I was doing some what I heard once called AFTK (away-from-the-keyboard) writing the other day—some of you may just call it ‘spacing out’—and as I thought about a particular story idea, I realized I needed a certain type of minor supporting character. As luck would have it, I had already created such a character forContinue reading “Stephen King’s A Bit of a Tweeker”
Tag Archives: Writing
On Reading Bad Books To Become A Better Writer
I don’t know what happened to me. I used to be able to devour books like a hungry, gasoline-fed fire. It wasn’t unheard of to finish a book in a matter of days, and never more than a month. But now, I can barely finish a book in a month if I’m lucky. I knowContinue reading “On Reading Bad Books To Become A Better Writer”
Funny How? How Am I Funny?
I decided it was about time to write about writing again. I’ve been staying away from posts about my writing because, for the most part, there’s not much to tell. It’s not that I haven’t been writing—on the contrary, I’ve been busier than a one-armed paper hanger the last couple months, it’s just that there’sContinue reading “Funny How? How Am I Funny?”
5 Things I’ve Learned After a Year of Blogging
This is slightly premature, but let’s go with it: late February marks my one year anniversary here on the blog (blogiversary?). Yessiree, it’s been a whole 12 months since I started this thing…my, how things have changed. What have I learned in the past year? Let’s take a look back…The Books of Jobe, this isContinue reading “5 Things I’ve Learned After a Year of Blogging”
Minor Annoyances, A to Z—26 Words That Piss Me Off
I’ve been feeling kind of gripey lately. Maybe the cold is finally getting to me. As a native Californian, I think I’ve handled the adjustment to the frigid Midwestern winters pretty well—but we all have our breaking points. The last month or so has seen my inner grouch grow exponentially. This weekend we’re actually lookingContinue reading “Minor Annoyances, A to Z—26 Words That Piss Me Off”
The Reddit ‘No Sleep’ Experiment
So do you guys reddit? With all the mandates on writers to use all forms of social media (including my reluctant creation of an account with Google+, which I’m still trying to get a feel for), I assumed that most everyone would have at least dabbled with the internet behemoth. After reading a post fromContinue reading “The Reddit ‘No Sleep’ Experiment”
The Oddity That Is The Encouraging Rejection
I’ve become accustomed to rejection. I’m still in the early stages of my collection, as yesterday I received lucky number 13 if you’re scoring at home. But this one was different. To paraphrase, it read, in part: Thank you for submitting your story to our online magazine. Unfortunately, our editors did not feel your story wasContinue reading “The Oddity That Is The Encouraging Rejection”
Semicolon Cleanse: My Addiction to a Punctuation Mark
When I started writing again a couple of years ago, I rediscovered something I had long since forgotten—the semicolon. It hadn’t gone anywhere; no, it was there all along, just sitting there on the sidelines waiting for me to pick it back up and start using it again. And now that I’m back to writing,Continue reading “Semicolon Cleanse: My Addiction to a Punctuation Mark”
My Writing Resolutions for 2014
Lose weight. Quit smoking. Exercise more. Stop drinking. It’s that time again, when people use the new year as a chance to wipe the slate clean and hit the reset button. Stop their bad habits and start over fresh January 1st with a new beginning. They share many of the same resolutions; some manage toContinue reading “My Writing Resolutions for 2014”
How Writing Heightened My Senses
“When a regular person gets sick, they take an aspirin. When a writer gets sick, they take notes…” This past July I found myself in the hospital – as a visitor, not a patient. It was the first time I’d been in a hospital in years. I was there early in the morning, and asContinue reading “How Writing Heightened My Senses”
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