Of all the graduation speeches I’ve ever heard, the most meaningful one was at the ceremony for a friend who had just become a rabbi. The speaker exhorted these new clerics “to build a fence around their Torah.” He told them that even as they ministered to their congregations and fulfilled their pastoral duties, raised […]
Winning at NaNoWriMo
It’s November twenty-seventh, meaning including today there are just four more days to finish the NaNoWriMo challenge of writing a 50,000-word novel in one short month. As of this morning, I’m at 42,452, so it’s nip-and-tuck whether I’ll cross the finish line in time, but in my view, I’ve already won. When I first […]
Writing Through Grief
My mother died last month. Her death was long anticipated and when it finally came, something of a relief. But losing a parent is one of life’s great transitions, moving the next generation closer to the front line of death. As expected as my mom’s death was, it also caused my universe to wobble. In […]
Subordination Rules!
I had two memorable professors in graduate school. One used to say, “and is the hardest word in the English Language to use well”; the other said, “The secret to good writing is subordination.” Essentially, they were saying the same thing. “And” is a coordinating conjunction, a word that joins equal parts. There are seven […]
White Water Writing
What could learning to whitewater kayak possibly have to do with writing? In my case, four things: work, knowledge, companionship, and fear. #1. In the first place, I went to kayaking school on assignment, so technically, I learned to kayak for work. EasternSlopes.com paid me to go to spend a weekend at Zoar Outdoor […]