I feel anger when I look at the cover of the new graphic novel adaption of Kindred, originally written by Octavia Butler in 1979. The cover shows two wrists bound, and the colors are red, beige, brown and black. The uplifted arms are brown, the handcuffs are black, and the hand grasping one wrist is beige. The title, Kindred, in red burns upwards from the… [Read More]
Do we need quotation marks? Who needs punctuation? Times are a-changing. One of the signs punctuation marks are in flux is the air quotations people make with their fingers when using words ironically. In print, we’ve seen the rise of single quotation marks around sarcastic words or phrases, even though the standard rule for single quotation marks are for use inside double quotation marks to… [Read More]
There is a new book out from Shambala Publications: On Being Stuck: Tapping into the Creative Power of Writer’s Block by Laraine Herring. Her approach is one of “making friends with your stuck places,” with a great tag line, “We will see windows where we once saw only walls.” I love to write. There are other activities that make me happy, but when I am able to… [Read More]
I recently read about a writer who gets up at 4 am to write. She says she is flooded with ideas at that time of day and glad to have a computer because she is not able to write fast enough by hand to get all her thoughts down on paper. It is also the only time of day when she has free time to… [Read More]
As a writer, you may assume you will have the copyright of your book when it is published. If you write for magazines or newspapers, you may need to negotiate rights over your own written material — one time use — but these days, once you write something, you are assumed to own the copyright from that moment on. Although historically there were some European… [Read More]
I drive my 87-year old father to his memoir writing group every other week, where he meets with 8-10 peers to discuss short vignettes they have written. Each of them takes a turn having their piece of writing “critiqued” by the others. He’s been in this group for seven or eight years, and has written more than 117 stories about his life. I usually wait… [Read More]
When writers come in for a massage, they rarely ask the therapist to focus on their legs. Understandably, it is the neck, back, and arms that usually feel the brunt of long hours working. But legs have some of the biggest muscles in our bodies. Most of us depend on them to get around: walking, climbing, playing sports, dancing, and supporting our upper body as… [Read More]
When I was a teenager, I was a little hurt when my mother commented that I was a daydreamer, as in “just a daydreamer.” Apparently I spent more time than my siblings sitting and staring off into space. If I were Catholic, I would carry a bit of guilt for daydreaming, but my mother gave me Buddhism, from which I learned that reflecting on things… [Read More]
In this day of high priced books and new technology, public libraries are an invaluable resource for authors as well as readers in general. I sometimes think my local library, the Tompkins County Public Library is beyond compare, but I constantly run into articles and posts by people around the country, around the world, who love their libraries just as much. For an author, a… [Read More]
There are two diagnoses in the 2015 International Classification of Diseases which afflict authors. Organic Writer’s Cramp and Occupational Neurosis. The former is caused by natural deformations or weakness in the hand and wrist. The latter is caused by gripping a pen too hard, pressing down too hard, or holding the wrist at an awkward position when writing by hand. Insurance may pay for physical… [Read More]
