Last month, I flew to Alaska for a writer’s retreat hosted by Craig Martelle, SciFi author and the leader of the 20Booksto50K movement. It was the first time I’d been on an airplane in roughly three decades. While I’m an avid planespotter, most of my travel is done by car. The logistics of traveling by air were a little baffling. I ended up shifting my plans and staying in Fairbanks after the retreat ended, thereby negating the need for a rental…
I’ve spent the past year recovering from a hard burnout, something I discussed here along with my plans to recover from it. When I wrote that post, I hadn’t fully grasped the depth of that burnout or the causes. Gradually, though, I’ve come to realize that I’d been sliding into burnout for years, and not every factor of the burnout was within my control. Be that as it may, I’ve had to take a hard look at my life and…
Fall is in the air and, before we know it, Halloween will be here. It’s more than pumpkins and costumes and things that go bump in the night; there’s also plenty of room for things that go bump during the day, like zombies. Yup, I love me some campy zombie movies. It all started with Shaun of the Dead, the British Horror Comedy spoofing zombie apocalypse flicks. A friend and coworker, back when I held a real job at a…
I’m reading Four-Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman right now based on a recommendation by Becca Syme, a writer coach whose wisdom particularly resonates with me. Burkeman’s work, while wise in its own way, is also incredibly flawed, particularly in his view of economics. At one point, for instance, he contrasts choosing to island hop across Greece against choosing to feed homeless families. His point is that our time is limited and whatever we choose to do…
A couple of days ago, I had a long talk with a friend about the problems I’m having connecting with characters. The underlying assumption on her part during the entire discussion was that my thought processes, my preferred schedule, my preferred writing time, and even my preferred way of interacting with others is abnormal and must, therefore, be fixed. While I appreciate the concern on her part (and the friendly ear), I have a serious problem with the attitude that:…
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. Of my screed from earlier today, many may say that surely the 9th Amendment (in theory, at least) protects unenumerated rights and freedoms of individuals. We have already seen that this is, in practice, untrue. Refer again to the offhand and incomplete list of government intrusions from the past two years, and it’s easy to see that government has…
The problem with viewing the Constitution and Bill of Rights as prohibitions on government activities is that those rights and freedoms not specifically articulated are then interpreted as perfectly allowable intrusions by government, and its agents, on the anomaly of individual freedom. What if, instead, we recognize individual freedom as the default and government intrusion as the anomaly? This is, I believe, the stance the Founding Fathers took when they drafted both documents, knowing full well (again, I believe)…
When we were kids, my mom used to drag us all over the mountains searching for wildflowers. My grandmother, MawMaw, often came with us, riding in the front seat with Mom while we kids packed ourselves into the back, our slender limbs overlapping. Mom came from a large family of flower lovers. The brothers tilled wide gardens for summer’s crops, and the sisters collected living jewels, decorating their yards with flowers bought, traded, and (occasionally) stolen. Thrift, for example, must…
Every spring, violets bloom in a mass of purple and white in yards all across the South. Every time I see them, I think of two things: Easter (and I have no idea why) and my paternal grandmother’s violet jam. Nanny grew up during the Depression when folks took economizing to a whole new level. Everything had a purpose. Nothing was wasted. Nanny reduced, reused, and recycled long before the expression became popular among greenies. She was so thrifty, she…
A couple of weeks ago, this website was bombarded with nearly 4,800 automatically generated spam comments. To combat that problem, I’ve disabled commenting on posts published more than thirty days ago. Those who have previously left comments should have no problem commenting immediately on newer posts. However, comments from new visitors will continue to be held in moderation until I can examine them. My apologies for this inconvenience.