Back in May, I started a monthly goal writing document which highlighted my writing goals for the rest of the year. Then every month, around the 10th, I did a check in and wrote down what I accomplished related to writing in the last month. This kind of served a few purposes. On the one... Continue Reading →
Fairy Tale by Stephen King
There’s a dark well in everyone, I think, and it never goes dry. But you drink from it at your peril. That water is poison. -Fairy Tale by Stephen King Charlie Reade looks like a regular high school kid, great at baseball and football, a decent student. But he carries a heavy load. His mom... Continue Reading →
The Realities of Being a Pantser
There are two kinds of writers in the world. The ones who plot (plotters) and the ones who don’t (pantser). I guess some people can fall in between these two categories, but I have yet to meet anyone. I’m a pantser. This means I start a story with a single line, an image, a scene.... Continue Reading →
Sweetness and Lightning by Gido Amagakure
Having lost his wife, math teacher Kouhei Inuzuka is doing his best to raise his young daughter Tsumugi as a single father. He's pretty bad at cooking and doesn't have a huge appetite to begin with, but chance brings his little family and one of his students, Kotori Iida, together for homemade adventures. With those... Continue Reading →
Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami
Tsukiko is drinking alone in her local sake bar when by chance she meets one of her old high school teachers and, unable to remember his name, she falls back into her old habit of calling him 'Sensei'. After this first encounter, Tsukiko and Sensei continue to meet. Together, they share edamame beans, bottles of... Continue Reading →
How I Fell Back in Love with Writing
November has rolled in, and I decided to participate in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). The last time I took part in NaNoWriMo was back in 2015 (yikes!). I wrote over 90,000 words of a fantasy novel in a single month, squeezing in writing time before and after work and sometimes even on my lunch... Continue Reading →