A good friend used to manage a music store. A regular customer was looking for a second job and applied for a position at the store. On the application, where one could list various skills and traits, this person wrote this and nothing more: “I have the patience of an oyster.” I’ve been told that […]
Speak Up! (4 Ways to Improve Your Public Speaking)
Novelists have a reputation of being reclusive. Non-fiction writers have a reputation of being salesmen. There’s nothing wrong with being reclusive (although it may take longer to make it—if you make it), and there’s nothing wrong with working hard to sell books. The average book (fiction or non-fiction) doesn’t receive the publicity most authors would […]
My Muse
Wednesday, I wrote about killing the Muse. If I have a Muse, this is what he looks like: He’s a short, gruff guy with a big heart. He wears a yellow hardhat and chews on a cigar. He has a pop eye and says stuff like, “Come on, kid—get your ass in gear! This building […]
Killing the Muse
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 […]
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…
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