Over the past couple of years, author Elizabeth Gilbert has been something of a joke in our house. We read her book The Last American Man for book group, and neither Kris nor I were impressed. It was certainly well-written, but the subject was lame, and we felt as if Gilbert were writing a love …
When I was young, I wanted to be a poet. I wrote a lot of very bad poetry during my teenage years. It’s been a long time since I made poetry a habit. Still, I generally jot a few lines every year, and then forget about them. Sometimes — like tonight — I’ll stumble upon …
There are things that everybody else loves but which, whether due to character flaw or discerning taste, I do not. I’m always baffled by this phenomenon. Recently, for example, I decided that I’d waited long enough. After five years, I was ready to watch The Lord of the Rings films again. Surely they had improved …
This is how geeky I am (as if you all needed another example). For years, I’ve bemoaned the fact that I’ve been unable to find a good college-level grammar class to take. All of the college-level grammar classes around here are remedial. I don’t want a remedial grammar class. I want an advanced grammar class …
I have an editor. Each week one of my posts from Get Rich Slowly is reprinted at MSN Money’s personal finance blog, Smart Spending. I work with a woman named Karen Datko, whom I admire a great deal. She’s funny and helpful and full of advice. Karen and I have a difference of opinion on …
Strange. I haven’t written anything since last Wednesday or Thursday. Now that it’s time to get some stuff ready for the morning, I find that I don’t have it in me. My writing muscles won’t flex. They’ve atrophied. It’s great to take time off, but I find that this is sometimes the result — I …
It feels so good to finally break through a barrier. Or two. The last week has been awful. I haven’t been able to write. I sit and stare at the computer screen, but nothing comes. “I’ve lost it,” I think. “I’m doomed.” I try to find other things to occupy my time, but all I …
Yessir, this full-time writing stuff is going to be amazing. On Sunday, I generated ten blog posts on various topics. (None of them for foldedspace, sadly.) Today, I produced 28 single-spaced pages for an e-book project. The mind boggles. (Of course, much of that material was refurbished from previous bits, but still…there was plenty of …
I’m at an interesting place in my life, a place it had never occurred to me I’d reach. My little personal finance blog has taken on a life of its own. It’s a business. It’s a brand. Sure, it’s a small business and a small brand, but that’s a start. But what do I do …
The snowflake method for writing a novel seems needlessly complex. In general, I think elaborate mind-mapping systems for writing are counter-productive. When I write a story, I have a clear picture of who my characters are — I don’t need to write pages of notes about what they eat for breakfast. At the same time, …