Finding The Muse Beside the Lake
For the past two weeks I’ve had the pleasure of teaching two different writing classes here at Chautauqua Institution in Western New York. Talking about one of my favorite subjects, in one of my favorite places, has been a joy. In the first class, Plotting a Murder, we did just that. Together we came up…
Read MoreCHUsday, Zucchini Recipes, and Cliches
I’m away for the moment, teaching a class in my favorite place in the world, Chautauqua Institution in Western New York. My good buddy Casey Daniels(aka Kylie Logan with a new series debuting next month) and I are teaching together in the upcoming week. Casey and I have been friends for a LONG time and…
Read MoreSunday Poetry: It Is the Discovery that Keeps the Fingers Moving
Welcome to Sunday Poetry. If this is your first visit you can read about the purpose and inspiration of my Sunday blogs here. Do you like crafts? Have you found a particular one that helps you to center, to move past the frustration and anxiety of your life to a different plane? When I found Whittling: The Last…
Read MoreGone Fishin’
I’ll be back by Sunday for Sunday Poetry . . . But breathing deeply here today. Hope you’re doing the same. Ah. . .
Read MoreCHUsday, and We’re Waiting For You
Last Tuesday I introduced you to a new idea. If you’re like me, you have lots of cookbooks you haven’t used in a long time. You are, in short, a cookbook hoarder, and quite possibly instead of using your old cookbooks, you’re still collecting new ones. It’s time to change that. So I proposed that…
Read MoreSunday Poetry: A Wrong Number Occurs To You
Welcome to Sunday Poetry. If this is your first visit you can read about the purpose and inspiration of my Sunday blogs here. What’s your part? Just slow down a little and come along for the read–or sometimes, for the listen. No analysis needed or required. Let the poem sink in and move you wherever it may. If you’d like to…
Read MoreThe Write Way: Using Everyday Events in Fiction
I just got off the telephone with Amazon. My life work this week has been to track down a package I ordered in July. I had to find out why it arrived in town but was never delivered to me. Unfortunately Amazon and all the carriers involved have kept an excruciatingly painful moment-by-moment account of the…
Read MoreCookbook Hoarders United–CHUsdays have arrived.
Read this blog, then drop everything else, go into your kitchen or wherever you happen to keep your cookbooks, and tell me how many you have. Next, tell me how many of them you’ve used in the past year? Are the numbers staggering? Do you have cookbooks your mother gave you for Christmas 1957, cookbooks passed…
Read MoreSunday Poetry: Who Has Fallen in the Night?
Welcome to Sunday Poetry. If this is your first visit you can read about the purpose and inspiration of my Sunday blogs here. What’s your part? Just slow down a little and come along for the read–or sometimes, for the listen. No analysis needed or required. Let the poem sink in and move you wherever it may. If you’d like to…
Read MoreIf Fiction is by Definition a Pack of Lies, How Accurate Must I Be?
I love doing research. One of the joys of writing is my freedom to choose subjects that interest me, then read, surf the Internet and travel to find out everything I need to know. Okay, sometimes I just want to know things because I do. I know, as I’m delving deeper and deeper that I…
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