Dude, Garcia Looked Right At Me—I’m Awesome!
Damn, who's he looking at now? Long ago, a hundred bad haircuts into my Jurassic past, I regularly attended Grateful Dead concerts. I went to a lot of them, because for me and a zillion other fervid...
View ArticleThe Transient, Enduring, Gone-But-Forever-Now Plums
For the last six or seven years, I’ve thought the plum tree in our yard was a goner. The tree would produce another season’s worth of sweet, juicy fruit, and in the picking, I’d see the deep, dry...
View ArticleIf There’s a Fall, Will There Be Bruises?
Stone Sleight-of-Hand, Big Sur Style A wind has blown the rain away and blown the sky away and all the leaves away, and the trees stand. I think, I too, have known autumn too long. —e.e. cummings...
View ArticleHow Writers (and Cicadas) Work
I’ve been rereading Annie Dillard’s fine Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, for the third or fourth time. It’s a marvelous work, almost like drinking in the molten stuff of imagination itself, for the language...
View ArticleLost Dogs, Lost Dads and the Unhesitating Heart
There’s Something About Harry Before I had heard that this dog had been lost, before I’d heard that his owner was lost without him, I felt a pang myself. That’s the power of an image—or more...
View ArticleMark Twain’s 10-Sentence Course on Branding and Marketing
Yeah it’s real, and it’s on my bicep. Lucky that cigar isn’t lit. I’ve discovered the secret of good writing: write about a famous writer, and use his actual words to build all the basic layers—and...
View ArticleHow a Harvest of Juicy Plums Is Like a Dormant Short Story
Yeah, and they tasted even better than they looked There is something about beginnings and endings that makes me pull out my wise sage hat. Nope, I’m not going to (at least immediately) discuss how...
View ArticleFeeling a Word’s Curves—Oh, the Ecstasy!
Writers can have a volatile relationship with words, often loving the little darlings when they line up in convivial cooperation. Sometimes words supply delight even when sentence forms are abused to...
View ArticleParanoid Bell Peppers and Other Writing Prompts
Writing prompts are small sparklers that can light up corners of your writing mind, corners that might remain dark without the nudge. Prompts can be so completely off the wall—”Describe how your...
View ArticleCaution: This Fiction Contains Pulp
My last post was about how writing prompts can spread some salsa on your keyboard to get your writing moving. In checking out some of the writing prompt sites, I found this prompt contest, which...
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