Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon says that ideas are like bright light bulbs filling room after room. The lights entice him to distraction. His challenge is to figure out which one is worth his time and energy. My experience with these “light bulbs” is different…
The One Where I Lost My Brain This past weekend, I went oldskool. I went on a photowalk Saturday night, and I used my “old” (ca. 2001) 35mm camera. The idea first popped into my head when I realized that the digicam’s batteries were dead. “Oh!” thinks I. “Instead of going to the battery store, …
So, I didn’t intend to write a blog post for today, even though I usually do post on Thursdays. But, as you might’ve noticed, I moved last weekend, so my new home looks like a hoarder lives in it. I need need need to fix that. Plus, I’m cooking birthday dinner for my mommy today! …
Caveat emptor readtor: This post might mirror my life: jumbled, disorganized, exhausted, frantic. (And yet, there’s a tranquil part, too, because I am SO THRILLED TO BE LIVING IN A HOUSE FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 1996!!!) You’ve been warned. ; ) *ahem* Anyway, I’ve been thinking about the definition of “friend.” I really started …
My friend Aaron Pogue’s first epic fantasy novel, Taming Fire, is now available for purchase on Kindle!!!
Eventually, during a break between lectures, there was a little circle of conversation at the hotel coffee shop. I don’t recall how it happened, but something I said about my in-progress novel led to this editor’s turning to me and asking, “So, Courtney, what is your book about?”
Wordle is a fantastic, fun site that lets you make pretty word clouds. Yay! Me, I made a word cloud out of my most-used blog post tags. Let me show you it!
So, in case you haven’t seen it yet on Facebook or Twitter, I have the dubious honor of immersing myself in a jury pool this week. I grew up in Germany and attended German schools, so I’ve had little to nil exposure to the ins and outs of the American judicial system. Thus, I learned things today! Let me show you them! 3 Lessons from Jury Duty…
1. The court selects its jury pool from DMV records — not from voter registration or homeowner records, as I thought it did.
2. In a room full of 200 strangers, it’s rather inappropriate to voice your opinion that “all Middle-Easterners are inbred, and we should just let them all kill each other.” (The voicer of said opinion was a 60-something white man who, I gathered from his conversation, hasn’t spent a whole lot of time observing any Easterners, Middle or otherwise.)
3. If you don’t speak English, they still won’t send you home. (Instead, you get to sit there with the rest of us until someone figures out whether or not you’re really a U.S. citizen.)
In this video, I talk about:
Once upon a time, I got a job as a writer. I was eight months out of college, and I’d spent a season working retail at a place that sold educational materials for children. The stocking of shelves! A gripey assistant manager! A customer-cheating boss! SHRINK-WRAPPING!!! My mind felt like sludge at the bottom of …