Choosing our choices*

By | | Out My Writer's Window, Outer Limits
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Sometimes we’re lucky and get to choose between two good alternatives. Sometimes we’re unlucky and have to choose the better of two bad ones. We can probably figure these out, given our values and enough time.

But there is a trap in this seeming simplicity: What if the values of our choices change as soon as we make them? Experiments have proven humans fear losing something about twice as much as we desire getting the same thing. We value what we might lose at $10, though we’d be willing to pay only $5 to acquire it. A great explanation is detailed … Read more… →

Reader Feedback

By | | Chalice, Out My Writer's Window
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Choosing the style “epistolary novel” for Chalice brings some interesting responses, some positive, some negative. They may break down by age and sex and whether a reader has done any online dating.

One reader, who I respect very much, said he kept trying to read the letters as if they were dialogue and wanted to say “people don’t talk like this.”

While on the phone as we discussed this, I pointed out that his original letter to me about the book was quite well crafted. “I spent a lot of time on that,” he said, and immediately conceded that I … Read more… →

Giving You Good-bye

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By | | It’s Nobody’s Fault
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It is so perfect, this moving on.
He will give you now what I would not,
You could not, for all our same page, find in me,
What you needed, asked for, begged, pleaded, there to be.
All I can give you now is good-bye, and this, please don’t write,
Don’t phone, let me give you that, this ending for your new beginning,
All your love, your lips your smiles and fingertips and warm cashmere words,
Give all to him, hold nothing back for this memory, oh my god My Love, good-bye.

Interesting people

By | | Out My Writer's Window
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There has been an unexpected benefit to my decision of having a group of “readers” review the manuscript for Chalice.

Several people I asked to read the book said “You should ask so-and-so, they read all the time. They know books and would give you really good feed back.” So I did.

And what these “strangers” have had to say has been difficult to hear and encouraging — in other words, exactly what I wanted.

“Enjoying the language but people don’t talk like that; I love the fact that it is so well-thought out; I … Read more… →

Is AAD “Real?”

By | | It’s Nobody’s Fault
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Today I was asked if Adult Attachment Disorder was “real.” When asked what was meant, they responded by asking if AAD had a definition within The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) published by the American Psychiatric Association.

Yes and no.

Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) was first defined in the DSM-3, according to a review for the DSM-5 (an update due for release in May, 2013) written by Charles H. Zeanah, M.D., and Mary Margaret Gleason, M.D. for the American Psychiatric Association.

RAD is the name given to attachment disorders as they appear in children. The review by … Read more… →

Walking away

By | | Chalice, It’s Nobody’s Fault
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From hereRan into somebody who had read the short verse I wrote in January about a relationship that had just ended with a wonderful woman because our paths were not converging. That’s a hazard of falling in love later in life. I had forgotten I posted those personal emotions but was grateful this person enjoyed the “poem” and was moved by it. Had even read it.

Sometimes it is too easy in moods of “terminal uniqueness” to forget we share so many of these emotions and experiences. A … Read more… →

“Writing?”

By | | Out My Writer's Window
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On the couch this morning with a fresh cup of coffee looking out over an absolutely brilliant day. And thinking about … promoting, marketing, publicizing?

Which means, I am not writing. Ugh.

It is absolutely astounding to me how wrong I could have been about what being a “writer” entails. I can create something that will interest somebody somewhere. But how to reach those readers?

There are tools, and plenty of people who sell information, books, seminars, face paint, helicopters etc. to reach an audience. And people who offer to do some of the work for you. … Read more… →