Unlike the last time I visited our local zoo, today the jaguars (black morph, both of them), were awake and moving about. When I got there, one was watching from a perch above, the end of her tail twitching; the other paced back and forth, roaring in the quieter-than-lions yet distinctly roar-like way that jaguars […]
A morning with jaguars Read More »
In culling and clearing out old files, I came upon an old scrapbook of college and post-college clippings, including this 1988 note from one Helen W. Powers, who was I believe senior lecturer at my alma mater at the time and who taught my college expository writing class: As we discussed, your challenge in the
A note from the past Read More »
When I first began practicing yoga, I remember wanting to succeed at doing as many poses as possible, in as advanced a form as possible. In a sense, I was more concerned with quantity of my skill than its depth or the smaller details: since I was starting from the point of knowing nothing, I
Honoring your practice, honoring your process Read More »
Today, in the lull between the third draft and the fourth, is dedicated to catching up on email. By a rough count, I have about 200 messages in my inbox. That’s actually not bad, as these things go. Still, I think email messages really must take advantage of my elsewhere-focus near the end of a
The glamorous life of a writer Read More »
As are any number of other things. Finished the third draft of the still-untitled raven book Friday, right around lunchtime. The ending needs work (the final chapter is entirely new), the usual various things need to be threaded through more thoroughly, the descriptive details and vividness of the second half need their also-usual work, I
For the next week, watching bird and cat videos really _is_ research Read More »
Dear Protagonist and All Secondary Characters Still Standing, I’m sorry, but there’s only room for one round of heartwarming/rending tears per story. It’s a pacing thing. It isn’t personal. But you’re going to have to choose. Me
Ah, that part of the writing process where I look at the half dozen or so denoument-y scenes at the end of the draft and try to figure out how to compress them into a single winding down of action. Complicated by the fact that this book actually does want a bit of “action after