I hope your week brings you as many good books as you would like. ### Dojo Wisdom for Writers, second edition, now available on Amazon in print and ebook! (Nook and other ebook versions here) Catch a Falling Star (by Jessica Starre) and The Matchmaker Meets Her Match (by Jenny Jacobs), two of my favorite…

The other day, I made the mistake of saying the word “anywho” to a friend who is a lifelong New Yorker.  If you’ve never heard this word, it means you’re not a midwesterner, and I can’t explain it.  Anyway, my friend suggested that I should probably avoid such provincialisms in the future or else people…

There was a time when all the editors I worked with knew I was a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and so they were all slightly afraid of me. I miss those days. ### My collection of travel stories, Travels with Jessica, is now available! Kindle and paperback here; other ebook formats here. And…

I am at the coffee shop and I am thinking, which means—today, anyway—that I am staring out the window and wondering whose life I would rather have. Most of the time my observation is none of you people have the slightest idea what the fuck you’re doing, do you? and so my answer is, conveniently,…

When you’re trying to solve a problem, you have to ask the right question. For the 100 choices list I posted yesterday, I began by thinking about how all of us could probably use a few extra bucks about now. I posed the problem this way: How can I make money this year as a…

A blogger I follow — Laura Young at No Safe Distance — recently posted on the importance of carefully choosing role models. This got me to thinking about all of the teachers I’ve had over the years who’ve helped me to understand how to accomplish various goals. They’ve also helped me see the reality of…