Tag: writing
Further Thoughts on the Closing of Booktrope
When I got the news that Booktrope is closing, I was on day 3 of a vacation in Europe. I had just awoken to my first full day in Prague, and, as is my custom, […]
Aaaaand, Things Take a Sharp Turn
The day after my last post I learned that my publisher, Booktrope, is going out of business at the end of May. This isn’t entirely unexpected as there had been some recent turnover and drama, […]
Crowdsourcing for My Tagline
I’ve been lax about updating my blog for the past few weeks. First it was The Moth and now it’s the interminable task of updating my website and figuring out how to market Raising John […]
Technical Difficulties
This week I was going to post my story in written form, along with the link to my Moth performance, but I’m having a hard time finding out where they store the recordings. I know […]
How to Do a Live Story
I missed my Wednesday post this week, but I have a reason. I was hard at work on a story for the Moth Story Slam. If you’ve never heard of it, it’s an offshoot of […]
Unearthing the Past
I spent most of my free time this week going through old family photos, letters and assorted mementos. A few years ago I became the custodian of these materials, distributed among several large and decrepit […]
Blog Within a Blog
I’m taking a sick day today, but providentially, it’s also the day my interview is out on Beach Bound Books. Please click through and have a read here.
Pantsing versus Plotting and the Emergence of a New Work Style
As I have mentioned in previous posts, I’m working on the sequel to Raising John. As I have not yet mentioned, I recently made a commitment to my book manager at Booktrope to publish it […]
Nearly Wordless Wednesday
Yesterday I helped with my employer’s annual holiday party for kids in need, which included shuttling about 92 million boxes of inflatable decorations on the freight elevator. What I really wanted to do was stab […]
The Glamorous Life of a Writer/Airplane Mechanic
Four days a week I work overnight at SeaTac airport. I report for work at 9 PM and get off in the wee or not-so-wee hours of the morning, depending on the workload. When I […]
Remember My Writing Career?
Remember how, in addition to becoming an airplane mechanic, I was also into writing? Remember how I wrote a book? And published it myself? Well, about a year ago, I signed on with Booktrope to […]
Random Thoughts on Judgment, Paleo and Grammar
I have this folder called “Post Ideas.” This is where I dump blog post ideas when I have a flash of inspiration but I’m not in a position to write the post right then. Sometimes […]
I’ve Finally Gone and Done It
I’ve published my book! Please bear with me for this commercial blog post. I’ll return you to your regularly scheduled program of travel stories and philosophical musings next week. But for now – I PUBLISHED A […]
In Honor of NaNoWriMo
Back in the days when I did NaNoWriMo yearly I developed a strategy that helped me keep writing when my ideas dried up: two characters, the writer and the therapist. They got together whenever I needed to […]
Scenes From a Writing Weekend
Last weekend, driven by a prearranged date with an editor, I finally buckled down and wrote the 4.5 scenes that I believe my book needed in order to be complete. I had spent many hours […]
Sometimes You Just Have to Punt
Another thing that’s better about getting older is that you have had enough time and experience to figure out what works and what doesn’t. You’ve had a chance to figure out what behaviors bring people […]
The Smelliest Catch – Part III
The story resumes as I try to describe what it’s like to work for 18 hours a day, 7 days a week. Because the sockeye season is so short, and the boat has so little […]
Ten Pounds of Living into a Three-pound Life – Part II
I have a bad habit. I schedule optimistically. Especially when I’m on vacation and I want to do more than there is time for. So, optimistically, I believed I could ride all the way to […]
Whole-Ass One Thing
In season 4 of “Parks and Recreation” Leslie Knope’s boss Ron Swanson advises her, “never half-ass two things. Whole-ass one thing.” One difficulty of modern life is that there are so many ways to spend […]
Has It Really Been a Year Already??
Just about one year ago, I started this blog. It has been a lot of fun and it has been a great way to exercise my writing and thinking muscles. It has also been very […]
You Might as Well …
You might as well like yourself because, really, what is the alternative? You might as well like your body, because it’s the only one you’ve got. You’ll be sorry when it’s gone, so be nice […]
Maybe You DO Know What You’re Doing
When I first drafted my novel Raising John, I chose that title because it fit with what I was trying to express, and it was the first title that came to mind. When I sent […]
Jennifer Lesher’s Day Off
One of my most faithful readers requested a post on this topic, so here goes. In the spirit of Ferris Bueller, I am going to describe my ideal day off. There are two ways to […]
If You Wrote Well Once, You Will Write Well Again
Much as I used to believe that I must keep an iron grip on any words I have written because I don’t want to lose word count, I also used to believe that I if […]
Reality-based Time Management
The clock – who doesn’t hate the clock? Its hands move too quickly; there is never enough time left on it; it ticks away on the wall, reminding us of our mortality (or that we’re […]
Hi, I Just Vomited My Subconscious Into a Word Document. Would You Like to Read It?
This is the thought I had when I started showing my manuscript to my beta readers. I am very happy to have people willing to read and critique my work, and I was excited to […]
I Am a Talentless Hack
It always happens when I get deep into writing. I start out confident, but at some point along the way I start to doubt myself. It might be because it’s late and I am stuck; […]
Update on the Novel
After 18 fallow months, I spent a recent weekend sequestered and revising. I went into the weekend thinking that it would be the first of many needed in order to get my manuscript up to […]
Don’t Worry – There Will Always Be More Words
One of the humps I have had to get over as I become a better fiction writer is the idea that I must keep an iron grip on any words I have committed to paper […]
The Denial Toilet
I think each and every one of us has overflowed the denial toilet at least once. You know how it goes: you’re in a situation that’s maybe not the best thing for you, but there […]
All Hail the Subconscious
Back when I was in college one of my professors assigned our final paper, due about a month hence, then admonished “don’t forget to give yourself time to let your subconscious work for you.” At […]
Who Decides Value? Reflections on Publishing and Self Promotion
A few months ago I read this article, which is partly about free education and the Clemente Course, but also about a curator and teacher who pushes his students to question social values about art. […]
Do What You Do Well, and the Confidence Will Follow
After a couple of decades of “Best Participant” trophies and endless congratulations to kids for just getting out of bed and existing every day, the experts have finally started cautioning against too much positive reinforcement. […]
Writing Versus Sleep
When I used to dream about what I wanted to do as an adult, “go to bed every night at the same time and get up at the same time every morning” was not on […]
A Rough Guide to Novelating – Part II
After you have slogged away long enough to have a manuscript’s worth of words, there are the revisions. I thought that banging out a lot of words was hard, and it was, but it was […]
A Rough Guide to Novelating – Part I
Bookstores and the Internet are littered with guides to writing a novel. Some recommend working at a set time every weekend. Some advise aspiring writers to turn out a certain number of pages every day. […]
Back in the Saddle
Back when I started this blog, I intended to write about the process of writing a novel, but I also knew that I would be happy just to establish a regular publishing schedule. I think […]
Men’s fiction
Last fall, over dinner at a writing retreat, one of the instructors commented that she would like to see people start referring to the works of male novelists as “men’s fiction.” She went onto say […]
As Entitled As
This Easter, there were several well-circulated stories about the cancellation of municipal Easter egg hunts in Colorado and Georgia because parents, eager to ensure that their kids got the most eggs, had caused a shameful ruckus in prior […]
Let Simple Things be Simple – Part II
Last week I debated a bike shop kid about the necessity to treat wheel-building as a complicated dark art. We pick up after I left the wheel with the kid, who swore that he would […]
Let Simple Things be Simple, or, The Easy Pleasure of Cold-Brewed Coffee
I ride bikes, which means I sometimes need to replace my wheels. Because hand-built wheels last longer than machine built wheels and because I’m a geek and a cheap one at that, I have built […]
Don’t Go Chasing Waterfalls – Part V
We resume the story as I am driving the route to the purported waterfall – the one that I was unable to find on the bike. As I drive this road, I pass a couple […]
Reality is the Higher Power
Addiction is one of the themes of my novel. All of the characters are affected by addiction either directly or indirectly. There’s also some stuff about 12-step programs. Before you click away from my blog […]
Don’t Go Chasing Waterfalls – Part IV
The story picks up once I have arrived back in town after aborting the waterfall ride. I drop the bike off at the shop and decide to drive my rental car around a bit. I entertain […]
Low Context Stranger in a High Context Land
I recently took a trip to Africa and the Middle East – specifically Kenya and Dubai. In Africa, one of my companions, who lives in Uganda, commented that Uganda and Kenya are very high context […]
Can you Like the Writing and Dislike the Writer? Robertson Davies’ comments on Lolita
I have loved Robertson Davies’ books ever since I discovered the Salterton Trilogy about 15 years ago. He’s funny, he’s erudite, and man, could he ever spin a yarn. Then, a few months ago I […]
Stupid Robbers
I had planned to publish the next in my Waterfall series this week, but I got a little off schedule because, upon returning from a 3-day weekend away, I found that my house had been broken […]
Why words matter
The other night I was out on my standard “after dark short route” evening bike ride. I go up the paved Issaquah-Preston trail to the Issaquah Highlands and on up to Grand Ridge Drive. If […]
Blockage
I get blocked about writing, but I get blocked about other stuff too. Exercise, work tasks, housecleaning. With all the stuff in life that has to get done, often enough I find myself stuck and […]
Don’t Stop the Train
I’m a closet advice column junkie. Carolyn Hax, Ask Amy, and Margo Howard – I read them all. I still read Cheryl Lavin’s Tales from the Front, which started in the Chicago Tribune right around […]
The Distractible Mind
I think I might have ADD, but I’m not sure. There’s a test, but I haven’t been able to sit still long enough to take it. But seriously folks, I have often wondered if I […]
2011 in Review
Y Invested in the future of container housing Y Became a faster cyclist N Became a fast cyclist Y Experimented with outsourcing some drudgery Y Discovered the joys of root vegetable soups N Discovered the joys of […]
Sometimes it’s Better to Tell Than to Show
Maybe I should just stop reading any advice about writing. I say this because one of the currently popular writing rules is that you should show, not tell. Meaning, if you want to let your […]
The Elation and Agony of Feedback
As I have traveled the road from non-writer to owner of a nearly completed manuscript I have solicited and received quite a few critiques. Some came from friends, who have been wonderfully supportive but not […]
Your Stay in Federal Prison
Back in the days when I dreamed of writing a novel, but had not yet written one, I often wondered about book research. They always say “write what you know” but in fact that can […]
When Writing a Novel …
After numerous hideaway weekends and another Kauai hell week (those words shouldn’t go together, but here they do) I believed I had a saleable manuscript. It was spring of 2010. It was at this point […]
About That Novel
Since I started this blog, several people have asked when my novel will be finished and how I managed to write it. I don’t have a simple answer to either question but since people are […]
Samsonspite
Sometimes I think I should move to a cabin in the mountains where I can sit on a porch with a shotgun across my knees and blast away at anything that annoys me. The older […]
I’ll Begin at the Beginning
For a long time now, I have wanted to write for a living. Not technical manuals or freelance articles, but novels. I wanted to write novels that people would pay to read. And yet, I […]
Jennifer Lesher 