I sometimes forget how nice silence can be. Like most people, I live my life surrounded by noise. Streaming music (or radio, if you’re old school), television, traffic, airplanes overhead, the hum of electronics, people talking, dogs barking, phones pinging and beeping…it’s constant and never ending. There are times when I need a break from…
Category: Creativity
Writing with Prompts [Writing]
I’m curious as to how many writers use prompts to get started on a project. Of those who do, how do they find their prompts? Online? From collections of prompts? Do they keep a list of ones they come up with themselves? And are they using prompts just for writing exercises, or do they use…
Fear of the Written Word [Books]
Lately, I’ve felt as if the United States has somehow slipped back in time a hundred years or so. It’s like our society has regressed in so many areas, but at the moment I want to look at the latest fad of banning and burning books. Book burning and banning isn’t new. Ever since humanity…
Tokyo Manuscript Writing Cafe [Writing]
I stumbled across an article this past week about a new Manuscript Writing Cafe in Tokyo that sounds fantastic. Unlike your usual cafes where writers have to contend with distractions like loud conversations and the constant traffic of non-writers, this new endeavor strives to make it easier for wordsmiths to meet their daily writing goals….
Finding Serenity in Chaos [Mental Health]
Without a doubt, the world is a crazy place. Even taking politics and social unrest out of the equation, our lives can sometimes feel like they’re out of control and we’re simply hanging on by our fingertips. We’ve all felt like we’re being tossed about in a turbulent sea, but there are also times when…
A Cut Up Poem [Poetry]
The Beat Generation writer, Williams S. Burroughs, was known for his experimentation with text. One of his more interesting exercises was creating cut-up prose and poetry. Basically, he would take a page of text, cut it up with scissors, then rearrange it into something new. On the surface it looks like a simple repurposing of…
Stimulating Your Creativity [Creativity]
Sometimes we can get into a rut and find it difficult to be creative. For example, I sometimes have the urge to write, but when I sit down at my keyboard I find there aren’t any words. I simply can’t get started. What I’ve learned is that I occasionally have to stimulate my creativity. Sort…
Another Way To Look At Mistakes [Creativity]
I don’t make mistakes when I write. I make spontaneous creative decisions. At least, that’s what I like to tell myself. We all make mistakes when we write or work on a creative project. Typos, grammatical errors, mistyping a character’s name, or even letting the narrative wander off into the weeds. My question is: are…
Bidding Farewell to 2021
Wow, two weird years in a row. It feels like 2020 and 2021 sort of blended together, one being the continuation of the other. At least this year we had a vaccine to help differentiate it from its predecessor. Personally, it was a year of big change. There were some deaths in the family, new…
Cookbook Roundup! [Cooking]
Despite the disproportionate number of recipe blogs that pop up in my search suggestions, I’m still a fan of the traditional cookbook. In fact, I have about thirty or so lining a couple of bookshelves in my kitchen. Yes, I have a bookcase in my kitchen. And in my living room. And bedroom. And home…