I Remember That
We went to high school together. She was a year behind me even though she was a year older, and one evening at an end-of-the-year picnic for the sophomore and junior classes, she got flirty with me. We ended up, later that night, kissing in the shadows of a recessed spot outside the school building.…
Read MoreWhat Kind of Writer Are You?
This afternoon, while driving through Ohio farm country, I remembered how I was in an agriculture class in high school for exactly one day. That’s all it took for me to know I was in the wrong place. I was there because my father was a farmer, and even though he supported me in my…
Read MoreOptions for Our Characters
This weekend, my birthday rolled around. Cathy got me this sit-to-stand desk, so I can work standing up if I choose, or I can lower the desk and sit down. I very much appreciate this gift because it should help with my recurring sciatic nerve pain that I often aggravate with long periods of staying…
Read MoreA Little Something Sweet: Plotting Our Fiction
We start with a bit of jelly on a plastic lid. Cathy and I were having breakfast on a restaurant’s patio this morning and bees were swarming around each table, trying to get at everyone’s food. “All they want is a little something sweet,” Cathy said. Then she took the lid off the little plastic…
Read MoreAnd So We Begin
It’s been an uneventful week here in the Martin household. A neighbor who recently moved away paid a visit and there was much hilarity on our patio. Cathy attended her first meeting of The Daughters of the American Revolution. Lettuce and kale and spinach are producing like crazy in our garden. Cathy and I had…
Read MoreThe Small, Good Things
Friday, while I was running on the treadmill, I felt my left knee lock up. I got off the treadmill and moved about until my knee felt fine again. I finished my run with no further difficulty until I got off the treadmill and had a pain in my hip, leg, and knee. Having experienced…
Read MoreUntil It’s Done: Writers and Work
On this Labor Day weekend, I’m thinking a good deal about work and what it takes to keep doing it. My father farmed all his life until his heart disease forced him to stop. His second heart attack, the one that killed him, happened when he was mowing the yard on one of the hottest…
Read MoreLet’s Make a Scene
When children misbehave in public, parents often tell them, “Don’t make a scene.” What an unfortunate reprimand for any child who one day might be a writer, particularly if we’re prose writers. We spend our days making scenes on the page. I want to get down to basics in this post; I want to illustrate…
Read MoreRound Characters
As some of you know, Cathy and I have two raised beds in a community garden. The garden is along a busy road and highly visible. This may explain, at least in part, why it’s tempting for someone to steal vegetables. No one has taken anything from our beds, perhaps because they’re at the rear…
Read MoreHope and Love: A Writer’s Choice
Each year, in August, I finish teaching a workshop at the Vermont College of Fine Arts Writers’ Conference and then turn my attention to a new school year at Ohio State University. For teachers and students, hope springs eternal in autumn. A new academic year; a new beginning. Writing is an act of faith and…
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