writing
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A fly in the ointment
I was having a lovely time at the Portland Opera last weekend. The show was Verdi’s Fallstaff, a widely-acknowledged comedic classic adapted from Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor. The leading man wonderfully embodied the rakish cavalier; the supporting cast sang beautifully and acted hilariously, and the orchestra was finely conducted from beginning to end.… Continue reading
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Stopgap
There won’t be a significant post this weekend, except for this one. There are a couple of reasons for this, and I’ll start with the one that would seem to be the most important: my computer is in the shop! Recently I purchased a new computer to replace the one I’ve had since 2011 or… Continue reading
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Thoughts of a Tutor on Structure
It should not be surprising to say that most high school students are not excellent writers. Most of them won’t have opportunities to get very much better at it when they aren’t students anymore, either. Many people tasked with writing anything of length seem to struggle with the organization of ideas into a logical progression.… Continue reading
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The state of the novel
Almost twenty years ago, I had an idea about a hero who could surround himself with an impermeable shell. I tried to write about it, but I couldn’t find the focus while I was in college, so it never got beyond a short prologue. That prologue may exist somewhere, but I haven’t seen it in… Continue reading
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The State of the Novel
As I gear up for another writing day,I thought it worthwhile to remind myself how far I’ve come and how much I have accomplished. So let’s start with two statistics: Chapters completed: 32 (of a projected 35). Word Count: 92,529 (including the 5,000 words so far written for Chapter 33), after an initial target of… Continue reading
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The Run-On Sentence
The other day at work, as I was assisting a small group of high school students in collectively and collaboratively editing a writing assignment by making changes to a shared Google document that was purposefully riddled with grammar and syntax errors, the teacher advised them to identify and correct a particularly egregious run-on sentence, and… Continue reading
Ink Tea Stone Leaf 