Today! Today is National Punctuation Day! I wouldn’t have known and hadn’t ever– before today– even heard of such a thing. But bing.com delivered to me this delightful news earlier this morning, and I just couldn’t let the day pass without a small celebration. Punctuation is Great. Really and truly Great. It’s fascinating in its […]
Read moreI am so grateful to be at home. I love seeing how the sun falls in the breakfast room in a silent house at 2 p.m. on a September Wednesday. I love having the laundry done, so that kids who dirtied their uniforms only yesterday have them spanking clean and ready to go today. I […]
Read moreto speak ofthe divine is to draw a circlearound a picture of a pondand swim –Christopher Janke, Psalterium
Read moreEleven years ago today I heard the news on the BBC and then went straight to the television. I saw a tower of the World Trade Center smoking and on fire, and I hoped with some horror that air traffic controllers had made a terrible mistake, and I listened as the newscasters wondered. And then […]
Read moreor “Mother,” Part II It shouldn’t be so hard. Really, on paper, it looks for all the world like it makes sense. Which isn’t to say that I’ve actually written it down. I haven’t actually recorded on paper my Plan For The Day. But I do have a Plan. I have a Plan that should […]
Read moreHere’s something delightful– and who doesn’t need delightful now and again? Reader (thank you so much, Tim) and high school chum Timothy Crouse reminded me of this: the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. It is a contest in which you– get this– compete to win the prize for the Worst First Sentence. I love this. It is […]
Read moreThe day was looking good. Kids breakfasted and lunches bagged, they went off together to school. I had only one item on my calendar before the late afternoon’s rash of meets/games/matches, and yes, it appeared that a good writing day was ahead of me. An excellent writing day. I love those. Writing is, after all, […]
Read moreHere is a beginning rooted in geography. One of my favorites– not (this time) because of the author– but because here and throughout her book she so beautifully evokes Pittsburgh, where we both grew up. When everything else has gone from my brain– the President’s name, the state capitals, the neighborhoods where I lived, and […]
Read moreSo I’ve had first sentences on my brain for a while, ever since that post I wrote a few weeks ago. I like noticing how writers begin things, how, perhaps, they try to lure their readers in with the first few words. It’s no small task getting someone to read one’s writing. After all, in […]
Read moreI like letters. The shapes of them. The contrast between lower and upper case. The dots for the “i” and “j,” crossing “t’s.” I like writing very small. I like putting more than one line of text inside one line of college-ruled paper. I like college-ruled paper. I like a good pen. Not a fancy […]
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