Christmas Wishes - Repost


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Writing Ambitions - Repost

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Tuesday, April 15, 2014 Writing Ambitions - Repost If you're considering giving up on writing, read this. January 23, 2013 I think I must have been all of three when I told my first story. Those few babbled words started an addiction I've never been able to shake, no matter how often I told myself that writing was not going to happen. No matter how often someone else told me not to be ridiculous. No matter who said not to expect anything. And truly, no matter how many notes, cards and letters of rejections I received. What kind of nut puts up with that kind of abuse and keeps going back for more? Earlier this month, I had the good fortune to attend a writers' group seminar. One of my fellow nuts was the invited speaker. She hasn't given me permission to quote her but those who were there will know.  One part of her talk was about her writing ambitions. These were: she wanted to get published and she wanted to get published big. I don't know many writers who wouldn...
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What's So Great About Teachers? - Repost

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Monday, March 31, 2014 What's So Great About Teachers? - Repost September 23, 2012  Students of all ages started back to school a little over three weeks ago, some as early as mid-August. Watching the kids riding the buses and streetcars, I remembered my own years of formal education – some more productive (and happier) than others. I’m also reading  The Perks of Being a Wallflower  – another nostalgic reminder of the people who inspired me to learn. I think ‘teach’ is a misnomer. For most of what happens while we are in school, college and university – or actually what  should  happen – a better word is inspire. A teacher who inspires a love of learning does more than instruct. That teacher encourages an inquisitive mind, opening doors for the student that imparting of facts can never do. I can remember so many teachers who captivated me with their love of their profession and their charges. Some were mysterious. Some were difficult. Some were cruel and some we...
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Pen, Paper, Journal - Repost

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  Saturday, April 19, 2014 Pen, Paper, Journal - Repost February 23, 2013 Desperately seeking a lost manuscript (remember those, handwritten in ink, possibly on lined paper?), I came across a stack of my journals from years in college, traveling, first years of courtship and marriage. These journals – the diaries of old – have been replaced by digital explosions of shared communication in forms of blogs, tweets, posts, many of which have the same abandon that a private, locked diary once had for the diarist. I now tweet and blog and post, less frequently than some of my contemporaries, and with much less openness than I wrote in my journals. My circumspection, even in private papers, has always been the result of my mother's stern warning: "Never put in writing anything you don't want someone else to read." As it happens, that is also the advice of my current employer, an attorney at law. Similar advice has come to me from priests and academics. This same circumspecti...
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