9 Good Writing Excuses

writing, novel, freelancing, book, fiction, blog, grammar
Dear Novel,
Yes, I know I have 60,000 words of you written already. I have a scene outline. I even know your ending (and I still respect you). Yet I haven’t sat down with you in days, haven’t added a word to you or done even a little tweak here […]

Writer Reactions, Responses

In my last post I asked about how people react to you when you tell them you’re a writer. Below are the responses I got. I was surprised that no one gets the odd responses that I seem to, but maybe it’s just me.
Moneybites
When I say I’m a writer the response is usually, one of […]

What’s an Obama?

We were out of town last weekend, and we stopped Sunday morning at a Waffle House for breakfast.  A customer at a table across from us was reading about the election and mentioned Obama.
Waitress: “Obama? What’s an Obama?”
Customer: “You know, he’s running for the democratic nomination.”
Waitress: “Oh, I don’t watch the news.”
As odd and funny […]

Please, not your profile!

I love spammers. I love Akismet more, since it keeps all this garbage from showing up on the blog. I did notice one today that I almost approved.
“Hi, I’m Dr. Richards. Check out my Cialis profile.”
Dude. If you’re on Cialis, I do not want to see your profile.

10 Tips for a Craptastic Blog

Dear blogger,

Put sound on your site. It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as it’s noisy. Music and ads work equally well.
Bonus points if it’s exceptionally loud.
Double bonus if it’s also a little racy, the kind of thing I don’t want everyone in my department hearing.
Make your site slooooooooooow to load. If it’s taking […]

Overheard…

I love listening in on other people’s conversations. Here is one from today.
First, I heard a woman explaining to her companions “that if you don’t keep their teeth, they’ll sell them.” That was intriguing enough that I listened, and it turns out that she believes funeral homes sell the teeth of the deceased, unless you […]

Link fun

Here in the middle of NaNo, I thought it would be fun to link to some other interesting sites.
Punctuation fun on flickr. Think about how you’d punctuate it, or simply read it aloud.
Design Your Life
What would you do if you could do whatever you want each day. Although this article isn’t specifically directed at writers, […]

Writing Helper: Just Thinking to Myself

This entry is part 10 of 23 in the series, Writing Helper.

Once upon a time, I taught first year college English. I also taught what my students not-so-fondly called “bonehead English,” which was a grammar and remedial writing class. I still chuckle over one particularly funny exchange with a student. Maybe it’s also a pretty good indication I wasn’t cut out to teach.
I had marked up […]

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