writing

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Point of View: Writing With My Mouth

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mouth - deposit photos

I don’t have enough time to write. To be fair, this is a perennial problem. Most recently, it’s been related to the many hours I poured into the Sacramento Book Festival which happened a week and a half ago, and also to the other weekend events during Pride Season that I attend, and where I manage a table for our local Queer Sacramento Authors Collective group. So I’ve been scrounging for more writng time. A few days a week, I walk over to meet Mark at the Starbucks on the Sacramento State campus. These solo walks take 15-20 minutes, and … Read more

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Point of View: Adrift

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river - deposit photos

And the river flowsI am never gonna get it back againAnd the river flowsI am never gonna take it back again… “Take Me Back”, by Erasure Sometimes a song speaks to you in an unexpected way, and the music unlocks something you’ve been feeling for a long time, but couldn’t quite name. Our world is in a state of flux, where everything we thought we knew is being questioned, threatened, and overturned. Most of us just want to go back to the way things used to be, when we were standing on what we thought was solid ground. As I … Read more

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Point Of View: Let the Rain Wash Me Clean

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teen in the rain - deposit photos

I was sitting at my desk about half an hour ago, when I heard something outside. I opened the blinds and peered out, and a decent rain was falling out of the sky. Within a couple minutes it built into a thunderous crescendo, pummeling the roof above, like a hundred drummers beating on tautly stretched hides. It was mesmerizing. The rain has passed, and now there are patches of blue sky outside. And while we know the rain will come again, maybe as soon as this afternoon, for now the air is crisp and clean, and the world feels new … Read more

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Point of View: Picking Up Where I Left Off

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man on a cliff with an umbrella - deposit photos

December was a rough month. January was a rough month. February was a rough month. March… well, we’ll see. So far it hasn’t been grand. I like to write a bit every day, but lately life, stress, and the pile-up of things to do has gotten the better of me. I’m lucky if I can manage to write once or twice a week. Which right now is just enough to keep my blog serial Down the River going. Part of it, too, is a schedule in turmoil, and persistent insomnia that leaves me unwilling or unable to get up early … Read more

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Point of View: Adrift

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adrift - deposit photos

If you’re anything like Mark and I, you’re probably feeling a bit lost at sea right now. Our new Administration here in the US has turned everything upside down – black is White, Zelensky is Putin, and all the lies are now true. Or at least they will be once they finish beating us over the head with them. The weather here in Northern California is vacillating between super cold and rainy and too warm for February, suggesting a hot summer to come. I’ve now been looking for a job now for sixteen months. I interview, they love me, they … Read more

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Point of View: The Great Escape

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Man staring at buildings made of books - deposit photos

I can’t bear it. I can’t let myself think too far ahead right now. I know the awful is coming, and for a few more precious weeks, I just want to bury my head in the sand like they say ostriches do (even though they don’t, really). So I’m looking for a few all-encompassing escapes. One of those is popular entertainment. Mark and I are binging the whole Ally McBeal series, which was from the late nineties and dealt with grand themes like misogyny in the workplace, which thankfully no longer exists (this is where I really need a sarcasm … Read more

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Point of View: Writing (Really) Short

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Haiku - Deposit Photos

Over the last eight years, we’ve constantly been searching to cope with a world turned upside down. Mark and I have tried a variety of self-care methods – long showers, walks through the neighborhood, spending time in a coffee shop. But last year we discovered a new method. The daily haiku. The New York Times had an article about expressing yourself this way, and we thought “what the heck?” So we started sending each other a short poem each morning, encapsulating our hopes, fears, dreams and delights in seventeen syllables a day. We’ve since shared the practice with a few … Read more

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Point of View: It Matters What We Do, and that We Do It

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I recently saw a disturbing quote from Elon Musk (I know – is there any other kind?): “It’s hard to say exactly what that moment is, but there will come a point where no job is needed,” the tech billionaire said. “You can have a job if you want to have a job — sort of personal satisfaction — but the AI will be able to do everything.” I normally try to keep this column (and my life in general) a Musk-free zone, but I think he’s getting at something important here. We are moving into an era where it’s … Read more

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Point of View: The Wonderful, Terrible Act of Writing

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meme

I realized long ago that it’s possible to hold two entirely contradictory thoughts in your head at the same time, both of them equally valid. For instance, I can hear about a fellow author’s success – let’s say they won a contest that I also entered my own book into (and lost). I can be thrilled at their success and sad for my own loss. Both of these things are valid, and one doesn’t negate the other. That’s how it is with my relationship with writing. There’s nothing I’d rather do than be writing, and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do … Read more

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Point of View: The (Questionable) Wisdom of Writing Four Things at Once

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Man with lots of ideas - deposit photos

My therapist thinks I have ADHD tendencies. That’s a fancy way of saying that I’m happiest when I am multitasking. I love round-robining through three different things at once, doing a bit on each until I wrap all of them up with pretty bows on top. Another way of saying this is that I’m a high-functioning ADHDer. I’ve learned to work with those tendencies, and to make them work for me. This came up again recently in my writing life. I’ve been stalled out on my latest WIP, my first “Forever Cycle” novel that seems to have me stuck in … Read more