I’m currently teaching two classes that are unintentionally vexing my students to death. One is intended to make them into editors, the other one into reporters. What vexes them is the simple fact that they can’t seem to come up with stories to write. Well, that’s not exactly correct. We have planning sessions where I … More I Hear Voices….
I see my life as a series of decisions. None of them were good or bad, but each of them set me on the path that I am on today. When I was about 10, my class visited a retirement center to sing for the seniors living there. After singing a few songs, an elderly … More Two Roads Diverged in a Yellow Wood
I suppose I should have expected the “Hallelujah Chorus” or some such stained glass music. Instead, I was awakened to the strains of my favorite song. I reached for the inevitable snooze button to shut off the horns and bass guitar of “You Can Call Me Al” by Paul Simon, but then realized that I … More “Heaven 2.0”
You know how it goes with brilliant ideas. Sometimes there are…complications. I still think my concept of putting a low-cost e-book on the psychology of writing is a good idea. I think that the fact that I have been writing along those lines for five years in my blog is great. It’s even wonderful that … More A Complication with a Compilation
I feel guilty if I am not making progress of some sort or another. Yes, it’s summer, and as a college professor I am entitled to get away from “work” in one way or another. But since the highlight of our summer will probably be my wife’s surgery, we’re not likely to go anywhere. Meanwhile, … More Sharing the Wealth
I find enjoyment in visiting the website Quora.com and getting the answers to my questions as well as providing answers to those who are seeking them. Recently, someone asked a question about writing that I thought I would respond to here. The question was, how do you determine which story idea you will turn into … More Whose Story Is It?
I am a product of the Seventh-day Adventist publishing system. For more than 100 years, Adventists have shared their distinctive beliefs and messages through written books and magazines that are published in printing presses around the world and distributed in Adventist Book Centers as well as door to door. My first book, 52 Things to … More Long Time Gone
The phrase “seeing the elephant” or “he saw the elephant” makes me think of old war movies, especially ones with the British Army bivouacked in a remote area, with references to first combat. But as I research it, it actually originates in Georgia (United States) in 1835. The phrase “seeing the elephant” was originally tied … More Seeing the Elephant
I don’t know if it’s because I have a vivid imagination, because I am a writer, or just a blessing by God, but I have always had dreams that present themselves in technicolor. Some are bad, which is understandable, but many are very good. And it has been just the past year or two that … More Sweeping Up Stardust
I can still remember the day that I was introduced to Contemporary Christian Music. I was on a business trip and listening in my rental car to WMBI in Chicago. It was the late 80s, and I had never sung anything but traditional hymns and southern gospel songs in my church before that. On came … More Secret Ambition
The Great Adventure 