Just another writer
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Writerly resolutions: August Status
August finally felt like a return to normal—whatever that would be in my progress on the novel. managed to finish chapter 22 and get a good start on chapter 23 without too much dithering about what’s happening in the novel. It’s still a challenge to get myself to re-read the pages when it’s time to
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A story of a word
I got an e-mail yesterday inquiring about the spelling of a word that I used in a poem that will be published this fall. I had written “galabiyya” in reference to the robe-like garb that some Islamic men wear. My editor, doing due diligence found spellings of “galabeya” and “jalabiya.” I honestly didn’t even remember
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Dewey Decimal Project: 635.934 ORL The Orchid Thief
I knew this book first from the movie Adaptation and when I finally saw Susan Orlean in person and she didn’t look especially like Meryl Streep, I was somewhat disappointed. And the lack of resemblance between book and movie (or perhaps it’s more accurate to say the funhouse mirror resemblance between book and movie) goes beyond the appearance
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Writerly Resolutions: July Status
Something has changed. I’m not necessarily having the progress I’d ideally like, but I’m doing much better at getting the words onto the page. Still a lot of flat stretches in the graph, but the vertical bits are more vertical than they’ve been for months. The submittable queue has drained from 8 down to 5.
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Writerly resolutions: June Status—They’re all quarantine editions I guess
June was yet another mediocre month, although I did at least finish a draft of chapter 21. Now the only problem is getting myself willing to do a critical read of that chapter and start rewriting. The submittable queue continues to trickle its way to empty, dropping from 10 down to 8. I have two submissions
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Writerly resolutions: May Status—Quarantine Edition
See that graph on the right? Looks pretty good at least for the end of the month, eh? Until you look at the vertical scale and see that I wrote less than 700 words the whole month. But at least things are starting to pick up and maybe June will be better. As for clearing
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Writerly resolutions: April Status—Quarantine Edition
April started off with some promise but quickly leveled off. There were only nine days that I wrote anything at all. On the good news front, I’ve settled Catan numerous times. My Submittable queue continues to drain, a little bit faster than last month, so now I’m down from 17 to 13 submissions. Half of this
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My social media fast
Back at the beginning of March, I deleted the Twitter and Facebook apps from my phone, signed out on all my computers and began a Lenten fast from social media. Shortly afterwards, COVID-19 sent everything kiddlywumpus. It’s ben an interesting experience not being connected to the communities on social media that I had been for
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Writerly resolutions: March Status—Quarantine Edition
So you’d think that with quarantine I’d be more productive as a writer. You’d think wrong. I made good progress on revising the last chapter I wrote in the first half of the month, but the new chapter has been coming a few words at a time. My Submittable queue has drained much more slowly this