What’s in a name? Everything. One of my favorite books and movies of all time, The Princess Bride,has a wonderful line spoken several times by its supporting character, the fiery Spaniard on a quest for vengeance (deftly portrayed by Mandy Patinkin): “Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.” Sound familiar? Even … More The Importance of Being Inigo
National Novel Writing Month Contributing author Lisa Cron and the good folks over at Writer Unboxed reminded me that November is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, in case you’ve seen the acronym flitting around the pages of late. I’m not going to bother writing an article about it since Lisa did such a fantastic … More 30 Days and 30 Nights of Literary Abandon
Snowflake by Yellowcloud, Flickr Let your authorial voice resound. After creating this blog a year and a half ago, questions arose that needed answers before I took another step or made another post. How do I start? In what direction should I take this? Is the target audience writers or care givers? How personal should I … More Our Collective Uniqueness
Googe by Dennis, Flickr Next time use Spellcheck? I disagree. Learn to spell. We have become a society of lazy spellers. Back in May, Snigdha Nandipati, a cool and collected 14 year-old from San Diego, won the 85th Scripps National Spelling Bee with the word “guetapens.” Everybody raise your gel pens to her! But not your … More Guetapens, Not Gel Pens
Sometimes we all need to treat ourselves with kid gloves and spend a day out on the playground.” The busyness of life can be overwhelming. Much has happened in the year-and-a-half since I posted on Treading Water (and then immediately withdrew it and put the blog on hiatus). A week after that first entry in … More Finding Peace to Pen in a World of Warcraft
M.L. Swift, Writer 