The Santa Anas are blowing and fires are erupting all over southern California where I am currently ensconced at the top of a canyon overlooking the Pacific. It is not quite as idyllic as it sounds, though I admit it is stunningly beautiful here, because I am here to care for a friend. Perhaps it […]
Last week I wrote a blog post titled, When One is Born a Writer.., and listed some of the things that accrue from the condition of being wonderfully scarred at birth with the love of the word. I promised then that I would compile any additions people came up with, and let me tell you, […]
"Imagination is sacred and divine–I trust it implicitly." So said Andre Dubus III at his Wordstock reading last weekend. Dubus, best known for House of Sand and Fog, read from his latest novel, The Garden of Last Days, which was inspired by the Florida sojourns of the 9-11 hijackers. After he read from the book, […]
I've just taken up running. Well, my version of running, while I get used to it, which is more like run-walking: run a block, walk a block. Actually I'm up to running two blocks, then walking two blocks. What started all of this was an offhand comment from a friend. (Oddly enough, much of my […]
I want to make it perfectly clear that I have never, ever, not once, done any of the things on the following list. No, not me. I know some people who have, though, and they told me these things. It was yesterday, during the time I had set aside to work on my novel, when […]
I'm in the process of cleaning and cooking for a Halloween party we're having tonight. Somehow, my annual chili dinner for one or two friends has turned into a last-minute shindig. Alas, this means not a lot of time to write today. However, I did rise early to work on Emma Jean,inspired by comments from […]
…one is simply different. That's all there is to it. We writers are unique (some might say odd), and often misunderstood, because we have a passion for words. Queen Victoria, ever mindful of propriety and history, once told her granddaughter, Princess Victoria Eugenie, the future queen of Spain, "Young woman, when one is born a […]
I'm not going to do Nanowrimo this year, because I need to focus on the final rewrite (yeah, right, how many times have I said that) of my current novel. But I'm a huge fan of it and had a blast doing it several years ago, when I "won" by the way. (In case you […]
Yesterday my daughter had a pumpkin-carving party, complete with home-brewed Nut Brown Ale from her boyfriend and all kinds of delicious pot luck treats. We carved the jack-o-lanterns in the backyard with leaves falling all around us in the autumn breeze and ladybugs landing on everyone. I got up this morning and wrote down all […]
The superficial, the general, skimming across the top, whatever you want to call it, hear me now, it is not a desirable thing, either in people (sorry, Paris Hilton) or the written word. I've read several different pieces lately that shared this dreaded affliction. The words stayed on the surface, never delving deep. Think about […]
