Category: Uncategorized
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Creativity and Inspiration
I’ve been a creative person for much of my life, but it’s only recently that I’ve begun to think about what exactly that means. First of all, what is creativity? If you ask a hundred people, you’ll very probably get a hundred different answers, …
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Janus — Happy New Year
Those who know Roman mythology will remember that January is named for the god Janus, patron of beginnings and endings. Here’s a story I wrote some time ago about the shenanigans he might get up to today. Janus It’s essential to have the right o…
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GoodReads Review: Between The Lines – Master The Subtle Elements of Fiction Writing by Jessica Page Morrell
Between the Lines: Master the Subtle Elements of Fiction Writing by Jessica Page MorrellMy rating: 3 of 5 starsThis book has a lot of insight to offer for editing fiction and filling in the blanks that we sometimes take for granted. It’s great in parti…
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Being a Good Sports Fan
I’ve come across some very annoying sports fans. We all recognize the type: opinionated, unwilling to take gainsaying, trash-talking, loud, obnoxious. I’ve heard it said that the modern sports fandom is a socially sanctioned way to express the fanaticism and warrior-like need to denigrate an opponent that in past centuries would have been reserved to…
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The Craft of #Writing: Grabbing the Reader
(Beth Turnage) I’ve written a number of posts on Quora on writing, and thought I’d curate some here. You can call it laziness, but really it’s a lack of time, since ghostwriting is keeping me very busy. Really. 😉 When writing, how do you grab your reader’s attention as quickly as possible? How do I……
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A Jens By Any Other Name
My first name is incredibly common and yet most people I meet have never heard it or know how to pronounce it. I guess my parents wanted me to experience the double benefits of having a recognizable name and also deal with the constant battle of teaching others how to say it correctly. Jens is…
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De-grading the AP Lit classroom
One of the first things I tell new students that come into my classroom each year is that I don’t care about grades. For years, I’ve worked to de-emphasize grades and so hopefully to promote learning. It works for some students, while others never quite get beyond that need for validation from a number/letter that…
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Keep plugging along
So … It’s been a while since the last entry. For various reasons, I haven’t been back to update. Some soul-searching, some real-life complications, and lots of writing. Yeah, I know I had a little whinge last time. I guess I got it out of my system. So, let’s recap: – I’m working on final…
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Recent acceptances
More news coming soon!But for now, three new acceptances to report here. First, I sold a poem, “Body double for the oldest organism,” to Star*Line, the official magazine of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association. It will be my third poem in…
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At a Bit of a Crossroads
I think we all come to them, in life. All the time. Points where seemingly minor decisions can have cascading effects for months or years. I think I’m hitting one of those in my writing life now. So now I sit here at three in the morning, unable to sleep because of thinking about this.…