Dead Wall Window

For no apparent reason, today I decided to see if this blog still exists. It just so happens my last post was 10 years ago today.  Whoa.  It...

In college we shared a studio apartment on Channing in Berkeley, taking turns sleeping in the closet. At night we would go to Edy's on ...

As of yesterday, it's been four weeks since I've had a drink. I'm just slightly proud of that, and I'm still trying to figur...

I'm sitting in the driveway right now, thinking about love and how I've been somehow pretty damned blessed in that department. I...

I wish I could always say it was you, Dee Dee. But I confess: You were not my first favorite Ramone. When I first saw Rock 'n Roll Hig...

I have no illusions that I'll achieve everything I want to. There's not enough time. So here it is, the stuff I intend to fail at in...

I've been aching for something meaningful to post for two months now, but I got nuthin'. Life has been reduced to novel revisions an...

So I finally finished writing the sucker. It took over a month just to do the last chapter, but it's done. But revisions... aye yi yi. ...

I'm sure some folks are happy that Borders is probably closing after "what they did" to local bookstores. But I think the dep...

I'm struggling with the last chapter of the novel. The main trouble is trying to maintain a consistent voice from beginning to end. I kn...

Yesterday The Times had an great article on the benefits of being shy. I've often thought that being shy is a huge disadvantage for the...

I've struggled quite a bit with the transition from writing non-fiction to fiction. But what made it easier is that, having spent 10 yea...

Today I got caught up to speed with the drama surrounding the Medill Innocence Project , the Northwestern University-based program that, ove...

I'll start off with a confession: My first dream job was "lumberjack." I don't know why, but the thought of climbing giant...

Once upon a time, noting a rise in niche bloggers who had carved out a unique identity and legions of fans online, I toyed with the idea of ...

So I woke up this morning to find this article from the Guardian, which prompted a major gut check on my part: Release of Sarah Palin email...

I've always thought there was a correlation between temperature and my writing production. I thought I can't be the only one. But wh...

Yesterday I picked up Janet Burroway's book, "Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft," which I understand is something of...

I have ebooks on the brain pretty bad. I hardly thought about them six months ago, but now I can't stop thinking about them. (I just did...

Next to music, the short story has to be the most perfect art form ever to exist. So I'm naturally drawn to any top ten list, if for no ...

So I'm up to 50,000 words in the novel I'm writing. (I would call it my "first novel" but it could also be my last, so I...

This is a whiny post, so please forgive me or ignore it... I guess it was bound to happen. Today I looked in the mirror and decided, I'm...

I don't read just one book at a time. I have several going on at once. Right now it's Plan B, In Our Time, and In the Name of the Wo...

Yesterday I started off taking a walk around the block and, feeling sort of ambitious, kept on walking -- past BART, under the Highway 4 ove...

Here's the problem with this blog, in a nutshell: I can't write a single decent post. I look at other writers' blogs and see a p...

Reading If He Hollers Let Him Go and wondering why they didn't add this to the books I read in high school. I've probably said it be...

I know they're corny, but I'm all for new year's resolutions. There's a ton of shit I want to change in my life, things that...

It happens every Christmas without fail: After unwrapping presents, one of the kids figures out his or her load is smaller than everyone els...

It's really hard to write about my mom without making her sound like some crazy roommate from hell. For one thing, she's a great lia...

I used to love hot weather. I sweat a lot, and when it was hot I could sort of resign myself to this, not worry about it, and then go play b...