Blog

Was Grandma This Excited When TV Was Invented?

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13 Jan 2013
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I’ve joked to co-workers that I’m a social media dinosaur. With as much time as I spend on Facebook and Twitter, that’s not exactly true. I follow multiple blogs. I have Pinterest boards. I get most of my news online. I designed and update my own website. But I’m 47. Which means I didn’t have email or a cell phone or the Internet in my first couple of jobs. I faxed news releases when I was a media relations coordinator and followed up by phone. My word processor required coding for bold, italics and centering.  (Anyone remember WordStar?) Communications channels...
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Rekindling Creative Abandon

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07 Jan 2013
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My regular coffee dates with my friend Tracy always inspire me, or at the very least, give me some new insight to chew on. At the end of today’s coffee date, she said, “So…what’s up with your blog?” I had my excuses ready: no time, too much pressure, nothing interesting to say. We ended up staying at the coffee shop another half hour during which time I had an epiphany. Tracy and I are both PR professionals who have had to write and edit as part of our jobs for more than two decades.  We write for media and public...
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Reading Beyond the Lines

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14 Nov 2012
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As a writer and storyteller, I love exploring how artists use different media to tell stories – books, poetry, music, painting, plays, movies. Each medium teases a different part of our brain. Some allow us to be more passive (movies) while others require us to be more engaged (“reading” a painting or photograph). The National Gallery of Art’s website says this about reading paintings:With a book we have to imagine the scene, whereas with a painting it is created for us (as it is with a film). So when we read a book, we convert, via our imaginations, what is...
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Legalize Marjiuana? Maybe. But Ban Pinterest Stat.

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02 Nov 2012
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There are all sorts of addictions:  alcohol, drugs, shopping, food, work. But social media addiction may be our next national crisis. You know you’re addicted when you can’t do without something… but also when that “something” crowds out more important parts of your life. In my case, writing. Before Pinterest, there were a few web sites I checked each morning while I had my first cup of coffee: Facebook, web mail, the local paper, cnn.com.  Each of those entailed a quick scan and I moved on. Not with Pinterest. I don’t want to calculate the hours I’ve spent searching Food...
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Take That, Writer’s Block!

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24 Aug 2012
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It’s Insight Friday. A month ago, a lightning strike fried the circuitry in my double oven. It died and could not be resuscitated. We found a great deal on a replacement but it would be a number of weeks before it would arrive. Suddenly, I *had* to bake. No matter that I rarely used the oven during summer because of the heat in the house. I was adrift. I’d find new cookie recipes that couldn’t be tried. I’d stare at the browning bananas, knowing they couldn’t be transformed into banana bread. I wailed that I couldn’t bake a frozen pizza...
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Resisting a Timetable for Our Lives

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01 Aug 2012
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Received an amusing (and important) email early this morning. Subject line: Blog Message in the email:  Um… Write one. My dear writer friend, Micki, was gently reminding me that I’ve been lax in writing blog posts for some time. My first thought was to give you all the excuses WHY I’ve been lax (as I did in my last post about not writing). Instead, I’d like to tell you about a book I just read. The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock. Finished it in a day. One of the grittiest, most violent books I’ve ever read, but...
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Reading, Writing and Thanking

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15 Jun 2012
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I’m grateful today! The first thank-you goes to Betty McMahon. I don’t know Betty McMahon but she found my blog. And commented on an old post. And said she liked my blog and added it to her blogroll. But I’m thanking her not just for reading, but for giving me the push I needed to write a new blog post. It’s been MORE THAN THREE WEEKS. Granted, I was on business travel for a good portion of that time, but the rest of the time I was sulking around, complaining about how many extra hours I’ve been putting in at...
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Only Colin Firth Can Be Mr. Darcy

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21 May 2012
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When I’m reading a book, I get a very distinct picture of the characters in my mind. Sometimes a certain actor or actress will seem like the perfect fit. Often, the images are just a blend of traits (hair, build, voice, etc.) When a book is translated to the big screen, I’m often worried that the actors won’t do justice to the roles. I’ve been pleasantly surprised (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Hunger Games, Pride and Prejudice [BBC version] with Colin Firth). Other times, I think the casting director was on drugs (One for the Money). I’m trying something different with the...
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LINKS FOR WRITERS
   
WRITING RESOURCES
  • “On Writing,” by Stephen King
  • “What If? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers,” by Ann Bernays and Pamela Painter
  • “250 Things You Should Know about Writing,” by Chuck Wendig
  • “Unless It Moves the Human Heart: The Craft and Art of Writing,” by Roger Rosenblatt
  • “The Fire in Fiction: Passion, Purpose, and Techniques to Make Your Novel Great,” by Donald Maass
  • “How to Grow a Novel: The Most Common Mistakes Writers Make and How to Overcome Them,” by Sol Stein