People who wait for inspiration typically stagnate more than they produce. It’s a nice thought that some unseen entity — a Muse — watches over you as you do the things that keep you from writing, just waiting for the right moment to whisper “write,” in your ear. When the sweet word dances in your […]
Archives for 2009
The Sunday Night Ache
Sunday nights get to me. I love having a weekend to see the people I love, and I love having a weekend to write! Sunday night signals a return to the 5/7ths of the week I have to work. When it comes to jobs, I have a good one. I’ve turned down offers making almost […]
Looking Back
There are times I look back on my writing progress in recent years and feel like I haven’t done enough. I can come up with excuses; some of them are even valid: I spent a couple years caring for my big sister before she died from cancer in 2003. I’ve spent most of my recent […]
The Big Writing Lesson I Learned from Juggling
I know it goes without saying, but to get good at something, you have to practice. A lot! I’ve been juggling since 1981 (and I have the picture to prove it!). I used to devote all my free time to juggling. Later, I devoted most of my free time to writing. (At times, I wrote […]
Odd Jobs Help Writing
You probably spend the day working someplace where you wouldn’t be if you made a living writing full time. I’ve worked at my current job (editing and formatting airplane manuals) for almost five years. I like my job as much as I can like a day job. It’s the longest job I’ve ever held, but […]
The Best Thing About Halloween
My wife knew my writing before she knew me. She was an artist working for a small independent comic book publisher in 1992. I was writing for the company. She read a couple scripts I wrote that were being developed, and she loved my writing. Being the spouse of a writer can be a very […]
The 50,000-Word Race
NaNoWriMo begins at 12:00 a.m. on November 1st. For the uninitiated, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. Each November, over 100,000 people take a vow to write 50,000 words in 30 days. Less than 20% succeed. Fifty thousand words in one month is a challenge for even fulltime writers, let alone writers who are […]
Thank You
Thank you to everybody who’s been reading The Juggling Writer. It really means a lot to me. Thank you to those who have subscribed to this blog, and thank you to those who have commented to entries. If you haven’t subscribed, it’s as easy as clicking here or on the RSS feed icon in the […]
The Big Three
I always loved reading and writing. When I was younger, I read and wrote as much as I could, but I never thought about being a writer. I didn’t think about being a writer until discovering two things: the movie, Time Bandits, and Stephen King’s book, Different Seasons. I saw Time Bandits three times the […]
Coffee and Tea
I wonder how many great books would have never been written had we never discovered what to do with tea leaves and coffee beans…
The Takeoff Roll
Last year, I read a friend’s first novel. He critiqued some of my writing in the past, and it was nice returning the favor. He’s getting ready to submit the novel to an agent who reads his writing, and he asked me if I felt the novel was tight enough to submit. He asked me […]
10 Ways to Keep Writing While Traveling for Work
Traveling for work (the day job), can cut into a writing schedule. Here are 10 tips to help you keep writing, or at least focus on writing-related things, while on the road. 1. Make a Writing Schedule Before You Leave Making a writing schedule before you leave for a business trip ensures that you’ll actually […]
Weekly Roundup (10/11/09 – 10/17/09)
This week’s roundup: Blog/News Finds I got my writing start with comic books. I am fascinated by the marriage of words and pictures, and believe writers can learn so much about writing by looking at artists and listening to their take on things. I liked this short interview with Maurice Sandak. [Along the lines of […]