Category: Uncategorized
-
Coping
Seiko Shihan Oyama used to say “You can be happy or you can be sad. It’s your choice.” So much that happens is completely out of our control. Yet, if we let it trouble us, even the smallest thing can become and issues. There is a Buddhist koan that tells of a master who asked…
-
Frustrated?
I am. I suffer from a form of divergence which causes me to be easily frustrated. Yesterday was a lesson in “deal with it.” When I am Trying to write and distractions and interruptions overwhelm me, I tend to get angry, frustrated and want to throw down my pen screaming “never mind! I give up.”…
-
Star Bucks The Original Series
Like Tolstoy, I like to write in the marketplace. My marketplace is invariably a coffee shop. And, since I am a trekker of the globe, there is some familiarity and holiness in Starbucks. In New Orleans, I write at Cherry Coffee Roasters on Laurel. I love the vibe and the coffee. However, in my current…
-
More on Writing
More on not moron. Haha. Well, subjective. I am working on my novel Tanglewood. I have taken to scheduling two hours each day devoted to writing. At least an hour is pure Tanglewood. Today, the first hour was dedicated to continuing the story. The story has jumped the rail and is off on its own…
-
Working It
Writing is fun. Well, sort of. Creating the story, bringing the characters to life, imagining the settings and situations – these things are fun. Sharing the idea is fun. Telling people what you are thinking is fun. Writing and finishing is work. Just plain work. My dear friend and poet Kemmer Anderson, graduate of Davidson,…
-
A Poet on “Faith”
So, I am a poet. I am also a person of faith. I have not always been a person of faith. Like Yusuf, Cat Stevens, I have journeyed to come to a place of believing in something. An awareness or belief in something mystic is often called “faith” , but I don’t know if that…
-
Faith
So, “Pops” is a person of faith. Right away some people will cringe. Issues of faith have been so exploited and misrepresented, often by the very people who present the beliefs, that it is even difficult to listen seriously to anyone who talks about church, faith, Christianity or the Bible. But, please, don’t write me…
-
Work. Finish. Then say, “I’m a writer.”
I meet a lot of your “writers”. They call themselves “writers” because they like to write. In fact, they do write, as long as by writing we mean words on paper or words on a screen. However, if by “writer” we mean craftsman, people who have studied and perfected a craft, then they are deluded…
