A Summer’s Meditation
I discovered a beloved part of my summer day around five o’clock in the late afternoon when I was home from college break and lucky enough to have access to the townhouse’s subdivision swimming pool. I sauntered to a sticky plastic lounge chair, once occupied by a young mother with a rambunctious three year-old, and spread eagled in relaxation. The pool, surrounded by wild prairie on three sides, and its deck had cleared; the chlorinated water calmed to intermittent ripples and then bloomed teal as the sun fell lower against [...]
Flight
I hit the road early on July 1, 2013 with blue skies and a sun that showed the exceptional day well with a temperature of 71 degrees and light winds. Forty-five minutes later, I found hangar 1005. I was cashing in on a Total Immersion Flight lesson at Chicago Executive Flight School. I took a pluck from my bucket list and decided to celebrate my birthday by flying an airplane. It wasn’t until my feet landed on concrete when I realized there was something more to just learning how to [...]
Wild Mushrooms and My Memoir
I attended the annual Printer’s Row Lit Fest in Chicago this past weekend. Since I started writing over 10 years ago, I have been driving the 45 minute trip in June to the city to walk five blocks, on Dearborn, from Congress to Polk. My only driving force to visit the Fest at that time was to check out small presses; I wanted to see what kind of books were published, who published them and if any of them published memoirs. I was discouraged to conclude that my virginal manuscript [...]
Don’t Circle Your Target
Why write 3 full paragraphs leading up to your main point in your writing, when you can do it in one? I asked myself this question after reading a recent blog post, “The Art of Submission: Inquiring After Our Work.” Good title. I was interested in reading the post. Like most nonfiction writers, I read anything I can get my hands on when it comes to guides and self-help books on writing. In my reading travels, I have never come across the writing expert telling his reader to write adapting [...]
Shown, Not Told. How Stephen King’s “On Writing” worked for me.
I never thought I would ever pick up a book by Stephen King. I’m a writer of memoir, creative nonfiction. He is a writer of – not sure- but I’ll call it science fiction, mystery, and other far out stuff with aliens and the supernatural. I can’t say I have read any of his books. Not my general interest of study. I read a lot, perhaps two books at the same time. I try to balance novels, the classics, with reference or guide books on writing. During my years of [...]
I Buried the Lead
I am a writer. I have a degree in Journalism. I learned a couple of things during my college journalism classes. The first was that I was not going to be a reporter. I did not have a knack, let alone a desire to be a fact seeker and then report on whatever the news was. I’m not good at remembering facts, even though I followed the 4 W’s and H. The second learned lesson was to not bury the lead, a common command in the newspaper business. This concept [...]
Writing – Hobby or Job?
The truth can sting like a bee to a warm, plump thigh. When a “shark” from TV’s Shark Tank bluntly tells the contestant, “This is a hobby, and not a business,” a fight or flight switches on. Either anger ignites his checks to red or he cowers in admittance that maybe the “shark” is correct. There is much conversation about why writers write. There are endless simple answers to this question: expression, a really cool story, fun, an escape, explore an idea, what you see, feel, can’t understand, it makes [...]
Under the Birch Tree-Broken Circle
On the weekends, sitting in the den was not required before dinner like weekdays. Before dinner during the week, Timmy and I were required to remain seated until Dad got home from work, went to the bathroom to wash up, replacing a lingering work smell with the odor of a very dry vodka martini and a lit Tareyton cigarette. Timmy and I sat still, taking a seat on the faded purple and mustard plaid couch while directing our attention to Mom and Dad sitting in their respective leather chairs. The [...]