“Ambivalence” doesn’t even come close to capturing my schizoid views about magic (or magical) realism.
The term has been around since the early part of the twentieth century, and for most of its life has been associated especially with the work of certain Latin American authors. Here’s part of the definition from A Glossary of Literary [...]

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[Looking back through this post, I see that I've used the word "you" a lot in passages manifestly instructional or outright didactic, especially the last section -- as though barking orders at
you, the reader. Not so: it's just me, talking to myself.]
Moonrat, God bless ‘er, last week resurrected the Write Your A** Off idea [...]

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[Note to regular readers: You may have noticed a change in my online tempo in the last week -- I sure have: my visits to your blogs are a little more erratic, my postings here a little less... I don't know... "focused," maybe?
Partly, true, my spotty attendance is because the pace of my 9-to-5 [...]

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[Image: "Marshmallow Gun" (excerpt) -- click for full original at xkcd.]
I realized a couple days ago — during this criminally busy week — that I hadn’t posted any writing samples in a long time.
Many of the (non-blogging) pieces I’ve posted on RAMH are grouped together under the category called “Paying Attention.” But I don’t post [...]

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From Zen and the Art of Motorcyle Maintenance, by Robert M. Pirsig:
You want to know how to paint a perfect painting? It’s easy. Make yourself perfect and then just paint naturally.
From “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote,” a story by Jorge Luis Borges (translation by James E. Irby):
[Menard] did not want to compose another Quixote [...]

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So there’s this new writerly-blogging trend — not really a dangerous one, but it sure feels like one to a cautious soul like Yours Truly. Which is: throw caution to the winds. Post online something you’ve written, and… ask for feedback.
I think I’m going to try that, and I’ll get to that in a moment. [...]

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A couple weeks ago, I posted on the importance of selecting a good title for your work. Here’s what I said then, in part:
I’ve struggled for years, off and on, with the title of the WIP. When I tell you I’ve been calling it Grail, I know that instantly summons up certain… certain somethings in [...]

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Background: This passage’s action takes place in 1959. The “Al” here is Al Castle, who owns a metalworking company in southeast Pennsylvania, in a small town named Caerleon. His company has been acquired by a big multi-national corporation named Sarras, which also owns a Welsh firm which brews a particularly elegant, powerful, and pricey ale. [...]

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I once read advice from a… novelist? playwright? not sure — anyhow, someone who said something like, “The hardest job in writing a story is getting a character from one room to another.” This stuck in my head because at the time I was struggling with just this difficulty. I kept trying to account for [...]

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Emrys ap Rhys, an 18th-century Welsh brewmaster-to-be, is bidding farewell to an old man he has met on his return from London to Wales. He and Charlie met during a steady rainfall, in the shelter of a lean-to attached to the back of an English family’s barn; they’ve shared what food they have, and Charlie [...]

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