I’ve got a thirty-minute break before my next parent-teacher conference, so I thought I’d use this time to do some writing. I know I won’t be able to get any meaningful creative writing done, sandwiched as this moment is between long and stressful blocks of trying to calm down nervous parents and stressed-out students. My …
If you hadn’t heard, I’m getting my MFA in creative writing at Lesley University. This week, my third semester wraps itself up as I claw my way toward the finish line and a degree. Technically, I should have finished up last week, on Friday to be exact. Life doesn’t always work out the way we …
Aaaaaaaaaarrrgh! Life, my good man, please! Will you just chill out already? I mean, criminiddly, I am trying to be a writer over here! In all seriousness, though, I have not be getting words onto the paper of late, and it is starting to make me feel a little crazy. There has been a whole lot …
Every September, I get back into the classroom and, within a month, I catch a cold. I blame my students. They get it first, and then they proceed to coat every surface they touch with their contagion. Last year, the virus took up residence deep in my chest and overstayed its welcome by about six …
Yeah, Yeah, I know. We’re all busy. We all wear a lot of different hats in life. I teach, I write, and I parent. It doesn’t always happen in that particular order. Priorities shift daily. Time bleeds out of my as if I’ve severed some existential artery. Last night, I fell into bed at 9:00pm like …
At some point between 369 BCE and 286 BCE, western philosopher Zhuangzi (Chuang-tzu) wrote what is commonly known as The Butterfly Dream Parable. Here’s an excerpt: “Once upon a time, I, Zhuangzi, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness …
It’s been my experience that a creative person’s goals–fragile, beautiful little things that they are–frequently crash headlong into the mercurial realities of life. This morning, as I sit at my kitchen table to do my morning pages, I can’t help but catch sight of the wall calendar opposite me and notice that August 28th is …
I want to yell at people when they lament that they can never “find the time” to write. Yeah? Well, neither can I. Why? Because it doesn’t exist. There is literally no time to write, no magical empty block with nothing going on where I can sit down with a steaming mug of cozy chamomile tea and put on some relaxing classical music and snuggle in my fluffy PJ’s and write. Nope. If I’m going to write, I must MAKE time to do it.
Hello world! Here is my very first post for this project. Yes, I’m calling my blog a project. Deal. Let’s start with the second question. What’s the point of this blog? Ugh, you may be thinking. Yet another author’s blog, another blog about writing. Sort of, I guess. It’s definitely not an author’s blog, …