What happens when your husband dies in an avalanche and then you marry his best friend? It’s a fascinating question that artist and writer Jennifer Lowe-Anker set out to answer in her 2009 book Forget Me Not. The Backstory Jennifer Lowe-Anker was married to the famous climber, Alex Lowe, and they had three sons together. When Alex had another really early morning departure for a … Continue reading Climbing to The Top of the Rankings
Have you ever cooked a meal just for yourself? The dish may taste good and we may be proud of our efforts in making it, but in the end, it just isn’t that satisfying to do all that work just for one person. Continue reading Post Creative Pain
At a recent elementary school open house, my daughter’s third grade teacher said something profound. Well, she said a lot of wise things, because the knowledge of teachers is immense. But one particularly thing about writing and reading that caught my ear. Here it is – that she looks for books for these young readers to be either “windows” or “mirrors.” Windows are the books … Continue reading Writing Windows and Mirrors
Jesus wept. The shortest sentence in the Bible. As a pastor’s kid, this is the type of trivia that I know. Although I know I’m not alone, and that one doesn’t have to be a Bibliophile to know this. The short sentence has power. You couldn’t guess that I know this from my writing though. The readability analysis of my writing is forever telling me … Continue reading The Power of Short Sentences
The other day I was introduced to a brilliant piece of self-promotion in the course of my work. A man had a small business that he wanted to promote. I don’t know the exact number, but there are probably at least 100,000 other businesses in the United States that do the same type of technical consulting he did. He didn’t want to buy Google or … Continue reading Promoting Your Writing With Search
The stats on my personal blog show that the most viewed posts are my weekly ones where I publish photos that I took during the week with a quote. The themes vary based on activities – vacation, the puppy, my kids, hiking but they generally are the fruits of enjoying life. These posts are short and sweet. But the stats also show that my longer … Continue reading Is Short Form Content What We Want?
There was a carousel in the town I grew up in that held a special attraction for me as a kid. It was originally built in 1909 and had beautifully carved wooden horses big enough that they could create the illusion of really riding. But in addition to that, the ride purveyors had added a chute of rings that riders on outside horses could reach. … Continue reading The Universal You
How we blog; where our inspiration comes from can be quite a topical discussion. In this post I consider the arguments for and against using prompts to guide our writing. Continue reading An alternative approach: Using prompts in blogging
I’ve recently discovered that there are a lot of parallels between having a new job and a new puppy. Weren’t expecting that combo? Let me explain. Both making doing yoga in the morning hard. And both benefit from a lot of training. In some instances when they get a hold of you just right, both have sharp teeth that bite. Not to mention that both … Continue reading Unlikely Learning Mates
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, … Continue reading Great First Lines
It’s funny the things that I read that stick with me. I’m thinking of a post about 15 years ago from a high school friend on Facebook that said something like, “I notice that there are some people whose only activity here is posting and they don’t spend any time liking or commenting on other people’s stuff.” My friend was a year older than me … Continue reading Do You Like My Writing Or Are We Just Friends?
The other day I landed on a blog post and as I scrolled down to add a comment, I saw that there were already 41 comments. That set me back on my heels. What else could I possibly add to the conversation? Funny how a number can spark self-doubt. It’s like joining a big group of people at a party that have already been talking … Continue reading The Art of the Comment
Have you ever wanted to reinvent your life? Have you tried several times but failed? Reinventing yourself professionally or personally can be a challenge but also a great adventure. Follow these 6 steps to succeed. First step: find or wake up one of your passions. Concluding one phase and starting another one is not easy. Reinventing yourself requires more commitment than a simple change. Consequences may … Continue reading Reinventing Yourself Could Be a Good Idea. Find It Out How by Following These 6 Steps
I was talking with author Lois Roelofs about her newly released book, Marv Taking Charge, and she made the comment that she started blogging back in the day because she was told she needed a platform. As an aside, she said, “Whatever a platform is.” Right – whatever a platform is. Presumably, some sort of online presence so that we can meet and share what … Continue reading Building a Platform
Recently a fellow blogger made an interesting comment. DM from the I also live on a farm blog said that a longtime blogger gave him advice that was something like whether you feel a post is awful or well done, not to dwell, ponder or gloat, but move on to the next post. It made me wonder, how do we recover from our bad posts? … Continue reading How to Recover From a Bad Post
In the summer of 2015, I was pregnant with two projects. The most obvious was my daughter, but I was also about to give birth to a memoir about my father. My father had died in a bike accident the day after I finalized plans to become pregnant by invitro fertilization. His death kicked off an urgency to take the recordings I’d made of my … Continue reading Memoir Writing: Understanding the Why
I started blogging on WordPress because I wanted to practice writing. Although I’ve written and published, mostly technical books but also a memoir about my beloved father, I had a sense that I could hone the skill of putting words together to describe life and myself more adeptly. What I’ve found is that the practice of writing has changed me. Whenever I put life down … Continue reading The Writer’s Mission Statement
Early on in my technical career, I was contracted by Microsoft to write some of their certification exams. When they were releasing a new product, it was a brilliant way to push the technical partners to train and adopt the new product and also convince their customer base that there were partners ready and able to help them implement the new technology. The questions went … Continue reading Writing Outside of the Box
High stake situations require complete and utmost concentration. Any distraction or lapse of judgement can shift your attention away from the present moment, hindering your efforts to achieve a state of effortless flow. This could make all the difference in the final moments of a championship game or dictate whether you are in peak performance mode when giving a big presentation at work. In the … Continue reading Reverse Engineering Bliss: Hacking the Flow State
So I hit a roadblock with my writing recently. I stalled. Ironically while writing a book about stalling and the need to let go to regain lift in life. Instead of doing that, I kept smacking my head against a brick wall. I am the master of not following my own advice. Eventually, I ceded defeat, downed tools, and went on the first holiday I’d … Continue reading Writer’s Roadblock
