When I started to take my writing and my role as a writer seriously, I neglected one teeny-tiny detail: I inevitably was going to hurt those closest to me. I didn’t realize this truth until I allowed some family members to read a couple of my early poems, and they responded with both hurt feelings and concern. It was at that point I had to make a decision. Would I continue writing and risk hurting my dear ones or would I cease and desist from my writing?
Writing Life
Word Games for Word Nerds
One of my favorite homework assignments in the third grade was using the week’s vocabulary list in some sort of story. I found the assignment to be entirely too much fun. I don’t think I enjoyed the endless repetition of writing the words and their definitions, but I did like using them in sentences. To this day I enjoy such assignments, although they’re never quite as strict. It’s usually some sort of exercise I create for myself in which I have to use a certain word, a type of phrasing, or even a punctuation mark, such as the dreaded exclamation point.
Finding the Writing Rhythm
Some people experience writer’s block because they don’t – or think they don’t – have any ideas. Other people experience it when they have too many ideas. I’ve experienced both aspects of writer’s block (even though I don’t believe in writer’s block), but my latest block has nothing to do with having too many or too few ideas.
The Rules of Writingland: How to Survive a Writing-Infested World
Writingland* is a lot like Zombieland. It’s true. Writers who inhabit Writingland kill their writing only to have it resurrect, which may or may not be a bad thing. It’s all a matter of perspective. Regardless of that perspective, Writingland is no walk in the park. It’s a kill or be killed world. The writers who live in that world do so because they have embraced some rules, most of which are derived from the rules of Zombieland.
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The Importance of Exercise
People exercise for a variety of reasons. They sometimes exercise simply to exercise, but they usually have an end goal, a purpose, even if it’s only to be seen by others. Others exercise for health reasons. Still others exercise in order to perform better in a sport. Other people exercise because they want to improve in a specific area, such as weightlifting or cardio.
Muscle Memory
When I was training in martial arts, we repeated certain techniques – holds, locks, chokes, throws, punches, kicks, et cetera – over and over again. The reasoning was simple: the longer we repeated a motion, the more engrained it became. When we sparred or grappled, those motions became automatic. We suddenly had our opponent in a lock or choke because our muscles remembered what our brains sometimes forgot in the moment of an adrenaline rush.