Blog
At the Start of a New School Year
Here we are again at the start of a new school year. Autumn, customarily notable for its decay—leaves falling and winter coming—has always signaled the start for me. I’ve spent forty-two years of my life teaching people how to be better writers, so fall has always meant renewal. It’s always been the chance to start…
Read MoreCharacters on Road Trips
At 12:30 a.m. the night before Cathy and I were to board a plane to Kennedy airport and then on to Burlington, Vermont, I happened to check my phone where I learned the flight from Kennedy to Burlington had been cancelled, and, when Cathy called Delta, she learned that there were no other flights the…
Read MoreKeep Working
Here we are at the end of July, the time when we begin to make the turn to the start of a new school year. For me, it’s a few weeks off, but those weeks will go fast, and before I know it, the endless days of summer will come to an end. It’s a…
Read MoreThe Importance of Silence in Narratives
My wife Cathy is in Chicago this week, visiting her sister, so, the house, without her to talk to, is filled with much more silence than usual. This has me thinking about how fiction writers sometimes rush to get the plot onto the page, neglecting the benefits of putting space around significant events through the…
Read MoreThe Emotions Behind the Facades
As many of you probably know, I had a stroke nearly twelve years ago. A blood clot traveled to my brain. Fortunately, I left the hospital, after two days, with no physical impairments. Since then, my doctor has had me taking an adult-strength aspirin every day. It’s kept my blood from clotting, but it’s also…
Read MoreSensory Trails and the Writing of Memoir
On Saturday, Cathy and I drove out to a living historical farm. The weather was pleasant—temps in the low-80’s with little humidity—and it was a pleasure to get out into the country. We walked up a lane along a field where a man was using a reaper-binder to assemble wheat shocks. We passed the chicken…
Read MoreQuick Starts
It’s a pleasant Sunday. Cathy and I have been out for breakfast and then to our favorite produce market where we got some Georgia peaches and locally grown tomatoes, zucchini, summer squash, cucumbers, and small, red-skinned potatoes. In the meantime, a granddaughter is about to give birth to her first child in North Carolina. It’s…
Read MoreEveryone Talks about the Weather
We’ve had a stretch of hot temperatures lately, which has me thinking about how writers can use weather in their work. Let’s say a narrative takes place during a time of extreme heat, cold, rain, drought, etc. What might that weather do for the story at hand, and what should the writer be aware of…
Read MoreSmall Irritants and Narratives
I’m going through a time when things just seem to be out of kilter—nothing major, just little things that frustrate me. This morning, for instance, I was cleaning my glasses when the top of the little spray bottle rolled off the top of the dresser, never to be seen again. I looked under the dresser…
Read MoreA Prompt for Writing about Troubled Times
My blog post is late this week because I came home yesterday evening from giving three craft lectures at the West Virginia Writers annual conference and couldn’t bring myself to face the blank page. I’d given what I’d had to the good folks in West Virginia, and all I wanted to do was watch a…
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