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Chocolate Kills (But What a Way to Go)
I love to write travel pieces, from tales based on exotic sojourns to tiny islands far, far away, to “wow, look what’s right in my backyard” articles. One of the travel article forms is the service...
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Mixing Martinis, Grammar, the Past and the Future
As Magritte might have said, this is not a martini. This is the future. My parents offered me a sip of a martini when I was seven or eight years old. I recall recoiling in disgust from its sharp,...
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How Herons and Frogs Bring Zing to Your Writing
Careful—this lawn jockey can bite Last week a cousin of the fellow above flew into my neighbor’s field. It’s not that unusual to see herons in the general neighborhood—after all, I took the photo of...
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Writing Small, Thinking Big
Tiny but mighty: stand back—this is a sharpened word sword! I had a tiny piece about the Las Vegas Hangover Heaven bus published in Draft magazine the other day. Draft is highest-circulating...
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Pick Your Writing Berries When They’re Ripe
Writing Berries Have the Juiciest Syntax (Photo Credit: Wikipedia) Strawberry season is in full bore on the California coast. Today I drove back from a beach walk past fields filled with pickers,...
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Writing Contests: Yea, Nay, or Meh?
No, I didn’t get a pawnbroker to re-etch my name over the real winner’s It’s great to get published. I’ve had the good fortune to be published in lots of magazines and newspapers, and I’m grateful...
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Editing: the Big Gazoombah to the Ant’s Antennae
This guy’s so good he doesn’t even need a head to edit well Editing a book-length project is an intriguing undertaking for the sheer variety of the material an editor might see. I’ve edited both...
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Licking the Cat and Other Writing Tips
Poor cat had a midnight deadline—had to hit the hootch hard afterwards Scuttlebutt had it that Barbara Cartland, the doyenne of romance writers, did much of her early writing at the piano, stark...
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Poking the Eyes Out (At Least One) of the Green-Eyed Writing Monster
Yes, I know—it’s his face that’s green. But go with it. I occasionally guest-post over at Writer Unboxed, the fine writer’s site that has daily posts on all aspects of writing craft, the publishing...
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Warm Applause for Writers Who Give Generously
I spend entirely too much time reading about writing and reading about writers rather than writing myself, but when I am reading, I want to be provoked, challenged, stimulated and amused. Over the...
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