Houston, TX – zone 9

I love gardening. It inspires me. It is the closest thing to magic that there is on Earth. One thing I really love about Houston is the ability to garden practically the entire year without stop. Fall is like the second spring out here. Time for winter squash, broccoli, carrots and a dozen other plants. […]

Muse’ings

My muse has been very generous lately. I’ve been writing like a phenom, and pretty well too, if I do say so myself. She’s (or he, just in case) even got my green thumb in harmony with her right now. I started to work on some terrariums to add to the Realm of Calinor. This […]

Are Charities Taking Advantage of Me?

I am the sort of person where if I get a bunch of return address labels from a charity and I don’t just throw it away, if I actually use them, I feel obligated to give a donation. I know from ordering these sorts of things professionally online, that they do not cost 10 dollars […]

The Ancient Art of Twitter

I am studying hieroglyphs (for use in my story illustrations) and it has made me take a look around me at the ‘modern’ equivalents and I decided to toy around with making some in the traditional Mayan fashion.

Name Recognition

One of the most annoying familiar traits of certain genre music is the incessant need habit of speaking their name at the beginning of a song. Listen to an intro of a modern hip-hop song and when you are just getting into the riff and beat, someone will inevitably drop the names of the artists […]

Hobgoblins are the Consistency of Little Minds

Hobgoblins are the Consistency of Little Minds.

PIPA

In light of the SOPA discussions, I think I should warn you that this is the only Pipa I will support: And look how thoughtful the Royals are – they have warning arrows on boys younger than 10 years old. I think that is completely appropriate. (picture from Jared Galleries of Pipa Middleton – sister […]

We Are All Sinners

Writers have definite rules. We have Commandments, as I illustrated a few posts ago. Unfortunately, we also have heretics, sinners, apostates (not to be confused with apostrophe’s) and zealots. It is easy to become one of the aforementioned because not only are the commandments constantly changing–what edition are we on the Chicago Style?–they also contradict […]

Perspective – And How It Feels To Be A Writer

In the book “Misquoting Jesus,” the author remarks about how an event is portrayed four different ways by four different people. He asks himself “Which way did it really happen?” He never admits to himself that it actually might have happened four different ways, all based on the perception of the person who is giving […]

When Your Muse Goes On Strike

Many writers, professional and not, are at the mercy of very fickle Muses. Like OWS protestors or Union workers, Muses are very good at showing you their dissatisfaction, but not so good on explaining why or how to remedy it. For this reason I have written a list of common symptoms. The symptoms of a […]