Ye Olde Writing Life

10,000 words, 65 writers, 1 exquisite corpse

September 29, 2009

(What’s an exquisite corpse?) Sixty-four raging renegades and I will be pulling together to write a story over the next few weeks to be published in No Colony and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Maybe. Who knows. The whole thing could go down in a blaze of bullets and grey smoke. No matter: for $10 [...]

Continue reading . . .

Strange Things Happen: The Green Flag

September 29, 2009

Today is my eighth wedding anniversary. (Hi, honey.) Today is also the official U.S. release of Stewart Copeland‘s Strange Things Happen: A Life with The Police, Polo, and Pygmies. (Hi, Mr. Copeland.) Which means that today is also the official U.S. in-print debut of the Green Flag. (Hi, Flag.) I’ve known this day would come for months. [...]

Continue reading . . .

New article at PopMatters: “My Love-Hate Relationship with River Phoenix”

September 22, 2009

Have to run out the door for much of the day, but I’m excited to share my new byline over at PopMatters (despite my inelegant cropping): Please feel welcome to leave a comment over there. Comments good.

Continue reading . . .

Feel

July 23, 2009

Sometimes I forget. When I was a kid, I used to freak out when things went wrong. Seriously freak out. Tears, uncontrolled shaking, heaving. Full-blown panic attack. My inability to draw could turn any science project into a scene from Medea. Even now, my freak-out tendency can pop up at unexpected times. A tortellini tragedy [...]

Continue reading . . .

Writing blind: Rough drafts, glasses, and a pair of lazy eyes

July 15, 2009

I have two lazy eyes. Thirty years ago, after years of unuttered annoyances and resentments, the muscles behind my eyes fought a feud. Aggravation turned to hurtful words. Rage. Insults. A broken lamp. Rude things said about the other’s mother. Shards of glass sprayed everywhere. It wasn’t pretty. The two of them have refused to [...]

Continue reading . . .

Fail = win

July 4, 2009

Yesterday I submitted a personal essay to an online pop culture magazine. It wasn’t great. I worked on it for weeks, reading, researching, and writing, changing the approach, editing, and rewriting; but I just never quite hit a stride. Parts of it sound okay, but the overall flow, well, isn’t. The middle is thin. I [...]

Continue reading . . .

Appropriation is the sincerest form of flattery

June 5, 2009

My friend foobella has decided that my article on stewartcopeland.net embodies her Police reunion tour experience so well that she no longer has to write about the experience herself. Which is enormously flattering. Cheating, but flattering. Thank you, foobella.

Continue reading . . .

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →