Category Archives: Writing

Writers Horoscope August 4: Stick to your standards.

Your work eschews profanity.

No reason to start that &*^%! now, right?

You don’t need %$#!  or ^*@#@!  or ^@#&!   to verbidextrously [don’t bother looking it up] weave your way through that tense showdown between the mallwalking retirees.

Writers Horoscope August 2: Your next income opportunity? Think it through.

That part-time job sounds good. But will it feed your search for new characters?

Or will it feed your need to dine on more than chicken[ish] ramen with taco seasoning?  [Talk about Asian fusion…]

 

 

Web Gems: A quick look at openculture.com

 

I’m sharing three highlights from openculture.com, a leading provider of open educational resources. More to come in the future.

1. http://www.openculture.com/ Scroll to Writing Tips in the inner right column. Guidance from the list of fair-to-middlin’ writers [;->] below is available.

  • Ernest Hemingway
  • F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • Stephen King
  • Ray Bradbury
  • William Zinsser
  • Kurt Vonnegut
  • Toni Morrison
  • Edgar Allan Poe
  • Margaret Atwood
  • David Ogilvy
  • John Steinbeck
  • Billy Wilder

2. http://www.openculture.com/freeonlinecourses
There is a section on journalism and writing, including this iTunes-based creative writing master class. I figure even if you drop in at your leisure, mug of coffee in hand…

  • No turning heads and ensuing glares from students or teacher. [Even your inevitable coffee spills will go unnoticed.]
  • Tons to learn in convenient time chunks.

3. http://www.openculture.com/free_ebooks
Ebooks from Neil Gaiman, Phillip Dick, David Foster Wallace, and John Muir, as well as some struggling amateurs ;-> like Faulkner, Fitzgerald, and Shakespeare. Also, consider scrolling down to the bottom to the ‘Assorted Texts’ section.

Writers Horoscope-July 30: Your high-strung tendencies can be an asset.

Your protagonist Dwayne has been a pin-cushion lately.

It’s time for him to rebel against his office doubling as a cleaning supply closet at ‘Serfs-On-Call’’. Scrawl out ‘WHAT WOULD YOU DO???’ on the nearest Big Mac wrapper, slap it on the wall, take off your pulse monitor, and picture Dwayne.

Feel the burn…you’ve been dissed one too many times…yes, that’s clumsy Art with the plumber’s crack bursting in for a mop replacement and you find yourself engulfed in rolls of bathroom tissue…there you go, now reach for that keyboard.

Hint: Stay off the ledge. You’re only on Chapter 10.

Writers Horoscope-July 29: Introspection is the order of the day.

Tread lightly.

Don’t let ‘What should I be doing with my life?’ devolve into a sniping session that spews  the age-old, ‘Shouldn’t you chisel the cheese encrusted from your front burner?’ or ‘Did the dogs get their hourly dose of love, affection, and Beggin’ Strips?’ or–the most hurtful of all–’Are you gonna wear that today?’.