From the category archives:

writing

And we stay.

February 24, 2010
Thumbnail image for And we stay.

Without the formula of sound,
It passes, and we stay:
– A Light Exists in Spring
I find myself reading Emily Dickinson’s poetry, not because of what she does or does not say, but because she said it without an audience. She never really had one in her lifetime, writing her poems in a vacuum. Eventually all but entombed [...]

1 comment Read the full article →

Deus ex machina.

January 2, 2010

Faith and hope have me trapped. I keep hoping for an amazing break in my life, hoping for success in at least one of the Big Three areas we humans measure success in.
I know the machine. It’s been running for about 36 years.
The god in it is really grinding the gears. The noise drowns out [...]

0 comments Read the full article →

The journal collector.

November 21, 2009

Of blank journals, I have many.
Notoriously so, they are arranged tightly in a bookshelf in my bedroom. Of filled journals, I have many, but there is always a large collection of blank journals and books, waiting.
“Why are you buying that?” I’ve been asked when purchasing yet another blank journal. “You already have lots of them!”
This [...]

2 comments Read the full article →

Write this month.

November 1, 2009

Today is the start of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) in which participants are challenged to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. There aren’t too many other qualifications, including any that say you have to actually write a good novel.
I participated and completed the challenge a few years back. It boiled [...]

0 comments Read the full article →

The comma.

August 5, 2009

The comma is the punctuational equivalent to life activities such as smelling roses and being still and knowing who is god.
In a recent email to a friend, I noted in closing that the email “probably contained too many exclamation points.”
I seem to abuse the comma and the exclamation point to a frightening extent, in both [...]

0 comments Read the full article →

Misconception #4: Written as it is.

August 13, 2008

::Start here.::
You must remember, above all things, that I’m aware of the audience.
I don’t show the audience the grubby gears and mechanics of the backstage area, hidden behind the backdrops. I might provide you with an act or two (or three) of drama and melancholy, but that’s still in front of the set.
So you don’t [...]

0 comments Read the full article →

Answers-by-questions.

February 20, 2008

I cannot stand the latest trend in defensive discourse. It’s one where a person speaks and/or writes using questions that he or she answers immediately. Here’s an example from a post over at my Lone Prairie Studies blog:
We CRAVED the word of God. WE CRAVED the preaching of the gospel. We were starving and wasting [...]

3 comments Read the full article →

Cryptic keeper.

September 26, 2007

“Your posts are so cryptic,” she said.
“Oh…” I replied.
“I wonder if you’re talking about me,” she said.
No, I’m not.
And of course, yes, I am.
But no.
Except when it’s yes.
You’re reading it, aren’t you?
But no.
I certainly can’t name names, yet I really must write right from experience.
She was right, though I don’t intend to be obtuse, obscure, [...]

10 comments Read the full article →

Ink across paper across time.

September 13, 2007

An email arrived yesterday evening. It was lengthy and, with a quick glance at the neat paragraphical structure, I decided to print it out on paper and read it, giving it a paper-real moment. There are emails that are short and quick and informative, serving the purpose of instant communication. And then there are emails [...]

2 comments Read the full article →

It’s the notes in the margin that count.

April 23, 2007

When I was a reporter, I spent half of my time taking notes at meetings, and the other half drawing in the margins of my notebooks. I still have my notebooks, and when I look through them, I’m amazed at the stuff I collected over three years’ worth of newspaper reporting.
First, there’s the caricatures of [...]

0 comments Read the full article →

← Previous Entries


eXTReMe Tracker