In the ink well

‘m walking out of the building a few days ago, crossing the breezeway to the parking garage. Most of the yuppies are zombie-walking with their phones up in front of their eyes, living their blunt little lives with their foreshortened minds. Me, I’m taking in the sun and air, and I’ve got a handful of goodies the likes of which they couldn’t imagine. I’ll break from the description to note that there are writers out there who read nothing but the area of their speciality. You can tell it in historical novels where the source information lists pages of books. […]

t’s pretty tough to keep up the blogs I do. Not only do I need to write something about writing (DOG EAR), but then I have a weekly book review. Dog Ear is generally doable – I just catch whatever is passing through my mind, examine it during a walk and write about its angles. But for book reviews, I need a book. A week. Now, I’ve read literally thousands of books in my life. I’ve got them all over the house and boxes of them in the attic and the storage vault. However, about 95% if them I don’t […]

remember the rank, horrible smell of shitty writing way back when I was in my twenties, watching Blade Runner in the theater. Here’s a movie that focuses on man’s mortality, the close proximity to death, and just how fragile life really is. And in the end, when the point is made and we’re rocking back in our seats, it’s un-made with a stupid final scene with the hero and his girl driving off, explaining how nobody was really going to die, how everything would be happy, and how tomorrow was going to be a better day. Even then, I thought […]

his Dog Ear comes on the end of a bit of a dilemma. Had an interesting thing happen to me (maybe today, maybe a couple of days ago, and remember these blogs are posted well off the actual dates of occurrence). Anyway, the short of it – someone flirted with me, to the point of hitting me up. I won’t say I didn’t like it. She was just nice, about my age, and we had a lot of common. Turns out we had youthful shared experiences. So next thing I know, I getting that gentle touch as she made her […]

ne thing about writing – people can sure misunderstand what you say. Perhaps you didn’t word it correctly. Or perhaps the reader came to your piece with emotions clouding his reception. Who knows? It doesn’t matter what the reason is – just know that it happens. Recently, I wrote about a coworker playing a pretty good prank on me (HERE). It was really funny when I related it to my buddy Greg, laughing in recollection as I spooled it out. A little later, I decided to blog it up, describing it in terms of the interruption it caused to a […]

ast DOG EAR, I told my friend that it isn’t time writers lack, it’s creativity and passion. And she told me in her comment to my piece that while that might be true, she was going to fight to find her creativity. And that opens an interesting thought. Writers have to make time, this I know. But why should we have to wait for creativity to strike? Perhaps we need to make that, too. Yeah, she kicked me in the ass. I sat there looking over her comments – it was 10:30 on a Sunday night. I’d just finished the […]

rom an email from a dear friend of mine… “So I decided to ask you for advice. You have a home, a wife, a job, a yard, a pet, a train hobby, ride a bike, and you and JB travel.   So how do you find time to write? Do you apply your stealth mode and disappear……and if so, how do you find time?” I will admit that I face a significant time shortage. I used to set aside every Tuesday and Thursday evening for writing (three hours and then a cool-down walk). I also used my lunch breaks for […]

riting isn’t…. Deleting obvious spam postings out of my comments folders. Backing up this website. Fussing with the state over taxation forms. Dealing with copyright issues for song usage, and paying royalties for use. Sitting at a show booth for hours and only getting nibbles. Standing at the new arrivals section of the book store and seeing nothing but crap. Making sure the automated backups get all my latest versions of my writings. Getting interrupted at lunch when all I want to do is write (and the conversation that supersedes the writing is flat and dull). Having to jog at […]

So the latest on the literature blog front is the siege by unscrupulous mini-marketers, the ones who want to sell cheap purses, knockoff sunglasses, or just get you to go to their site where you can be infected. And what does this have to do with writing? I ask myself that, often. Park of being a writer is exposure, and part of exposure, these days, is maintaining a site. I still slip a few books out through here, now and again (see my wonderful link below, which will take you to reputable sales sites such as amazon). But suddenly I’m […]

It’s a quiet Monday night. I’m home from a casual work session at the train club, working out a blog for the coming week. Unlike most nights, I’m carrying a production pager (the kid who is supposed to have it is visiting his fiancée in Toronto and everyone else has kids this weekend, so against my better judgment, I took it). I’m in that writer’s space now: all the thoughts, words and elements neatly switching around in my head, aligning. I can see where I’m going, the points I’ll make, the specific words that will punch meaning across. The words […]