“I’ve never had a rat, never chased one. I chase my own tail and that’s enough. I must now make plans for the day I catch it.” WritingMetaphorRatsMetaphorical Book:On Being a Rat and Other Observations Source: On Being a Rat and Other Observations
“A mist rises from a nearby mound. It could be me, that mist, or simply the caretaker’s mower-dust. If the breeze blows just right, I’ll ghost your solid, entwine your hair. Promise me you won’t shampoo, but carry me along, tiny dust-particles of me.” WritingDeathMetaphorStream Of Consciousness Book:On Being a Rat and Other Observations Source: On Being a Rat and Other Observations
“The setting sun threatened to consume me—it could have, you know. It would have been a beautiful death with an honorable eulogy: slain by a magnificent slice of piercing orange energy. I simply turned and walked away; I would live another day.” WritingNatureSunWriting ProcessOn Being A RatRural LivingDeath By Sun Book:On Being a Rat and Other Observations Source: On Being a Rat and Other Observations
“I know more about Emily Bronte than anyone I know. I know enough about her family to have been a part. I’ve walked with her on her damp luscious lonely moors, watched her strain to write on miniscule scraps of paper, seen her hide her works from prying eyes. I’ve brooded alongside her and participated in her taciturnity. Before her death at the ripe old age of 30, I nursed her from the things that ultimately killed her: tuberculosis with a side order of Victorian thinking.” WritingRatsMoorsTuberculosisVictorian AgeEmily Bronte Book:On Being a Rat and Other Observations Source: On Being a Rat and Other Observations
“Only seconds slip by without me scrambling for the aid of someone better, more knowledgeable, to walk beside. Writers are good for that. They like nothing more than to tell you what they know. Dorothy Sayers, with all her essays and treatises, was good for that. Are women human? What constitutes the mind of the Maker? How did Dante survive the Inferno? Ask Dorothy; she’ll tell you and gladly.” WritingRatsInfernoDanteDorothy SayersAre Women HumanMind Of The Maker Book:On Being a Rat and Other Observations Source: On Being a Rat and Other Observations
“Every once in a bestseller list, you come across a truly exceptional craftsman, a wordsmith so adept at cutting, shaping, and honing strings of words that you find yourself holding your breath while those words pass from page to eye to brain. You know the feeling: you inhale, hold it, then slowly let it out, like one about to take down a bull moose with a Winchester .30-06. You force your mind to the task, scope out the area, take penetrating aim, and . . . read. But instead of dropping the quarry, you find you’ve become the hunted, the target. The projectile has somehow boomeranged and with its heat-sensing abilities (you have raised a sweat) darts straight towards you. Duck! And turn the page lest it drill between your eyes.” WritingRatsGreat WritingWriting CraftGreat WriterWriting Excellence Book:On Being a Rat and Other Observations Source: On Being a Rat and Other Observations
“I’m engaged in the dance of the ages and the search for a song to go with it. Though Templeton’s A Veritable Smorgasbord is a well-deserving classic, it’s a stanza too short for my morphing existence. So I write my own.” WritingSeaRatsSeafaringSmorgasbordTempleton Rat Book:On Being a Rat and Other Observations Source: On Being a Rat and Other Observations
“I was a late bloomer. I was still naïve about what 16 year olds today have known for years. I remember sitting up and taking notice—of the world, my body, others—in a way never before experienced. I noticed boys, or rather they noticed me, at 16.” WritingComing Of AgeLate Bloomer Book:On Being a Rat and Other Observations Source: On Being a Rat and Other Observations
“I continue to live inside a dichotomy: what was and what shall be. The pain in my skull is me trying to mesh the two.” WritingDichotomyStream Of ConsciousnessCognitive Dissonance Book:On Being a Rat and Other Observations Source: On Being a Rat and Other Observations
“I should have been conceived during Woodstock; it’s in my blood: that burning desire to turn an absolute on its head and see what’s underneath. I’m as random as I can be and as responsible as I should be. Attempting to fuse the two makes for interesting days.” WritingResponsibilityRatsWoodstock Book:On Being a Rat and Other Observations Source: On Being a Rat and Other Observations
“Pulitzer is a word but accomplishment is an aura.” WritingRatsPulitzer PrizePulitzer Book:On Being a Rat and Other Observations Source: On Being a Rat and Other Observations
“When reading a book, one hopes it doesn’t turn into a painful process. Predictable is bad enough. Laborious is acceptable if the labor produces fruit. But with painfully bad writing, all one can do is grab a hatchet, slice off its head, and bury it.” WritingCreativityWriting LifeBad WritingOn Being A Rat Book:On Being a Rat and Other Observations Source: On Being a Rat and Other Observations
“Writing makes me hard, like a fisherman, and brown from the heat. Tossing out and reeling in is a job for visionaries and those with calloused hands.” Writing LifeVisionariesOn Being A RatWriting EffortWriting Is Hard Book:On Being a Rat and Other Observations Source: On Being a Rat and Other Observations
“The number seven is magical, they say. Seven years ’til our cells completely regenerate. Seven years ’til Jacob possesses Rachel, no, Leah, and seven more for Rachel. Seven days in a week. Post traumatic stress often resolves itself in toto only after seven full years have passed. Such is the case for some brain trauma patients too. Seven. It’s a number worth remembering.” PainSeven YearsPost Traumatic Stress DisorderPost Traumatic Stress Book:On Being a Rat and Other Observations Source: On Being a Rat and Other Observations
“The tides wash up the Pearl of Great Price; I see it clearly. There it is: the secret so secret that even Indiana Jones has yet to discover it. But it’s mine. It’s a style pointer, a favorite agent, a best avenue for publication. It’s a sure-fire fire-starter, a league of extraordinary information. Shall we gather at the river and share? No. I found it. It’s mine!” WritingRatsWriting SecretsLiterary AgentPearl Of Great Price Book:On Being a Rat and Other Observations Source: On Being a Rat and Other Observations
“I have a bad habit of dropping verbal pellets to get a reaction, like Ursula LeGuin’s “A novelist’s business is lying” (that particular one got a lot of attention on Facebook), or, “Why is it that Christians hate the word ‘sex’?” SexRatsChristiansFacebookUrsula Leguin Book:On Being a Rat and Other Observations Source: On Being a Rat and Other Observations