Thoughts about writing, and the universe.
I could not believe how hard it was to wake up early again after the summer! My alarm whined like a hungry dog. I stumbled up, tightened the muscles in my legs to stop the lightheadedness, managed to gather phone and sweater and water cup. I set the water boiling for tea. I made it... Continue Reading →
As the end of May approaches, I have been springing ahead to try to meet my monthly writing goals. I set these goals at the beginning of the year in order to keep myself making progress on my writing journey. I posted an update in January, but the months have been racing by and it... Continue Reading →
We have catapulted into spring this week, with warmth and sun bounding forth. The trees, which have been holding their thousand green fists tight for weeks against the cold, they now are opening their fingers. The waterfalls have been reduced to trickles. The students are abuzz with life (exams are nearly finished; last night was... Continue Reading →
I'm forever more a planner when I write. Perhaps not down to the minute detail, and certainly my plans change as I go along, but I like to have a basic outline of plot events and thematic points that I expect the story to take up. I make long documents for planning, pages and paragraphs... Continue Reading →
A quicker post today. I am the teacher on duty this weekend, and yesterday medical situations kept me down on campus a couple of hours past the norm. I'm also running the last day of a project-week of bread baking with students. Monday I begin oral exams for my English language learner students. It will... Continue Reading →
Just shy of a month ago, I sat down and set myself a few writing goals. I set a goal for word count and a goal for submissions. A perhaps foolhardy goal for publications too I set. During January, I chipped away at these. Let's make an update of where things stand. I'll share some... Continue Reading →
We arrived back in Norway to an incredible winter pageant. A couple inches of snow was encrusted everywhere by the most overwhelming display of ice crystals I have ever seen. Half and inch to an inch long, flat and shiny, sparkling, brilliant blue, the whole world was growing these crystal shards somehow like metallic mushrooms,... Continue Reading →
It's the end of a truly beautiful visit home, but as the date of our return to Norway nears (tomorrow now), the relaxation and the family joy sadly grows its cracks, prepares itself to dissolve back into its virtual form for the coming months. A blessing as technology is for how it can connect us,... Continue Reading →
Can a non-writer learn the tools of the trade, or are great writers born with something different? Is writing a gift--the kind of thing you either have or lack--or is writing a learned skill that any person can develop? Questions of this ilk have sometimes plagued me, as an aspiring writer first, later as a... Continue Reading →
Work went from zero to one hundred more abruptly that it ever has. Two weeks ago, that last easy week of summer, I wrote an hour each day, completed consistent thirty-minute workouts, weekly video-calls with family and friends, eight hours of sleep each night. Two weeks, and I feel already wrung dry. Although they're all... Continue Reading →
Words like trees 