Remember when fourteen years ago this fall a college boy stopped walking and bent over to tie his shoe? Remember how the girl slowed down so she wouldn’t overtake him, even though the whole reason he stopped was to meet the beautiful girl and walk beside her?
Remember how even car exhaust and subway grates smelled like love when they went to New York City in the spring?
Continue reading “The Importance of Tying Your Shoes”
After six weeks, I’m glad we finished up our book discussion on Rob Bell’s Love Wins (mostly because I’m getting tired of the early Sunday mornings). Here are five final thoughts and then I’ll never mention this book or author again (something that is very unlikely):
Continue reading “Five Final Thoughts on “Love Wins” (and then I’m finished)”
There are books like A Prayer For Owen Meany and The River Why that make it impossible to stop reading, books like Lord of the Rings that pick me up and drop me in the middle of places like Mordor and Lothlorien.
But there are other types of books: the kind that I can’t read more than a few paragraphs without wanting to write. Here are my favorite five books on writing:
Continue reading “The Five Best Books Ever Written About Writing”
“Why do parents always use weird words?” Cade asked me one day when we were out in the garden.
“Hey, Mr. Chatty, you’re supposed to be pulling weeds,” I said. “And what do you mean, ‘weird words’?”
“You know, like ‘not right now,’ ‘maybe later,’ ‘we’ll see.’ Those weird words.”
The words we use to misdirect or quiet the shouting voices. The ones we use to convey nebulous ideas or delay, rather than answer.
You don’t have to be a parent to use weird words. Here are three reasons to avoid them in writing and in life: Continue reading “Three Reasons to Avoid Using Weird Words”
Today I’m guest posting over at Ben Emerson’s blog:
But the process of redemption is not always good to better to best. Sometimes it’s good to bad to very bad to better-than-you-ever-could-have-imagined.
Now head on over there for the full post: The Whole Dang Thing (should be up by 9am Eastern Time).
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If this is your first time here, have a look around. Some of my most popular posts have been:
The Opposite of Love is not Hate
Five Writing Secrets I Learned From the Princess Bride
If Fame Scares You, Do Not Click This Link
It’s amazing how quickly an ordinary day can become an anomaly.
Saturday for example: one minute I’m trying to find a quiet place in the house to get some writing done, helping Maile move some furniture, and thinking about finishing the chicken coop. Ten minutes later I’m driving into the hospital to see my grandmother who just had a stroke.
Or two days before that: Lucy and I were coming back from a little date at Target and Panera (the girl loves their broccoli soup and whole grain bread – she has her mother’s taste buds and desire to eat healthy, even at 6). On the way home we passed an accident. Cruising slowly by, I saw two cars with very little damage. But in the grass a fireman was giving a gentleman chest compressions.
Continue reading “Whatever Hurts Us Makes Us Stronger – Thoughts on my Grandma’s Stroke”
