What follows is unscripted rambling. I was thinking a lot today and trying REALLY HARD not to roll my eyes too much, so the thoughts & feelings are both many and confused. FIRST: It is hard to work for me, and it is even harder to have me work for Read more…
Wasn’t it just the other night that I was in a schlubby motel in Moab? Tonight I am in the luxurious Tempe Mission Palm Hotel. With an H. I plan on taking full advantage of the gym. And the writing workshops, naturally. But also the gym. (The reason for the Read more…
I’m starting to feel a sort of fundamental tension in my shoulders and I think it is because I only have one summer and one more Fall semester before they kick me out of grad school. This spring I am defending my thesis with the rest of my cohort, but Read more…
Have you watched Bad Writing yet? I watched it on my phone over a couple of days recently (I think I may have missed some of the “big screen” nuances, but I was impatient) and there’s a scene where Vernon is talking with Brenda Shaughnessy about social media. She makes Read more…
Another day in Kauri forest, but today it was more of a rainforest rather than temperate woods. It seemed damper and mossier. There were a number of Kauri with fused trunks. Stan said there were more active measures being taken against possums. We saw trees set upon by fungi and Read more…
As the sun set tonight over the prairie in what Paul Gruchow lovingly describes as “boring pastels,” so too did it set on my time here at Shortgrass. We will pack up and head out in the morning. I have to keep telling myself that I did what I set Read more…
I felt moved (after a kind nudge) to do something more with the bit about wind in yesterday’s post. It turned into 1700+ words about how we like to think we enrich the landscape. Once I was already moving across the page, I felt inspired to poke at a newer Read more…
It would be easy to say that today was a total bust. I didn’t finish a book, I didn’t increase my word count.But it can’t be about word count alone. It can’t be just a job, or it makes no sense. Just like it can’t be about getting the giant Read more…
Annie Dillard’s For the Time Being kept blowing me away, all afternoon. I would read a few subsections and have to just sit and stare into space for awhile. I didn’t finish the book; I didn’t want to rush it. She talks about the nature of personal, spiritual, and material Read more…
I started today with a long walk up the road. It’s a gravel road, lined on both sides by seemingly endless expanses of close-cropped grassland. Between the road and the parallel barbed wire fences that keep the grasses from escaping, is a narrow gully full of clumps of weeds, deep-looking Read more…