Sinking your hands-- a shovel, a rake--- into dirt feels so simple. So solid in a shifting world. The earth turns over; its dark belly gleams toward the sky. Spadeful by spadeful, you shift the contour of things. You dig the hole. You plant the tree. Your hands smooth the dirt and tuck the roots … Continue reading A Garden’s Legacy
Meditations
The Small Fish Story
Trying to get a story published feels a bit like fishing. You try to find a promising stream (agent/publisher/magazine). You toss out your line--- watching it wink past the sun and drift out across the watery glaze--- and then you wait. "Here, fishy. Come on, fishy. Don't you like my little worm?" Some people are … Continue reading The Small Fish Story
Retracing
We retrace our steps sometimes, and the remembered magic isn't where we left it. You speculate--- what makes a special moment so unique? What endows a place with its aura? And if you returned to that restaurant on a drizzily April night one year later, would the same stardust glisten in the streetlights? Would you … Continue reading Retracing
Hay Bales in a Pond
We fix the GPS to avoid highways and weave our way out of town. It's an easy way to discover adventure on a lazy Saturday. We turn onto roads we've never driven before and travel alongside a creek swollen with the spring thaw. The further up the hill we ride, we pass three--- maybe four--- … Continue reading Hay Bales in a Pond
Good Writing, Hard Discipline
What I love about writing--- You can let yourself slip into any setting--- any story. You can close your eyes on a summer day and transport yourself to a platinum-colored winter night where the velvet dark huddles beneath the fir trees. You can slip from the fog and rain of the northeast to the cicada-filled, … Continue reading Good Writing, Hard Discipline
Talking to Yourself
How do you keep someone from becoming a ghost? Write things down. Make the memories more concrete. Life is transient in more ways than we imagine. You take things for granted. You imagine certain people and things as part of your life forever. However we don't realize we are creatures who live with an ever-present … Continue reading Talking to Yourself
The Slipperiness of Time
Memories are like ghosts, really. You go about your day just as you always do--- wash the dishes, straighten the couch, make coffee, drive to work. And just when you think everything is normal, you walk through some gossamer thread like a spider's web across your path. Suddenly you're not walking up the stairs to … Continue reading The Slipperiness of Time
The Nature of a Healthy Life
Now is the time of change--- hibernation. The trees shed their clothes and settle down to sleep, and perhaps their roots stir with thoughts and dreams of what's to come. They look forward to that quiet time--- the dormancy above which nature's harshness will blast--- they look forward to that time of rest and storing … Continue reading The Nature of a Healthy Life
Positive Rejection
As my writing work load has slowly been growing, I have been getting more rejection letters, and it is my natural reaction to feel defeated by these rejection letters. I'm sure some of you who come to this blog are writers yourself, and therefore you understand that unique stabbing in your heart when you read, … Continue reading Positive Rejection
Drop That Bar
Lower your standards. I mean it. Lower your standards. What’s wrong with being a hard-working, obscure writer? There are a lot of hard-working writers who have amazing bodies of work and hold their heads high every day. What makes you need to be the great American novelist… or nothing else? Here’s the problem with you. … Continue reading Drop That Bar
Seeking Prose 