Writing the good read
I belong to this amazing organization for freelance writers and editors called Freelance Success. It has been instrumental in all of the work I have done for national publications and websites, and at about a hundred bucks a year, my membership over the last decade or so has paid for itself many times over. Every…
Earlier this month, I wrote about my new-found respect for Phillip Lopate, regarded as one of the best living writers of thepersonal essay. I wanted to expand my knowledge of the genre — and I had never thought of it as that before, but as the way some writers opine on a variety of subjects…
I fulfilled a dream of many years yesterday and saw Garrison Keillor and his cohorts perform A Prairie Home Companion for NPR. I’ve loved Keillor as a writer since I was in college in the 1980s. I didn’t get into the show until later. Some of my friends find it too slow and languorous. Maybe…
Every year during the Blogathon get to explore the word stylings of writers I’ve never read. In some lights, this could be a burden: I have limited time and so many good words to read. But in another light — the one I use to illuminate my life — there can’t be enough good writing…
I have a problem with books in that I read a lot of them and will forgo sleep to keep turning the pages of a good one. And I invariably pick good books. For the last week or so, I’ve been plowing through the trilogy on which the PBS series Call the Midwife is based….
As I have mentioned before, I read a lot and keep a list of dozens of books I want to read. Most of those are culled from reviews I read in a variety of publications, including the Sunday New York Times book review section. I saw an article a few months back about a new…
I used to have a calendar that on the June 30 square said, “Half the year is gone. Have you reached half your goals?” Kind of passive aggressive for paper office supplies, right? As I mentioned a couple posts ago, my life has been a bit out of my control lately, and I haven’t been…
When I posted last, four months ago (yikes!), I had every intention of continuing to post at least once a week, which I’d (almost) managed since last year’s Blogathon. But you know, sh*t happens. I got sick, Darling Son got sick; my blog broke, then got fixed; there were ISP issues, then there weren’t. But…
So I did it. I finished National Novel Writing Month six days ago. They call that “winning” when you complete it. I wrote 50,130 words without going back and rereading, editing, cringing. When I signed up on a whim on November 1 (the first day of the annual event, which attracts millions of writers, would-be…
I’ve been a writer for my entire adult life. I’ve made my living doing nothing else. And as a journalist, I’m pretty confident in what I do. I know how to find sources, interview intelligently, craft a story designed specifically for the audience at hand. If I don’t know something, I know where to look…