It's Not Always What You Say . . . . . .But how you say it. A need. I'd bet that's all it took. A need for expression. A need to communicate. A need to connect. A need to share, which led to common understanding and eventually a wider discourse of ideas and varying opinions. Sheer rock faces and cave walls have provided (pardon the pun) hard evidence that we share that need with history's first scribes. Sure, they were crude stick figures, but they provided a vehicle for getting some point across. Chances are, if you're reading this you have, at some level, a love for the written word--no, no, not because it's my written word, but overall you are able to warmly appreciate all that the written word conveys. Most likely you often read the newspaper, some magazines, autobiographies, all kinds of fiction, perhaps even (gasp!) comics. You get warm fuzzies from the quiet satisfaction of completing that book you've been reading on and off for a month (or more). If you share my tendencies, you many times know what you should say, but by the time those brain synapses fire and form thoughts, then shoot them to your vocal chords, they become dipped in the latent yet visceral coating of emotion. Alas, how you say it penultimately isn't necessarily what the doctor ordered. So, maybe, like me, you find you're better at writing such things instead of coaxing foolishness to your side. But you know well that expression through writing is far from prosaic. It plugs into the imagination, and can, indeed, affect each of us differently, our individual interpretations shaped by nuances that are impossible to enumerate or in any way quantify. Words bring thought to life. They breathe, expand and contract. They heat and cool--and all through the mere simplicity of stringing letters together. I certainly can't speak for you, but I find that notion at once powerful and almost magical. From here you can peruse things I've written when verbal acuity falled me. I knew what I wanted to say, but was far more successful in tackling the how by filtering my passion through the veil of transcription. There are articles I've written about writing (for some strange reason that's just fun to say), two poems I've had published in anthologies, and some other non-fictional musings I've penned. There's also an entire site I put together about our Constitution. I have no problem stating publicly that I'm no lawyer nor Constitutional scholar, and much of what I re-learned came from a wonderful book titled The Words We Live By, by Linda R. Monk. As time or interest permits give it a read--it's a fascinating document (the Constitution, that is). If you enjoy what you read here, then please check out my published collection of short stories, The Light, The Dark, and Ember Between. You can read a little more about it back on my home page, and now you can order a signed copy from there as well! Lastly, if you have any feedback, comments, or want to share your thoughts about anything I've placed here, please feel free to drop me a line.
Cordially,
 [ Poems ] ¤ Articles on Writing ¤ Non-Fiction Musings ¤
[ Articles On Writing ]
Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.Writing is often both difficult and delicate. My take on writing is this—from the instant you so much as think about writing you have to do so for three entities: your mind, your soul, and the reader. Of the three you really only have any sort of control over two . . . and neither one is the reader. You constantly risk assuaging one but upsetting the other. Finding the tenuous balance between difficult and delicate is a game of word-borne one-upsmanship.
Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass. I don't labor hard when I write, but most often I think hard, with an equal bent towards feeling. Personally, if I have to work hard at writing, then I'm clearly not bringing my best to the keyboard. And frankly, many times I've revisited my writing to discover that even when I thought I'd been doing well I really wasn't. That's what the backspace key is for, or highlight-and-delete. It's a constant desire to get what you want to say out, almost a fight to pry yourself from yourself, to get to the end and have said what you want the way you wanted. If you can satisfy two of the three entities, I'd say you are, at the bare minimum, heading in the right direction.
Every author in some way portrays himself in his works, even if it be against his will. Some of us, perhaps, a little more than others.
[ Non-Fiction Musings ]
 Countless are the instances when I've sat down to textually express some thought or idea but come up short, or have some other life interruption occur. The offerings posted here are in no way representative of many a squelched moment when the flow of words was dammed. They are, however, representative of times when I was able to write unfettered, allowing feelings and thoughts to be captured fresh and with clarity of vision. Time occassionally has a way of evaporating passion, and in it's wake may stand the bleakness of Reason, or the gray of Apathy. Every so often I beat Time at its own game.
So, for your perusal I offer the below examples of instances where I stood up to Time and declared "In your face!" They're light reads, as is typical for me, but I hope they're equally enjoyable in their lightness. I hope to be able to add more every once in a while, as life and all it's duties allow. As always, please feel free to let me know what you thought :^)
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Shown below are three articles about various aspects of writing. They ain't your English teacher's writing, I'd bet the farm on that.
