October 21, 2015
There are days when I think it would be best to live completely off-line. Off the grid. Like a Luddite. In a cave. Fingers in ears screeching “la la laaaaa I can’t heeeeear youuuuu!” Today, through Facebook, Twitter and CNN, I learned the following:
October 20, 2015
October 20, 2015
Well, friends, it’s moving day. The boxes are packed, the truck is loaded, the new place is spit-shined and polished up, waiting for me to deposit all my crap.
October 20, 2015
October 19, 2015
I just had a management meeting where a topic of discussion was the Angelus bell not ringing properly at noon each day. This meeting is made up of four monks and five lay people, and it’s held in the rather dimly-lit monastery board room at a heavy wooden table at 3:15 p.m. on Mondays. This is a very serious meeting in a very serious location. (I’m just setting the stage here, people.) We discuss any number of things, including student activities, maintenance issues, accidents, upcoming events, recaps of past events, and ideas for improvements. I usually pick up a task or two in these meetings; today I volunteered to be the Sign Czar. (Because I am stupid.) I never know what’s going to come up at these meetings, and usually something makes me laugh, despite this being a very serious meeting in a very serious location. Today it was the Angelus bell. Only because I got to hear a monk describe the misbehaving bell much like how people experiencing car troubles talk to their mechanics.
October 18, 2015
A volleyball match, a football game, Mass, laundry, and a new writin’ machine. That was today.
October 15, 2015
At open mic the other night, I was chatting with a fellow writer when lo! I was asked to join a weekly writing group.
October 13, 2015
Today at work I had to inform the new Director of Student Life that I was putting him on Junk Patrol. This week is Spirit Week, designed to get students pumped up for Homecoming Saturday. Student Council typically assigns a theme to each day of Spirit Week, which is really just a blatant attempt to get as many dress-down days as possible. Yesterday was Hawaiian Shirt Day. Friday will be School Spirit Day. Today, however, was Lumberjack Day. Everyone was to wear their finest flannel, and many obliged. Even faculty and staff got into the spirit. This place was a walking LL Bean catalog.
October 8, 2015
My alma mater emailed me today, which is nothing special because the J-School is nothing if not adept at steady communications. This time, though, I was surprised to find myself right there in the headline photo! Check it out!
October 6, 2015
Last year I wrote here about NaNoWriMo, which is National Novel Writing Month. Basically, it’s a whole bunch of word wranglers from around the world getting together and committing to put 50,000 words down in one month. 50,000 words is the average length of a novel. I couldn’t commit back then, having never even attempted to write a whole book. Now, I’ve attempted it, and I think I’d like to attempt some more. I am maybe halfway through my middle-grade novel, and although I feel a bit stuck I would like to tackle something new. Maybe flush out the ol’ pipes. I have a few ideas for this new work, and should probably get an outline going. I didn’t outline the first book, and wonder if that’s where I got into trouble. I waded into the tall grass and couldn’t see my way out. I was, with that book, for lack of a better term, a pantser. That’s what writers call those who write by the seat of their pants, sans outline. This works well for me with the blog, but I can see the benefits of being a plotter when it comes to a whole book.