All Recent Posts

What Are You Reading?

We’ve all heard the advice that if you want to be a good writer, you should also be an avid reader.  I have to admit that I’ve been resting on my laurels for quite some time now.  Since I received my Kindle, however, I’ve poked my head out of my shell and dived into the world of literature once again.  I recently asked you all to offer suggestions for what I should read. It went something like this: “What should I read, and why? Tell me about your favorite fiction. What classics make the world a better place by their mere existence? Fill me in on industry books I should be reading. What authors will blow my mind? What’s the best nonfiction... [Read More...]

Why, Yes, I Do Love My Kindle

Before I start to tell you more about my experience with the Kindle, I wanted to hit you all up for naming suggestions. It turns out that you can give your device its own name, and I haven’t come up with the perfect one yet. If you’ve got a suggestion, please leave it in the comments. As I mentioned previously, my darling husband bought me a Kindle for my birthday. I do love my little toy, let me tell you. We’ve had some issues, and I had to get a replacement because once my battery ran all the way down, it wouldn’t start back up. I sounded so forlorn telling my hubby, “My Kindle won’t wake up.” It reminded me of some little... [Read More...]

I’m a Jackass

So, it turns out that I’m a jackass. Not just a cute little petting-zoo burro, either; but a braying, bucking donkey of a blogger. After four months of inventing word games, of finding hilarious videos, and of attempting to share my self-deprecating humor, I was so sad that no one seemed to be reading. My self-esteem took a nosedive, but I kept trying to put cool stuff up here because a) that’s what I was hired to do, and b) it’s fun. A lot of times, it seemed like Julia was the only one who was interested. This little donkey threw a bit of a pity party, hee-hawing and boo-hooing to herself. After all, when I asked a community of writers... [Read More...]

Double Ds

Below you will find several sets of letters. If you add the same letter to both the beginning and the end of the group, you will have formed a real word. For example, _REA_ would become “DREAD” when a D is placed at the beginning and the end. Put your answer in the comments without looking at what other people have said. 1. _tlant_ 2. _ada_ 3. _eldin_ 4. _illo_  Read More →

Double Ds

Below you will find several sets of letters. If you add the same letter to both the beginning and the end of the group, you will have formed a real word. For example, _REA_ would become “DREAD” when a D is placed at the beginning and the end. Put your answer in the comments without looking at what other people have said. 1. _riti_ 2. _awnsho_ 3. _oin_ 4. _oftnes_  Read More →

An Afternoon Chuckle

Usually I can make these videos and other posts somehow relate to the writing life, but I’d really have to stretch pretty thin to make that work today.  Still, I thought this was pretty darn funny, even if it does have a laugh track.  Read More →

Oh, Literature. How I’ve Missed You!

For some reason, it didn’t quite register when my husband pointed the camera at me as I opened my birthday gift a week and a half ago, that there was something truly special secreted under the purple flowered wrapping paper I’d bought during a school fundraising drive several years ago. It turns out that he wanted to capture the look on my face as I opened the package to find my biggest (current) materialistic dream had been fulfilled. He bought me a Kindle. And I am in love. Um, with him. Yeah, that’s what I meant. Here’s the not-so-flattering picture he got, by the way: As someone who gave up the love of reading as life got more... [Read More...]

We All Want It That Way

Yesterday I talked a bit about why it’s so great not to have an office job.  Then I saw this video, and I’m thinking it wouldn’t be all bad.  This totally made me smile, even if I do have this song stuck in my head now.  Read More →

Why I Can Be Smug, A Blog Action Day Post

So, in case you’re living under a rock, or like me, you’ve been attending to a sick baby for days and haven’t poked around the Internet, I’ll let you know that today is Blog Action Day. It’s something that’s been going on for a few years now where thousands of bloggers all write about one specific topic on one specific day in the hopes that some actual change will come about and the world will be all copasetic and stuff. This year’s topic is Global Warming. No, wait. Scratch that. It’s on Climate Change. Despite having gotten half a dozen emails in the last week reminding me that Blog Action Day was coming up and what I was supposed... [Read More...]

27 Writing Quotes, 1 for Every Occaision (ish)

A quick and dirty list of some of my favourite writing quotes for you to use in any article, post, diatribe, speech, dedication, mantra or bellow to the heavens. Hope you enjoy and feel free to add your own in the comments! Ambition 1. Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither. C.S. Lewis The Aging Writer 2. With sixty staring me in the face, I have developed inflammation of the sentence structure and definite hardening of the paragraphs. James Thurber 3. If you can’t annoy somebody, there’s little point in writing. Kingsley Amis 4. I have been commissioned to write an autobiography and I would... [Read More...]

Double Ds

Below you will find several sets of letters. If you add the same letter to both the beginning and the end of the group, you will have formed a real word. For example, _REA_ would become “DREAD” when a D is placed at the beginning and the end. Put your answers in the comments without peeking at what other people have written. 1. _ubia_ 2. _hrea_ 3. _he_ 4. _are_  Read More →

The Flow!

OK, that’s enough putting it off, we have to sit down and get on with it. However, now that I have explored what it is to have ambition, be inspired and then become a procrastinator, where do we go? Where can we go? Productivity isn’t something that you switch on and off as a writer, you have to achieve the zen like state of ‘Flow’. We’ve all experienced it, that feeling that you may never finish typing because the words aren’t just flowing out of you they are somehow jumping out before you barely think of them. It’s that glorious feeling that you are blissfully slightly out of control but, like a poker winning streak, you shouldn’t... [Read More...]

Double Ds

Below you will find several sets of letters. If you add the same letter to both the beginning and the end of the group, you will have formed a real word. For example, _REA_ would become “DREAD” when a D is placed at the beginning and the end. Put your answer in the comments without looking at what other people have said. 1. _quat_ 2. _ero_ 3. _inimalis_ 4. _ro_  Read More →

Stars!

Each phrase is a clue about a particular person. You will find that two (sometimes more) letters have been replaced in the clue by stars. The missing letters will be used to begin each word of the answer. For example, if the clue was “Talksho* H*st,” you would figure out that it is a talkshow host with the initials “O.W.” (Oprah Winfrey) 1. *urrealistic *rawer: __________ 2. low*r cas* poetry s*ribe: _________ 3. Comman*er, Freela*ce Writing Jobs: __________ 4. Jeop*rdy! Know-I*-All: __________ Leave your answers in the comments. How many can you get without looking them up?  Read More →

Stars!

So, I have a new game for us to try out here at the Other Stuff blog today. I call it stars because it uses asterisks, and because it usually deals with famous people. Here’s how it works: Each phrase is a clue about a particular person. You will find that two (sometimes more) letters have been replaced in the clue by stars. The missing letters will be used to begin each word of the answer. For example, if the clue was “Talksho* H*st,” you would figure out that it is a talkshow host with the initials “O.W.” (Oprah Winfrey) As always, leave your answers in the comments, and don’t peek at the others before you... [Read More...]