Giving Thanks

Yesterday, I had the great pleasure of doing something I haven’t done at least since a run of glorious Indian Summer (apologies for the phrase, I just don’t know what to call it now) days in October: I woke up in a warm house. For most people checking out a writer’s blog, this is no […]

Missing in Action

I’m writing very off-the-cuff today. Normally, when I write these blog posts I draft them in a Word document and edit them heavily, often over several hours or days. However, life has been such that even when I have an idea for a post, I rarely get to sit down and work on it. So, […]

Of Dogs and Tricks

When our departed and much-beloved German shepherd, Cassie was well into her middle age, she did something “old dogs” are reputedly unable to do: she learned a new trick. We discovered this trick on a Thanksgiving Day. After the meal, we all staggered away from the table to comfortable parts of the house to collapse […]

Ordinary People

Well, it’s been a couple of weeks, whew. If you missed me, I spent the last week co-leading a five-day, four-night watershed education workshop for a group of teachers. It was a lot of fun, and a lot of work, and I ended the week thoroughly exhausted. I also came out with yet further affirmation […]

It’s Been A Week

Literally, it’s been a week since my last post and it feels like a lot has been happening, yet it also feels like nothing has been happening. It’s also “been a week” in the figurative sense since my last post, and I’m guessing you know what I mean. Someone asks how you’re doing and you […]

The Last Refuge

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent Isaac Asimov, Foundation I read the above quote many, many years ago. While I don’t remember much about the book itself, that quote has always stuck with me, and I think of it often. Just last week, for example, it came to mind as I watched the […]

This Story Will Never Go Out of Style

A few years back I had a great idea for a novel. Like the one I mentioned a few weeks ago, I wish I’d written it, as it would be quite appropriate given our current situation. The concept was inspired by one of the tropes that (predictably) was trotted out in the wake of a […]

Writing Time

“And here was another familiar sensation, back for a return visit after four years: that anger at the telephone, the urge to simply rip it out of the wall and fire it across the room. Why did the whole world have to call while I was writing?” – Stephen King, Bag of Bones When I […]

Flash: On the Barricade

For today, I’m posting a piece of very raw, very unrefined (can something truly be very raw? Or very unrefined? Seems to me that while something can be cooked or refined to varying degrees, there’s really only one raw, one unrefined. Anyway….) flash fiction. I am resisting the urge to edit it beyond taking out […]