Psst. . .
C’mere.
I’ve got a secret.
Promise not to tell? (more…)
Archive for the ‘Writing’ Category
Nothing to See Here
Posted in Creativity, Writing, tagged creative writing, novel writing on 12 Dec 2017| 6 Comments »
No Pepys I
Posted in Culture, Writing, tagged anais nin, creative writing, diary, journaling, samuel pepys, writing through the pain on 17 Nov 2017| 1 Comment »
Bad diarist! No biscuit!
Back during The Event, I once again started a journal. I’ve kept a journal, off and on, for most of my life (though it’s definitely been more off than on). Like many diarists, I pick up my journal in times of strife and pain, writing each day (or more often) to rant, moan, analyze, introspect, and claw my way back toward something that resembles sanity. As the drama subsides, however, my journalistic fervor wanes in response; I am simply not compelled to catalogue the minutiae of my days.
And that is the point at which I begin to feel a sense of failure. (more…)
Meeting Ben
Posted in Culture, Writing, tagged creative writing, currency, family, nostalgia, one hundred dollar bill on 07 Nov 2017| Leave a Comment »
I’d heard of them long before I saw one in the wild. Rare, elusive, they were things of power and legend. Sure, I saw them in movies, but I knew those were fakes; we all did.
The C-note. The Benjamin. One hundred smackeroos.
I was nine years old when I saw my first one.
We were at Tiburon Tommie’s, the Chinese restaurant of my youth, a place where the drinks menu was long and fixed, and the food menu was short and subject to change. (more…)
Trial Balloon: Boosting a Post
Posted in Writing, tagged boosting posts, creative writing, Facebook, indie authors, marketing, self-publishing on 30 Oct 2017| Leave a Comment »
Two weeks ago, I tried an experiment.
As some of you know, in addition to this blog I have a Facebook page for my writing, which feeds through to my Twitter account. (I don’t like Twitter, but I’m not convinced it’s useless.) Posts here also go to my LinkedIn profile, to Google+, and to Tumblr.
I don’t have too many readers here—hundreds, but not thousands—and membership on my Facebook page is . . . modest, if you catch my drift . . . but I figured that this situation was the perfect foundation for a small experiment.
In short, I ran an ad. (more…)
Putting Pen to Paper
Posted in Writing, tagged building believable characters, creative writing, indie authors, novel writing on 12 Oct 2017| 2 Comments »
Going back over early notes for this novel, I realized that this project has been rattling around in my head for over a decade.
The first outline I wrote up has a note on the top: Tabled Jan 2004.
Initially, this was very depressing. (more…)
Location Location Location
Posted in Seattle, Writing, tagged Duwamish, Green Lake, Licton Spring, Seattle, Seattle history, Shilshole on 03 Oct 2017| 2 Comments »
I walk through the gloaming, the sky above me reddening toward night, through shade made deeper by dark, shaggy cedars and pale clad lindens shaking in the gentle breeze. It is a new place for me, but it is an ancient place, a storied place that still bears its ancient name:
Leyktud
Red Paint
The water of the spring seeps up from the ground, the source now collared by a ring of stone. Within the ring, the water is clear, but beneath the surface the stones are clad in the ochre velvet of accreted minerals. As the water gathers and flows quietly out the carved channel, the minerals oxidize, rusting, and paint the ground with a spill of red clay. The alluvial mud is slick to the touch, watery. For millennia, the People of the Inside and the People of the Large Lake came here to collect the wet, red earth, mix it with tallow, and make a bright, orange-red paint suitable for ceremonies and markings.
The springwater trickles down the slope to join the creek that used to run down to Green Lake but which now, sadly, has been capped and diverted to a less salubrious destination. But for a short distance, as I walk the paths beneath the trees, it is still wild (in its gentle way) and free.
I imagine it how it was, not so long ago, before the arrival of the Bostons (as the European-bred settlers were known). I can see thick-boled conifers, dark cathedral columns rising from the earth’s heart to hold up the red, sunset sky. Salal leaves, rough and leathery, grab at my shins, urging me to partake of their sweet, blue fruit. The breeze, wending its way past branch and fern, might taste of woodsmoke from a nearby camp. Frogs chorus in such numbers that, were I with a companion, we would not be able to hear each other speak.
But we would not speak, for this is a place where words are unnecessary, where the thoughts of men are unneeded, and where our hand only diminishes what already is. As the sun sets and the birds of daylight sing their last, I know I have found an immortal place.
This is Licton Spring.
k
The End of Research
Posted in Seattle, Writing, tagged creative writing, novel writing, Seattle history, writing research on 28 Sep 2017| 4 Comments »
Fish or cut bait. Poop or get off the pot. Split wood or lend someone the axe.
During the run-up to a novel project, there comes a time when I must put down the books and pick up the pen. My problem, though, has usually been knowing when I’ve reached that point, that moment of sufficiency when, though I certainly don’t know everything about the pertinent subjects, I know enough to get started.
Now is that time. (more…)
Kurt R.A. Giambastiani 