writing – Page 4 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

April 1, 2021

Power (DOG EAR)

here are times when it becomes evident that writing is like magical spell-casting (if that were, indeed, a thing). It takes years to hone one’s writing ability. But once one is a writer, people in general concede that the writer has a power. In the paper the other day, I read of a lawmaker who is enacting legislation to suppress voting (by making it illegal to distribute water to those waiting in hot sun-blasted lines for a chance to vote in ever-restricted poling places. I simply noted (in as few sentences and with as few words as possible) that such […]

May 20, 2021

Making Room (DOG EAR)

ell, it was time for the quarterly National Model Railroad Association newsletter again (South-East region only, thank God). It’s that time when I curse my late entries and the scramble to get everything into the newsletter, fighting with oversized photos, rambling copy and Microsoft Publisher. I’m always pleased with the result but not the process. This time, I had my own contribution, a rather important piece I wrote, three-quarters of a page, that would talk about the importance of a train club being there for its membership. I have just dropped out of another club for exactly that reason – […]

February 11, 2022

Intentions (DOG EAR)

had a lot of intentions for this site. First off, I thought it would be a good way to drive sales (it didn’t, not really). Also, as I was moving my first book to market shelves, I thought that it would be great to make this site into a cyber coffee shop. Originally I clumped it all together, discussions about books I was reading and thoughts about publishing and media. But quickly I realized that these were two different things so I split hem into reviews (about books I read) and Dog Ear (which is about thoughts I had). Of […]

September 1, 2022

The Freaks (DOG EAR)

his is a little secret I’m mentioned a couple of times on this site; I’ve been funning around writing erotica elsewhere for years. While you are all looking at me funny and squirming, I’ll also mentioned that I was quite good. On the base I post on, I’ve got over a thousand watchers and a half-million views. People think I’m pretty good at it. Beside the free stuff there, I also was contacted a few years back by a publisher and created three collections for them (for which I was paid (but not a lot – it’s a tough racket)). […]

September 15, 2022

The World the Internet Unmade (DOG EAR)

es, the world is certainly different since the internet came along. I can remember seeing it for the first time when I worked in a small software shop and someone demoed it. I was so stunned that, using a Netscape browser, you could click about the world and see so many webpages about cats. That night, after a dinner out, I brought my wife into the office so that we could see the paintings of the Louvre. Of course, back then, it was a slow scan for each one, nearly as long as they took to originally paint. But yes, […]

December 8, 2022

You call yourself a writer? (DOG EAR)

f there is one thing that peeves me, it’s when I misspell something (as I just did for mispell) and someone tosses that comment my way; “I thought you were a writer.” It happened the other day. Was at a party and some of the younger goers wanted to play a tile-based game where you kinda play scrabble against each other in a dead-heat rush. So out of three games, I didn’t win at all (though on the second, I was a contender). But at the end of the third game, two of the more-successful players actually took my tiles […]