Category: The Writer’s Life
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Welcome to the Club
Sometimes I watch the Twitter-stream and think the New Digital World is a beautiful place. A place of generosity. A place of kindness. In the Sometimes you can almost hear people listening, nodding, patiently waiting their turn to add to the chorus. In the Sometimes, the digital shell dissolves and we’re in a small room…
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The Table in the Corner
There is a table in the corner of a small cafe where The Writer sits. It is a table for two, but one seat always remains empty, waiting. The table is next to a bookcase. The books there are dusty, but not forgotten. They have earned their dust. The ghosts would agree. The ghosts often…
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The Room in the Elephant
It lies on the kitchen table like a tipped tombstone, this year of late nights and early mornings, of exhilaration and frustration, of too much coffee and too few showers. The Froot Loops box is prostrate, casualty of another rushed breakfast. The kids are out the door. The dog is bark-begging back in. The spouse…
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A Word, Please
Think of a word you don’t like – one that makes you squirm. Sure, it could be a common word like “moist” or “chalky,” but choose something edgier – something you almost never say in real life. Got it? Okay, have a seat. Your word would like to have a word with you. Word: Hey.…
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A Life of Its Own
It begins as an idea in your head. Wait, back up. That’s not entirely accurate. It starts long before that. It begins as a childhood daydream, as a parade of clouds, as a balance-beam walk along a railroad track. It begins with rock-skipping, dirt-digging, butterfly-following. It begins in beautiful words and hard words. In complaint…
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Absent Brilliance
Brilliance isn’t something you can buy for yourself. You can only receive it as a gift. Some writers – I’d call them The Lucky Ones except for the fact that their brilliance is usually accompanied by a corresponding (and non-returnable) insanity – are granted the gift by the gods. Or The God. Or the universe.…
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Saturation Point
Sit down, we need to talk. Recently I’ve been observing some rather disturbing patterns in your behavior. It all started out innocently enough. You had an idea, then a dream, then a plan. You were going to be a writer. In the beginning, you wrote. And verily, your writing was crap. So you started hanging…