Books and writing are the core of my life. I edit books, write books, and teach writing. I love this work, and will be happy to provide any editorial or writing service you need.
This is my chance to indulge in some of my favorite topics: books I’m reading; writing advice, my own and that of accomplished writers; what I learn from my students in my classes; and, oh yes, my soapbox, where I rant—mildly—about anything related to writing and publishing that makes me say “What?”
I also get to showcase amazing photographs taken by some of my favorite people. (In my next life, I want to be a photographer.)
A friend mentioned to me recently that the average person works only three productive hours a day. That figure astounded me, so I went looking for verification. I found some information here: http://www.inc.com/melanie-curtin/in-an-8-hour-day-the-average-worker-is-productive-for-this-many-hours.html Anyone who doesn’t work a regular office job will immediately note that this study looks at … [Read more...]
Now that summer is over—well, officially over tomorrow with the autumnal equinox—I am returning to this blog. I did not expect my summer to be so busy that I wouldn’t have time to write, and looking back, I can’t see that I was, in fact, that busy. But there were a family wedding and a family reunion and a family medical emergency (that ended well, thank goodness). A summer writing class that I … [Read more...]
In his poem “To a Louse,” Robert Burns describes watching a louse crawl on a lady’s bonnet while in church. There is some humor in the image of the woman being unaware that she’s got vermin roaming around on her hat, and Burns ends the poem with (translated from Burns’s Scots): “And would some Power give us the gift/To see ourselves as others see us!” I thought of this the other day, when my … [Read more...]
I was pleased to see an op-ed in the New York Times a few weeks ago that addressed weak language construction. That is, using the phrase “I feel like” to precede stating an opinion, belief, preference, et cetera. The writer made the essay more political than I would have liked; I was hoping for an in-depth discussion of how we all use qualifiers and word clutter when we speak and write. I have … [Read more...]
I seem to be caught in a time warp with what I’m reading these days. It began with my interest in women detectives. A couple of months ago I searched Google for fictional women detectives, looking particularly for books set in the earlier part of the twentieth century. Among others, I found The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie King, first published in 1994. I read it, loved it, and mentioned it to … [Read more...]
