Patrick CJ Ward MD
I'm not sure if "CJ" were Dr. Wards' real middle initials, or if it's just a fable he shared with his pathology students in their first year of medical school, or maybe it was the second year. I can't remember now, almost forty years later; but what I do remember is...
Pale Horse
I finished Nabokov's "Pale Horse." It is one of those books that is in those various lists of the top ten list of best novels ever, along with James Joyce's "Ulysses," "The Brothers Karamazov" "Lolita", also by N, and all the others. What is so incredible is that the...
Dreaming
I've been remembering my dreams more than I used to. I don't know why. Maybe it's related to my Apple watch and obsession with nailing at least 7 hours of sleep nightly so I don't get more demented. The app says I don't get much deep sleep, a small fraction, and only...
The Sound on the Page
So I've been reading this book about style and writing and about 25% in it got me in the mood to start up again, but then I got busy, and then I got tired. I spend more time reading about writing and reading others to learn how to write better than I spend on actual...
Maybe I’m just a reader
So I'm over 60,000 words into my paralell coming of age stories of a boy and a girl in two different life situations, and still, I can't stop my recreational reading. Oh, I tell myself that it's research and that it'll be better for me, which is undoubtedly true, but,...
Death Before Dishonor
Is the working title of my novel in progress. I'm about 60,000 words in, all in the Scrivener program, which I don't understand at all other than it is a stripped down word processor, and presumably I am a few clicks away from it spitting out a manuscript. I'm almost...
How to write like a girl
This was perhaps the most useful look inside a girl's head. I'm only half way through at the time of this writing, so not sure where it's going, but it doesn't strike me as a happy ending sort of story.I'm not sure if it's reasonable for a first-timer to write a book...
Fears
John asked us to write about grief yesterday. Most everyone shared what they had written and for all but one, it reprented a real life experience, basically fact; there was one who wrote fiction based on factual emotion experience, which is basically what we all try...
Discord
Third day in the books for my writing class. We have some optional assignments. I have one that I think will be helpful for my book, the other less so, which is the one below. Setting: A grocery store. Situation: Two shoppers accidently bump their shoping carts into...
Carmelita: On interviewing a fictitious character
Was our assignment from John today. I wrote 1083 words, so I'm done for the day; however, I'd have to say that that was the single, most simplest assignment or instruction that was of the highest yeild ever. On the other hand I haven't taken much writing instruction...