I can’t speak for other writers, but speaking for this writer, I like to write while listening to music. There’s something about having music flowing around me that makes the words flow. Some writers, I’ve heard, like to write to soundtracks or classical music. I like to write to jazz. I don’t have a largeContinue reading “On Writing to Music”
On the 2008 World Series
The World Series begins tonight. I don’t have a horse in this race. I’m not sure who to root for. There’s the Rays, who have been perpetual cellar dwellers until this year. Then there’s the Phillies, cursed by the William Penn statue and the losingest team in baseball history. I don’t really want either teamContinue reading “On the 2008 World Series”
On More Bloggery Thinking
Two weeks ago I put together a WordPress theme for a possible work blog. It’s nothing great — it’s a free CSS template, married to some php code I pulled together, plus some CSS jiggery-pokery &mdsh; and as a tech demo it does pretty much what I wanted it to: it showed that a visionContinue reading “On More Bloggery Thinking”
On Political Action Committees and Anti-Athiest Bigotry
Yes, people, I read Red State so you don’t have to. Sometimes, I read conservatives writing about things that simply make no sense to me. Today, however, I found something that angered me. In North Carolina, Liddy Dole is running for reelection to the Senate. Now, I’ve written about Dole in the past; when sheContinue reading “On Political Action Committees and Anti-Athiest Bigotry”
On McCain’s Last Hurrah
I watched Meet the Press this morning as General Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama for President. Powell made a well-reasoned and well-articulated argument for Obama, that he has shown steadiness in the face of challenge, the intellecual temperament, and the understanding necessary to be President of the United States. John McCain, in Powell’s view, hasContinue reading “On McCain’s Last Hurrah”
On “Block the Vote” and Voter Disenfranchisement
The new Rolling Stone has an article on Republican efforts to disenfranchise voters on a national scale. Take away the vote, and voters can’t vote for Democratic candidates. At this point, that may be the GOP’s only hope. Read it. Know it. Your vote may depend upon it.
On McCain’s Play For “Real Virginia”
John McCain’s presidential campaign is making a play for a new state — Real Virginia. Northern Virginia, as McCain spokesperson Nancy Pfotenhauer notes, is growing increasingly Democratic. So, too, is the Virginia Beach area, the Richmond-Fredericksburg corridor, and Albemarle County. The rest of the state is heavily Republican, but the demographic trends of the stateContinue reading “On McCain’s Play For “Real Virginia””
On Working It Out
I’d gotten stuck on an outline. I’d written myself into a corner. I saw the final scenes, clear as day. I knew the final scene inside and out. The problem was… I didn’t know how to get there. I’d reached a point, maybe sixty percent of the way into the story, where I couldn’t “see”Continue reading “On Working It Out”
On the Ultimate Time Waster
I learned to do something amazing and remarkable last weekend. I figured out how to use Audacity to create OOPS music tracks. OOPS? you say. What’s that? you ask. OOPS stands for “Out of Phase Stereo.” It’s a way of flipping one channel of a stereo music track, to create a new, third stereo musicContinue reading “On the Ultimate Time Waster”
On Things I’ve Been Reading
Let’s look at a comics I just picked up today. Ender’s Game: Battle School #1 Marvel Comics Written by Christopher Yost (based on Orson Scott Card’s novel Ender’s Game) Illustrated by Pasqual Ferry I can tell you when and where I was when I first read Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game. It was Thanksgiving weekend,Continue reading “On Things I’ve Been Reading”