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1,000 Words of Summer 2021, Day Eight

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Photo credit: Austin Neill on Unsplash

Memories can be an excellent jumping-off place.

Tonight, I started with my main character walking in the woods. It’s actually a patch of woods I know, because it’s right in my town. Next thing I knew, she was remembering my memories, albeit tweaked to fit her. She recalled walking along the beach down on the shoreline, dinner in those eighties-style restaurants with lots of blond wood and ferns, and a bar my friends and I frequented in Westport where we drank white sangria and ate boursin and cheese. (I did say it was Westport.)

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1,000 Words of Summer 2021, Day Seven

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Photo credit: Kal Visuals on Unsplash

Recently, I heard a podcast guest talk about being a “discovery writer.” The term was new to me. The former appellation, which I never liked, was “pantser,” as distinct from a “plotter.” According to common wisdom in the writing world, plotters plan out their books before they begin, often writing lengthy outlines, while pantsers fly by the seat of their pants, writing whatever comes into their heads with no idea what’s coming next.

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Anyway

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Photo credit: Koushik Pal on Unsplash

Nothing is convenient.

The sooner we learn this fact, the better. (By “we,” I mean me.)

Case in point: my workload was slow for the first half of May. Scary-slow. The kind of slow that makes you think, “Well, this is it. I had a good run, but it’s over.” Like Blockbuster, or the people who made 8-track tapes.

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Reclaiming Fun

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Photo credit: Free-Photos on Pixabay

When I was in high school, I wrote constantly. Stories spilled out of my brain, and my pencil was barely swift enough to catch them all. Sprawled on my bed, upright at my desk, out on the swing (where the stories raced around my mind, here and gone in nearly the same instant). Summer nights while the rest of the family slumbered, the hours ticking away as I reveled in my made-up world.

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Productivity Hack (a/k/a New Toy)

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My new toy: Honshoop HSP-B3

True confession: I am not a technowhiz.

Which is why, when people talk about dictating their writing, I have visions of the device I used in the mid-1980s to transcribe tapes dictated by bosses who were far too busy to write words on a page. Notably, those guys (back then, men dictated and women transcribed) were considered cutting-edge (a term not yet invented) because they used a machine for dictating instead of having a secretary sitting in front of them with a steno pad.

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News of the Day!

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Photo credit: Myriams-Fotos on Pixabay

Delighted to announce that my short story, “The Women in the Club,” placed as a finalist in the 2020 Faulkner-Wisdom Creative Writing Competition!

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“Because Covid” and Other Things: Knowing Your Characters’ Language

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Image credit: Tumisu on Pixabay.com

How many of the following have you heard, read, or said in the past year?

“We couldn’t go to Florida this year because covid.”

“I have a Zoom meeting at 3.”

“My kids are doing remote today.”

“Senior shopping hours start at 6 a.m.”

“My church has in-person worship, but you have to register.”

“I got my vaccine appointment!”

“Can’t believe the hospitals are low on PPE again.”

“Our state’s positivity rate is down to 2.5%.”

“We do curbside pickup!”

“I’d love to go to the U.K., but they’re in lockdown.”

“I missed Thanksgiving because I had to quarantine.”

“Did you get Pfizer, Moderna, or J&J?”

“Mask up.”

Two years ago, none of these lines would have made sense. Now, we’re fluent in the language of the pandemic. Statements like these brand us as the people who have spent the past year battling the deadliest virus any of us could ever have imagined.

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Momentum

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Today was the sixth consecutive day on which I devoted an hour to writing the sequel to State v. Claus. If you’re a disciplined writer with an orderly writing practice, a six-day stretch may not sound terribly impressive, but trust me: you should be impressed. Continue reading →

Snowstorms and Writing: A Few Parallels

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View from my window

Here in southern New England, we expect traditional winter weather, but not too much of it. A snowstorm depositing 12” is considered a major event, as are temperatures in the teens (Fahrenheit). Today, we’re being visited by Winter Storm Cooper, which is expected to deposit 10-18 inches of snow between Monday and Tuesday, accompanied by wind gusts creating blizzard conditions and possible power outages. So, it’s a big deal.

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One Writer’s Recipe for Writing

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Photo credit: Pexels on Pixabay

When I was young, I treated recipes with undue reverence. I assumed that the unknown creators possessed knowledge and wisdom that I did not, to the point where, at age eleven, I consulted the back of the SpaghettiOs can to see how long I should cook them and at what temperature. (The instruction to “cook until heated through”—no time, no temperature—left me flummoxed.)

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