July 2010

This is a message for everyone in Washington- it’s not quite a Manifesto, but it is a laundry list of what I think are opportunities that should become imperatives in the near future. The gulf between Washington’s operations and the way they use Technology is criminal. Look at the ideals we had as a nation when we were founded, of Democracy and Freedom of Speech and connecting people across cultural, racial, ethnic and ethical divides, and you will see that we have a huge opportunity to fight, learn, agree, disagree, and be heard on social media. And listen, of course, which is the biggest thing that Congress and the rest of Washington needs to do.

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I have written a Fantasy Trilogy and the first volume is now available on Amazon, but only on Kindle.  A free Kindle for PC app is available there and the first 70 pages of my novel are available to anyone with the app as a preview.  There are hundreds of other free titles there that are complete. I would greatly appreciate any who takes the time to read the free preview and see if they are interested.   If you know who Bran, Pug, and Fitz are then you will like my novel.                                                                      &nbs

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Fake Newspaper GeneratorWhile I am not exactly certain how useful all of these applications are, there are a number of sites promoting “Writing Tools” to either analyze your writing or help it along. Here are a few of my personal favorite so-called “Writing Tools” that I’ve come across during my time as a freelance writer.

I Write Like- This site provides a tool to analyze your writing to see which famous writer you write like. On the site’s home page, you will find a box to copy/box some of your own writing from whatever source you choose. After entering your text, it takes you to the next page where your site is analyzed. Since my writing was compared to late and very great David Foster Wallace, I am thinking that the tool is not all that accurate.


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Anais Nin is best remembered as a diarist, as well as a writer of erotica. By far, one of the most fascinating female literary figures, she has inspired many female writers, including myself. Like Nin, I have kept a journal from the time I was 11. Her diaries spanned decades until shortly before her death. Not only was she an author, but she was also a flamenco dancer, an actress, a psychoanalyst, and the lover of many prominent male authors of her time. She lived life with passion and fearlessness, like a true artist.

Here are my favorite quotes from this amazing author.

"The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say."

"Creation which cannot express itself becomes madness."

"I write emotional algebra."

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There are a few different poetry challenges that I love to participate in. Most people know about NaPoWriMo—or National Poetry Writing Month—which occurs every spring. That one is pretty straightforward; you write a poem every day for thirty days. Fun and simple, it’s a fantastic way to challenge yourself and get those creative juices flowing.

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don't let the cuteness fool you, he's full of munitionsIf any of the features on craigslist function, even at a fraction of the quality they're supposed to, the Jobs section does. Sure, the overwhelming majority of the posts in Jobs are still fake in one way or another, but there are enough genuine posts for actual employment that the section's continued existence is justified. In fact, even the fake posts in Jobs are pretty boring. Most of them are get rich quick schemes presented in all-caps or some other, similarly obvious trick. If you want to get a laugh, or possibly a chill down your spine, when visiting Jobs you have to go to the bottom and read ETC. While the Jobs subsections cover a lot of professional ground, there are still some reasonable gaps in the categories. Sometimes it's because there just aren't enough listings to require a whole page (like pet-related jobs) and sometimes it's because they're not really "jobs" in the strictest sense, like the ubiquitous posts for human egg harvesting. The following is just a taste of what you can expect from the ETC listings.

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Links are ImportantA few years ago, a friend and I were each writing on our own blogs as religiously as we possibly could. And, everyday, when we checked out our Google Analytics, we were sorely disappointed in the hit counts. The comments we were received were equally disappointing- we would write each other comments pretty often, but unless I count my mysterious Chinese fan who would occasionally send me comments in either Mandarin or Cantonese (I don’t know the difference), neither one of us got very many other comments.

The reason was obvious- we weren’t taking the time to link to our articles. For whatever reason, we each thought that our small following of friends and acquaintances who would realistically check our blogs about once a month was enough to get us more hits. It wasn’t even close to enough.


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