Writing Class with Blackbird Studio

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his is NOT a plug for a friend. I promise. Jennifer is an amazing teacher and a true inspiration, and she believes in people. You want to write? Excellent. She will teach you how to write. You have to do the work, and it might take years, but she’s there for you.

Again. Not the point. It’s all about me, right?

I’ve been having a hard time with writing. I’ve been trying to work on a new project, and it hasn’t gone well. Usually I get the idea, I get excited, I do tons of research (which, in turn, gives me more ideas and inspiration), and then I sit down and write. Viola! Novel. This one? Not so much.

And Jennifer’s probably telling me what a lovely writer I am just so that she can get someone else to pay for her class (just kidding!), but it’s exactly the motivation I needed at a time when I really had to do something different with my writing. Read More


The Great Aunt Lydia Project

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hen I go to visit my mother, it’s always an experience. She amazes me. She currently lives in a single-wide trailer on the farm where I grew up. And whenever I visit, she constantly talks about getting rid of stuff. She wants my sister to take all of the old family photographs. She wants my other sister to have the dolls she played with when she was little. She wants me to take the Corningware and other dishes. (She didn’t have to work very hard to convince me to take the Corningware. It’s the pretty blue cornflower pattern, and–most importantly–the various-sized pieces still have their lids, because my mother is VERY careful.)

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“One being asked, why his head was all gray, but not one white haire on his beard, answered, it is no wonder: for the haire of my head, is older than that of my beard, by twenty yeares.”
Archibald Armstrong, A Banquet of Jests and Merry Tales

On Gray Hayres