I haven't had a Coke since mid-morning yesterday — and I poured the last two-thirds of that one out in the bathroom sink. Nor have I had a tall 20 ounces of McDonald's sweet tea. Or settled down with a half-gallon of frozen yogurt.  Having a little change of diet here, dropping some of my […] Read More

Tonight I came home tired and sleepy, with work that still needed to be done.  Didn't even have the energy it takes to enjoyably procrastinate.  No weeding, reading, or frittering.  Then I remembered a tidbit of wisdom I'd been saving to post here: about a strategy for shaking an undesirable mood by behaving in opposition to the […] Read More

Please help me choose.  My novel Revelation, which came out in hardback in 1988, is re-emerging in a few weeks in digital form. Which of these would you use?  A, B, or C.  The Revelation cover needs to give a very slight hint that something unsettling and off-kilter goes on in the story.  Troubled minister, stirred-up […] Read More

My wrestle last week with my bit of obsessive compulsive disorder (see previous post) came to a happy ending.  I got a new prescription.  It's working great and I feel wonderful. Also, I started planting big shrubs to screen out the forest devastation I was upset about.  (Again, the previous post will allow this to […] Read More

A friend suggested I might hold off on blogging today.  And she has a point.  What one says online tends to be permanent and I can already imagine writing an apology tomorrow for whatever I say today. But I regularly claim here to write about coping with obsessive-compulsive disorder, and it seems like dodging the subject and potential usefulness to […] Read More

I'm on the verge of getting my first novel Revelation (Simon & Schuster, 1988) out in digital form.  And I've been having second thoughts about which set of paragraphs should open the story: the one that I first turned in to my editor, or the material that I added which served as the opening of […] Read More

 [youtube rPbo3TA8ogc] [youtube /rPbo3TA8ogc] Last night was the second time that a Duke basketball team reminded me to never give up a millisecond before the buzzer. I'm not even a huge sports fan — hadn't watched a basketball game all season.  But last night the legendary rivalry broke out once again: Duke vs. Carolina.  And […] Read More

The bottom line:  I boldly stayed on the green ("Easier") ski run and enjoyed a day of skiing without having to be rescued even once. The backstory:  last week I mentioned here that I would be going skiing again for a day for the first time in more than 15 years.  My career as a […] Read More

On an impulse this week, I sent out an email to about a dozen or so friends whom I thought might have sufficiently flexible schedules and adventurous spirits, asking them to go skiing with me Monday afternoon.  The trip from here to Beech Mountain:  an early morning four hour drive, then four hours or so […] Read More

Gregg Levoy, author of the terrifically useful book, Callings: Finding and Following an Authentic Life, is looking for people to interview for his latest project. He would like to hear from those who have "compelling and dramatic stories about coming back to life. Reclaiming your passion and lifeforce, your sense of aliveness, after losing it in […] Read More