My cousins, gather ’round, for news I bring. Lo these months, ye have no doubt noticed a certain slowness of mind betwixt these pages, and a finger to match. It appeareth that I would sooner with a man-sized cocktail fork be run through than spill precious time in scribery to thee. Alas! ‘Tis true that time be not my friend, but rather a fickle and odiferous maltworm.

Fear not my knaves and damsels, for a light breaks through yonder browser, and its name be Twitter! These coming days, I shall endeavor to scrawl the foul and wretched ramblings of my lumpish mind in a mere seven score strokes of my pen. Let their brevity be matched only by the gentle manner in which they lightly lie on land like flakes of new-fallen snow.

Rise up and follow me! Bend thy knuckles at the home of yon tiny bird and tap “wordsforwriters” on thy board of keys. Huzzah!

This morning was a lot like the previous few up on Mount Tabor; slate-gray, damp, with a hint of chill in the air. It might be nearing spring on the calendar, but winter seems determined to get at least one more jab in before hitting the mat. So I’m up on the mountain, doing what amounts to the only exercise I get during your average day, when it happens again: the completely, utterly, ludicrously unexpected. Read the rest of this entry »

5:30: The alarm goes off and I slap it on the head. Groggy. Think of some bizarre dream I had. Wonder why I waste so much mental energy on drivel while in REM sleep. Wish I had some revelation about my novel instead, but no…

6:00: Cold water on face, teeth brushed, coffee in hand. I sit down to read myself awake in my office. The house is dark and quiet. I like it. Lose myself in a novel for a good half-hour or forty-five. Think of it as inspiration.

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My apologies for not writing in such a long time. November was consumed by NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). Then came the holidays, hard on its heels. And as if that wasn’t distraction enough, we were hit with Snowpocalypse 2008™, the mother of all snowstorms. It was a mother, too; blanketed Portland in sixteen inches of snow for which we were completely unprepared. My dogs loved it, but by the time our white Christmas came around, all anyone could do was grumble about how much we missed the rain. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s October 31st, and you know what that means… synopsis day! Yep, screw the candy corn and sheet-ghosts, this is the last day before the kick-off of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). It’s been a month since I decided to participate, so naturally I’m getting around to outlining my ideas today. I. Am. Not. Ready. Read the rest of this entry »

Mystery fans have lost one of the genre’s most original voices. Tony Hillerman, the author of 18 Navajo-themed mysteries, has died at 83. Read the rest of this entry »

Today is Blog Action Day, a concerted effort by bloggers world-wide to raise awareness of a topic that affects us all. I must admit, when I first heard that this year’s topic was poverty, I was a wee bit apprehensive. What could I possibly say about being poor that would have any meaning?  Read the rest of this entry »

Technology ought to be simple, don’t you think? Blogging technology certainly is. Thanks to WordPress, adding a new post here is as simple as opening a vein and letting it flow into the keyboard, then hitting “Publish”. One aspect of blogging has always bugged me though, and that’s the reading part—more specifically, feed reading. Until now, that is. I just found an excellent new website that has rocked my blog reading world. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s almost that time again. November 1 marks the start of the tenth annual National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo for the hip). Every year, increasingly large numbers of literary speed-freaks set their keyboards ablaze by writing a 50,000-word novel in thirty days. The whole NaNo notion stands normal writing convention on its ear, with sheer word volume trumping silly stuff like character development and dramatic arcs. This isn’t for sissies. It’s fast, it’s brutal, it takes no prisoners. I am so there. Read the rest of this entry »

You know you’ve been away from blogging too long when you get a login prompt on your own admin control panel. I actually had to squint at the ceiling for a minute before I remembered my own username and password. Now that I’m back in, I think I’m about ready to start posting again. Deciding to resume blogging is the easy part, but what to say? Read the rest of this entry »