of view, and try to get along? Are we really hardwired to see the world as “us vs. them”? Do we need a common enemy to fight, lest we fight among ourselves? Both Sides Do It […]
all sides, bigotry, featured, forgiveness, resist, social conflict
I Can See Clearly Now
Eye health is something many of us simply take for granted. Sure, we may need glasses to see, but most of us don’t have serious issues with the health of our eyes. If that changes suddenly, it can be terrifying. Just over two years ago, I woke up with a sharp pain, in the middle […]
dry eye, eye, eye care, eye health, featured, rce, recurrent corneal erosions
Like a Reservoir
I’ve said it before: I don’t believe in writer’s block. The mind is a reservoir. Sometimes, it runs too dry and low on fresh ideas, too sluggish and stagnant to be worth lifting the heft of a pen and dipping it into the inkwell. At other times, it is overflowing – a jumble of sparkling […]
featured, language, reservoir, silence, writer's block, writers, writing
Good in a Crisis
I’ve always been good in a crisis. I fall apart weeks, months, sometimes years later. I fall apart when the sun is shining and all memory of the disaster has faded to a a transparent overlay with soft edges. The worse the disaster, the longer it takes – the more completely inappropriate the timing. But […]
Fresh Start, Fresh Perspective
It began with a change of venue, from HostGator to PeoplesHost. After nearly a decade, it was time for a fresh start. Rather than blow away the old blog, I decided to start with a new one. This gave me the opportunity to experiment with a fresh look, fresh content, fresh thoughts, and a fresh […]
