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Fifty Little Bits of Gratitude
I wasn’t planning to post again before 2016, but along came one of my favorite bloggers, Susie Lindau, with a great party participation idea (because she’s a party kind of gal). Set a timer for 10...
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Word rot, waybacking, and betting on paper
According to Internet experts, both high art and mundane cultural artifacts may be more like Snapchat conversations than cave paintings. …Continue reading →
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Gag order: finding the courage to speak
“If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” I nearly fell over when I heard …Continue reading →
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My right brain, yearning to be free
Like most people, I conceive of myself as a unitary individual with a singular identity. That’s how the government—and my family—looks at me (one social security number, one wife, one mom). But there...
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Not entitled to be untitled
Score: Title = 0, Me = 0. No winners here yet. For the last few weeks, I’ve been wrestling with the title of my soon-to-be-published novel. (Although wrestling may be too genteel a word. It’s more like...
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Photo challenge: feeling the love in nature
2011 Snow in Lake Tahoe Five more photos and 149 words follow. 2012 The Dipsea Trail at Dusk 2013 Redwoods in Mill Valley 2014 Morning Moon in the Back Yard (San Mateo) 2015 Beach in Santa Cruz 2016...
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Doggy essence hinders novel’s progress
You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Nature trumps nurture. [Insert cliche of your choice here.] You get the idea: it’s difficult if not impossible to change your beliefs, attitudes, temperament,...
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500 reasons* to get out of bed
*Actually, more like five-ish. That headline is unabashed click-bait. Maybe readers will supply the other 495-ish. Before we get started, why is having reasons to get out of bed important? By Pnapora –...
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Princely: a salute to our lost musical storytellers
The e-mail notification popped up in the lower corner of my screen: “Rock Royal Prince Dead at 57.” Oh no. Not another one. This comes in a year when we have already lost more talented musicians than I...
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Where wrinkles are admired, tolerated, and required
It’s the fifth annual Beauty of a Woman Blogfest hosted by August McLaughlin. This year, I offer a meditation in pictures on something women have a big problem with, on our faces and sometimes other...
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Recipes are just suggestions (writing, blogging, sourdough)
I’ve been struggling to find a writing recipe for getting through the intolerable middle of writing my novel, as I discussed in March. Now I think my inability to find a step-by-step guide out of the...
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Growing up, take 2
When you have kids, you become a kid again yourself in many ways. Some of these ways are fun—you can jump in mud puddles, drink hot chocolate, lounge in your jammies, read silly books. Others are not...
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The novel, reduced to absurdity
Unless you’ve been living in a cave or atop a Himalayan peak, you’ve probably heard the news that humans now have a shorter attention span than goldfish. (Eight seconds, in case you’re wondering.) This...
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The water’s fine but we are not
On vacation, my mind inevitably turns to dark topics, as my posts from last summer prove (“The Nihilist on Vacation” parts one and two). This summer, I sit contemplating the sparkle of the pool. There...
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Carry it home with you
Less than a week has passed since I returned from the Sonoma County Writers Camp, organized by two amazing writing teachers—Ellen Sussman and Elizabeth Stark—with an appearance by Angie Powers and...
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1-2-3-4-5: How to write an essay
First, you must obtain a topic. They are not hard to come by. They are everywhere: in the cafés, on the sidewalks, in the muggy offices of bureaucrats. If you lack one, your taskmaster will supply it...
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Why Donald Trump needs to read poetry (and get a cat)
This is not a political blog post per se, although when I’m done you will probably be able to tell on which end of the political spectrum I fall. Nor is the title deliberate click-bait, though I...
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How to write a novel
Certainly, this is more difficult than writing an essay. You will envy those youthful writers who not only did it in their twenties (or earlier) but got published—and famous. To keep from becoming too...
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Hands off my m.j.*
Every election cycle, Californians get to vote for their favorite stories. True, these stories have all the reading appeal of stale cereal. They’re printed in two columns on the gray newsprint of the...
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Being vs. doing
I’ve never had a problem accomplishing things. I am the conscientious one. The one who never pulled an all-nighter in college because my papers were always finished days before their due dates. The one...
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