It comes up in this blog quite a bit that I was raised as an evangelical Protestant during the 70s and 80.1 So I was right on the front lines as end-of-the-world fever became an epidemic, and evangelical Protestantism turned into a doomsday cult. I read the Chick tracts andContinue Reading
The Internet has already had its fun with the confessional essay written by the drunken layabout husband I like to think of as flooded-with-awe dude. I felt moved to comment, but it took me a couple of weeks (roughly a million years Internet time) to figure out what I wantedContinue Reading
I’ve been struggling to articulate anything useful about the recent events that started with the Grand Jury decision not to charge Ferguson, Mo. police officer Darren Wilson in the shooting of Michael Brown. Silence might make it appear that I have no opinion, and I do. In my opinion, itContinue Reading
For the first time in my life, nobody invited me to a traditional family Thanksgiving dinner. My parents went to Los Angeles to spend it with my brothers’ families, which has been their habit ever since the adorable nieces were born. Paul and I thought that surely, somebody in Paul’sContinue Reading
Oh, did you hear? After Tuesday’s vote, the Democrats are, like, over, man. Just like the Republicans were, like, over two years ago. But it’s not as if all the people who elected Obama in 2012 changed their minds or ceased to exist in 2014, any more than the peopleContinue Reading
Monday morning my back was kind of sore, and I realized it was probably from going through the Georgetown Morgue the night before with Paul, Ulysses and Carol. I think I spent the whole time in a very tense, crouched position, hence the sore the next day. So it wasContinue Reading
A two-week trip to London is almost long enough to start getting blasé about being surrounded by spectacular Victorian buildings, any one of which would be a showpiece in Seattle. For example, here we are waiting for the Beatles tour to start. Ho hum. Is it long enough to getContinue Reading
The Clarion West 2014 Write-a-thon is over, but it’s not too late to donate to the cause! Sponsor me, sponsor another writer, or learn more about the Write-a-thon This year, my goals were to 1. Write every day, 2. Stay away from social media except on Sundays and in generalContinue Reading
Part of the Clarion West 2014 Write-a-thon series. Sponsor me, sponsor another writer, or learn more about the Write-a-thon My final essay is about the most important and career-changing thing that I learned at Clarion West: how to approach my own work from the meta direction. This lesson is stillContinue Reading
Part of the Clarion West 2014 Write-a-thon series. Sponsor me, sponsor another writer, or learn more about the Write-a-thon Did you know that the essence of story is conflict? I mean — I probably knew that, actually, even before Clarion West. I’m sure I’ve (correctly) identified the central conflict inContinue Reading
Part of the Clarion West 2014 Write-a-thon series. Sponsor me, sponsor another writer, or learn more about the Write-a-thon (As a side note — I’m not sure my “avoid social media except for Sundays” thing is going to work, when I ended up spending most of my Sunday seeing TheContinue Reading
Part of the Clarion West 2014 Write-a-thon series. Sponsor me, sponsor another writer, or learn more about the Write-a-thon There’s this thing they used to make you do in school — maybe they still make you do it, I don’t know — which involves reading a story, and then writingContinue Reading
Part of the Clarion West 2014 Write-a-thon series. Sponsor me, sponsor another writer, or learn more about the Write-a-thon One of the most important things that I learned at Clarion West was the difference between story and plot. It’s not really intuitive to separate them, because they’re so closely linkedContinue Reading