Blogging / Blogger, Too

It is by sitting down to write every morning that one becomes a writer.
––     Gerald Brenan
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On This Day In:
2022	Most First Steps Start From Here
2021	B3: Start By Just Being You
	Everybody Tells Me So
2020	Never B3
2019	No Small Thing
2018	Unsaid And Undone
2017	Evidence Of Faith
2016	Patience Is A Virtue
2015	Slow Faith
2014	Not In Any Sense
2013	The Circus On TV
2012	To Be Stronger
2011	Are You Sure?

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Blogging, Too

The secret to being a writer is that you have to write.  It’s not enough to think about writing or to study literature or plan a future life as an author.  You really have to lock yourself away, alone, and get to work.
–     Augusten Burroughs
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On This Day In:
2022	Under My Fingertips…
	Seeking The Divine
2021	And My Sister Is Taxing
	What Did The Wise Men Say?
2020	One Phrase
2019	Why #LyingDonald Can’t Trust Any Honorable Person
2018	An Old Style Conservative
2017	John Q.
2016	In Trembling Hope Repose
2015	Let There Be Light
2014	Unless
2013	Divergent Roads To Similarity?
2012	In The Process
2011	What Do You Emphasize?

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A Little Advice On Blogging…

Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry.  Writers are like dancers, like athletes.  Without that exercise, the muscles seize up.
–     Jane Yolen
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On This Day In:
2022	What Do You See?
2021	Lite It Up
	Some Day
2020	No Answers Yet
	120 Day Health / Weight Update (Jan 2020)
2019	Stationary Target
2018	And Firmly
2017	Nearer My Goal To Thee
2016	Relatively Simple Actions
2015	And Yet, You Did
2014	Difficult Learning
2013	Four Things To do
2012	When I Was Young…
	Emergence

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Just Keep Hitting The Damned Keys

Being a writer is a very peculiar sort of job:  It’s always you versus a blank sheet of paper (or a blank screen) and quite often the blank piece of paper wins.
––     Neil Gaiman
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On This Day In:
2022	Living In The Big Lie With A Loser
2021	An Obligation To Condemn Is Not An Obligation To Ban
	Caught In The Rain
2020	Me Too
2019	#45: Whitewalkers Tremble, Treason Is Forever
2018	Light Or Darkness
2017	Doubtful Education
2016	Absolute
2015	Still The Best Teacher
2014	Inside The Soul
2013	A Toe In The River
2012	Believe It Or Not
2011	The Road To Recovery (And More Myths)

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Untold Agony

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.
―     Maya Angelou
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On This Day In:
2016	Just Borrowed
2015	Warning
2014	Always More Productive
2013	Is Not
2012	Loosely Translated
2011	Your Opinions Are Not My Facts

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A Storm Over The Horizon

Writing a book is a bit like surfing…   Most of the time you’re waiting.  And it’s quite pleasant, sitting in the water waiting.  But you are expecting that the result of a storm over the horizon, in another time zone, usually, days old, will radiate out in the form of waves.  And eventually, when they show up, you turn around and ride that energy to the shore.  It’s a lovely thing, feeling that momentum.  If you’re lucky, it’s also about grace.  As a writer, you roll up to the desk every day, and then you sit there, waiting, in the hope that something will come over the horizon.  And then you turn around and ride it, in the form of a story.
―    Tim Winton
Found at one of the blogs I follow:  A Not So Jaded Life
The specific post can be found at:  http://anotsojadedlife.wordpress.com/2016/05/30/23-tips-from-famous-writers-for-new-and-emerging-authors/
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On This Day In:
2015	What About Today?
2014	Idiot, n.
2013	Temporary Reality
2012	The Great Objective
2011	Read A Book

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Truth Telling

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero;  but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.
––    Gilbert K. Chesterton
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On This Day In:
2015	To Be Effective In The Modern World
2014	A Little Cover
2013	Binding
2012	Lift
2011	Another Good Movie, Another Excellent Book
	miSFits
	I’m Just Not Sure

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Why Do You Write/Blog?

I wrote the books I should have liked to read.  That’s always been my reason for writing.  People won’t write the books I want, so I have to do it for myself.
―   C. S. Lewis
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On This Day In:
2022	Big And Bad (In A Good Way)
2021	Suggestions…
	Dichotomy
2020	Until November… Then Vote
2019	Start With Health And Friends
	Iterum Vale Tres*
2018	Tweets From The Disrupter-In-Chief
2017	Do We Still Listen To Her Silent Lips?
	Not Now, Not Ever
2016	Why Do You Write/Blog?
2015	Can Your Repeat The Question, Please?
2014	On Faith
2013	My Name Is Charles Stein
2012	Faiths And Sorcery
	Made And Kept Free
2011	Multi-Source Learning

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One

The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.
―    Thomas Jefferson
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On This Day In:
2021	Why We Have So Few Personal Favorites
	I Would Have Liked You Anyway
2020	Why We Must Vote #45 Out
	If You Believe
2019	Sometimes I Still Have Trouble Sleeping
	Public Ridicule For Office Holder
2018	And Flights Of Fancy
	Dodgers Lose 2nd Consecutive World Series!!
2017	By Their Acts Thy Shall Know Them
2016	Remembering
2015	One
2014	Sure Experiments And Demonstrated Arguments
2013	Irrational Complacency
2012	Why Criticize?
	Giants Sweep 2012 World Series With Game 4 Win (4 To 3)!!!
2011	Saying Just Enough
2010	Giants Win Game 2 Shutout of Rangers – 9 to 0!!!

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Beyond My Reach

What things there are to write, if one could only write them!  My mind is full of gleaming thoughts;  gay moods and mysterious, moth-like meditations hover in my imagination, fanning their painted wings.  They would make my fortune if I could catch them;  but always the rarest, those freaked with azure and the deepest crimson, flutter away beyond my reach.
The ever-baffled chase of those filmy nothings often seems, for one of sober years in a sad world, a trifling occupation.  But have I not read of the Great Kings of Persia who used to ride out to hawk for butterflies, nor deemed this pastime beneath their royal dignity?
—    Logan Pearsall Smith
From the book:  “More Trivia“
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On This Day In:
2022	If That’s What You Mean
2021	Awakening The Glow
	I Remember
2020	Golden Eagle
	Like #45: Incompetent Donald
2019	#45: Who Lost By Three Million Votes
2018	Torn Between Two Loves
	A Girl And A Boy
2017	I Think They Are Starting To…
2016	Living There
2015	Bookin’ West
	Beyond My Reach
	You Never Call Anymore…
2014	Winning?
2013	Still Inventing
2012	Motivated
2011	Waiting In Line At Starbuck’s

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An Ear Of Happy Accidents

To the man with an ear for verbal delicacies  —  the man who searches painfully for the perfect word and puts the way of saying a thing above the thing said  —  there is the constant joy of sudden discovery, of happy accident.
—     Henry Louis Mencken
From:  “A Book of Prefaces“
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On This Day In:
2021	Why We Protect The First Amendment
	When A Voice Can Make You Cry
	The March Continues…
2020	#45: And State Prison Waits When You Leave Office
	I Keep Getting Up
	Difficult To Relax
2019	Looking For A Republican With A Profile In Courage
2018	Hammers, Bells And Songs
2017	My Friends
2016	In Need Of Some Work
2015	Elections Have Consequences
2014	An Ear Of Happy Accidents
2013	Powerful Substitute
2012	Heroes Restored
2011	As You Should

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Familiar

The most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar and familiar things new.
—    William Thackeray
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On This Day In:
2013	Unbending
2012	Simple Sayings
2011	Wupped Again?
2010	3 and 1…
	Musical Notes…
	Doubt Tries…
	Northwest Passages – Evening Two
	The Beierly’s Web Site

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Study The Means Of Expressing Yourself

If you already feel inside you the urge of self-expression, then the first thing that you have to do is to study the means of expressing yourself.  You will have to study very carefully the English language and especially its grammar.  Although most people do not understand the art of good writing, they unconsciously assimilate more easily ideas which are expressed in correct English.  It should be pointed out also that good English is not necessarily flowery English, and the simple phrase — which looks so easy to write — is often the most difficult to construct.  I can not stress too strongly the desirability of writing your sentences word by word and not phrase by phrase.  Many writers fail to get their ideas across to the public solely because they use expressions whose meaning has been killed by repetition.
[An excerpt from one of my high school English books; no author was provided    —    kmab]
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On This Day In:
2013	That Stubborn Thing
2012	Like Mike
2011	Flawless Or Candid
2010	Browning…

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The Writer’s Dilemma

That is the young writer’s dilemma as I see it.  Not just his, but all our problems, is to save mankind from being desouled as the stallion or boar or bull is gelded;  to save the individual from anonymity before it is too late and humanity has vanished from the animal called man.  And who better to save man’s humanity than the writer, the poet, the artist, since who should fear the loss of it more since the humanity of man is the artist’s life’s blood.
—    William Faulkner
From:  “A Word to Young Writers“
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On This Day In:
2013	Just Paying The Rent
2012	Remembering…
2011	A Little Farther

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Let It Go

It’s a great lesson about not being too precious about your writing.  You have to try your hardest to be at the top of your game and improve every joke you can until the last possible second, and then you have to let it go.  You can’t be that kid standing at the top of the waterslide, overthinking it…  You have to let people see what you wrote.
—    Tina Fey
From her book:  “Bossypants“
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On This Day In:
2022	I’ve Lost My Share
2021	You Decide
	A Dream And The Wind
2020	Making Me
2019	Inside Your Head
2018	Lingering Curiosity
2017	Just Kidding
2016	The Danger Of Walls
2015	Protection
2014	Let It Go
2013	Don’t Know And Not Telling
2012	A Challenge For Progress
2011	Dependent Difficulty

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