Jeff O'Handley

The Doubting Writer Finds His Voice

The Doubting Writer Blog

Reading List, 2018 (Part II)

Hard to believe we’re into July already, isn’t it? Seems like just yesterday I was sitting here at my computer, likely with a blanket draped over my shoulders and posting Part I of this series. This morning I’m wearing shorts

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Oh, that jacket

First, let’s get something straight: I don’t follow fashion. I don’t care what the stars wear. And on the occasions when I happen to see snippets from the runways at Fashion Week, my reaction is usually along the lines of,

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A Facebook challenge comes to the blog!

Some time in late April, I did something I don’t normally do: I accepted a challenge. Every day for ten days, I was supposed to list a record album that I still listen to. I had been seeing this happening

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Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?

When I started this blog all the way back in…holy crap, 2011? Really? Anyway, when I started this blog back in 2011, it seemed like you couldn’t swing a dead cat around without running into a blogfest, a bloghop, or

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The Bee and the Barr

Late last night, I gave in to an itch and rubbed my eye. I knew it was a mistake, but the eye had started itching madly right around the time Last Week Tonight started. Twice during the program I dribbled

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Slow starts

True confession time: My wife and I haven’t been current with a TV show since about the time Seinfeld went off the air twenty years ago. Up until then, the Magpie (and then the Catbird) was small enough to go

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Airing it Out

One of the things I was very fortunate to do whilst on my blogging break was take an actual vacation, not just a vacation from the blog. My wife and I went to Las Vegas for a week, and stayed

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And back again.

Hello, all! It’s hard to believe it’s been over a month since I decided to take my break. I hope things have been well for all of you. They’ve been pretty good for me on the overall, though April in

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Time for…

Yesterday morning, I spent a couple of hours drafting a couple of ideas for a post to run today. They weren’t quite complete posts, though, because they never are. Even when I really, really work at pre-writing a post, when

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Reading List, 2018 (Part I)

Howdy, folks. Can’t believe we’re already in the fourth month of 2018–time is flying! So, here’s the list of what I’ve read so far: The Education of Dixie Dupree (2016), Donna Everhart. I feel like I know Donna from around

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Fire forged

In one of my manuscripts, an unlikely hero steps up in a critical moment and saves his small town from sliding into chaos. Initially, he shrugs it off, telling another character, “Someone had to do something.” Later, in a moment

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Random Thoughts

It’s been a tough week, capped off by the long drive to get the Catbird back to school from spring break. Here are some random thoughts: *Defenestrate is a great word, but, boy is it hard to work into everyday

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Another day…

…another winter weather advisory. Roughly a third of the snow that has fallen on my corner of the world has come down since March 1, according to the National Weather Service. It feels like this has been the case for

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In search of judgment

The greatest gift for every writer is judgment–Obari Gumba  Back in December, Agent Carrie and I had our annual strategy session, where we set the course for the upcoming year. One of the things Carrie wanted me to do, once

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Hello, Square One

Oh, hello, Square One, I…wasn’t expecting to see you here. How are you? It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Four years? Really, that long? Time flies, huh? Sorry I haven’t kept in touch, you know how it is. Well. I’d

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We’ve been here before

Recommended reading if you haven’t already run across it on Facebook or elsewhere: Fuck you, I like guns. I may have said this before, after some other school shooting, or a mass murder in a gay nightclub, or a massacre

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Musical Monday: Jackie Wilson said what?

It’s a Monday, there’s something like eight inches of snow on the ground (despite the forecast that told us we’d have half that, at most), and I’m kind of tired and achy, hoping it’s not something coming on. So, we’ll

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Thoughts on Sleeping Beauties, Part I

A couple of weeks back, I wrote about the Netflix series, Godless, a good show on many levels but one that fell far short on living up to the promise of its preview, which looked to be a lot more

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Thoughts on ‘Summit Fever’

Last week over at Writer Unboxed, Annie Neugebauer wrote about the perils of ‘Summit Fever,’ a condition in which mountaineers allow the desire to reach their goal–the top of the mountain–to supercede good judgement in getting there (and back down

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Godless: Opportunity Missed

A couple of months ago, The Wife made me and The Magpie watch a trailer for a new Netflix show that was soon to be airing. Pretend for a moment you have neither heard about nor seen trailer or the

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Another lightweight post

“Gonna take two weeks, gonna have a vacation”–Summertime Blues, Eddie Cochran, Jerry Capehart Last night, in the final hour or so before I went to bed, I was writing today’s post in my head, a non-review review of Sleeping Beauties,

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