Posts made in November, 2011

I’m not a huge football fan but I like to watch some bowl games and of course, the Super bowl. In the gym on Monday mornings the TV is on ESPN and I usually see the weekend game recaps. I have noticed over the past few weeks that when Tim Tebow comes up it’s just about unanimous, commentators hate him. Maybe they don’t hate him personally, but they seem offended that he’s playing football in the NFL. I’ve heard comments like this, “he’s not learning to read plays,” “he won’t last with all that scrambling he does,” and the number one complaint “his throwing motion is ugly, it won’t work in the NFL.” Now, I threw the javelin in college, not well and not far, but I understand the mechanics of throwing an object. Granted a football is not a...

November is National Novel Writing Month. I’ve used that excuse in the past to shut myself in, sit down, and write, write, write. Fifty five thousand words later I had a good start on a novel and I love the idea that novel writing has it’s own special month. As I was thinking about that this morning, and all the other special months on the calendar, Black History Month, American Heart Month, Celebration of Life Month, etc., I came to the conclusion that there should be an Editor Appreciation Month. As a writer, I believe a good editor is worth their weight in gold and I have the privilege of knowing and working with some wonderful editors. I self edit as best I can but having someone else go through a manuscript with the focus on making the writing better,...

When writing a novel or a story, I struggle with endings. I have ideas that start well and build to solid middles, but deciding how to end a novel is always the most difficult part of the process for me. Currently, the struggle is with my work in progress. It’s not that I don’t know how I want the story to end, it’s just putting one word after another down on the page to get there in the right way to evoke the right response. Usually when I struggle like this, it helps to pick up a writing book and review the basics. To that end, I picked up an old Writer’s Digest book called, Beginnings, Middles and Ends by Nancy Kress. The title of her section on endings is this: Satisfying Endings, Delivering on the Promise. Right away I’m inspired, I do believe that...