Jane’s Meme: Learning to Write

My friend Jane invited me to her meme about learning to write. The assignment is to write about three contradictory practices that helped in my development. Mine aren’t necessarily contradictory, just not obviously connected, but they overlap quite a bit.
1.
I aced my senior composition project in high school. Grades don’t necessarily reflect what students learn, [...]

Blood and Rainbows

I feel tentative about reading other writers’ blogs because when their writing is really strong, I get a little depressed. It’s sort of the “wish-I’d-written-that” syndrome, but not necessarily that simple. Reading good writing makes me feel and think with such intensity that I have to stop reading for a while.
There’s something inspiring about that [...]

FWIW: Can’t Not Write.

After receiving my most recent rejection via email, I fired off manuscripts to four journals yesterday. One sent to triage; four sent back to battle–those are good odds, right?
Perhaps not. According to the editor, the journal that rejected me accepted fewer than 10% of the work that was submitted. One of the journals I contacted [...]

The Streisand Effect (Part Two)

To mark the U.S. release of Streisand’s new album, Love is the Answer, here’s an essay I wrote about my partner’s adoration of her. It’s been rejected by some classy publications, so I may as well share it here.
Part one appeared yesterday.
Here’s part two…
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Streisand is part of our lives. A member of our [...]

The Streisand Effect (Part One)

Anticipating tomorrow’s U.S. release of Streisand’s new album, Love is the Answer, here’s an essay I wrote about my partner’s adoration of her. It’s been rejected by some classy publications, so I may as well share it here.
Part one today. Part two tomorrow.
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My partner Doug asked me to go with him to see Barbra [...]