The Overly Contemplative Writer’s Dilemma, How Do I Spend My Time?
It’s amazing how far we go to kill time. I have a firm rule when I travel, I never turn the TV on. This is supposed to encourage me to write, read or catch up on Audio books. To re-enforce this, I have no games on my phone or tablet. Nor do I have Facebook. You would...
It’s Absolutely Impossible For Us To Stop Being An Engineer
We all do it. When we’re reading a book or watching a movie containing elements of our expertise and the story does something so ridiculous that we find it impossible to enjoy the story. Even worse we find ourselves sharing our disgust with anyone willing to...
Credibility, Amazon Lost It, Goodreads Failed. How Do I Choose My Next Book?
There’s a big difference between consumer satisfaction and marketing. That difference is credibility and has become a major problem for me. Years ago books making it to the publisher had been carefully screened. After all, it was expensive to publish a book....
Baby Knowledge, An Important Concept In Being Understood
When we moved out to our ranch, my wife had to impress on me that horses were not merely big dogs that we could ride. Wagging their tail does not indicate pleasure at seeing you. Rolling on the ground doesn’t always mean their back itches and yawning certainly doesn’t...
Writers In The Field, I Wish I Had Known About This Earlier
It was a dark and stormy morning. No really, despite sounding like the start to a bad novel, it’s extremely appropriate given where I was headed and what I was facing. I was supposed to be one of many lecturers at an event aptly called “Writers in the Field,” a...From the Doghouse -It’s all about them
A look at dogs having fun!
Short Stories
With posts like these, ever wonder what kind of fiction I would write?
Random Posts
If You Want To Become A Better Writer, First Become A Better ListenerSix years ago, when I started Opinionbypen, I had a goal to become a better writer. Somehow I assumed that the constant practice provided by weekly posts would miraculously improve my writing. That’s certainly not the first thing I’ve ever been wrong about. Think about it this way. Suppose I …
What To Buy for the Engineer in Your Life?Every year around this time my wife agonizes on what to get me for Christmas. This year I decided to help her by writing what to buy for the engineer in your life. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not hard to shop for but my wife and I live in …
When Did the Definition of Unlimited Change?It always irritates me when I see commercials preying on our stupidity. I guess that’s why watching Sprint’s commercial extolling how their reliability is within one percent of everyone else, always results in my wife having to endure a rant on the difference between reliability and coverage. My lecture on …
Repairing My 3D PrinterThis week had a number of coincidences. After telling you that my wife is like a magnet for nails, she ended up with another nail in her tire and right after I published my latest post on my 3D printer, my printer died. My wife felt it was a very …
Improving My Writing Means I Have To WriteWhen I started writing this blog, I had two goals, improve my writing and become comfortable sharing parts of my life. Well, there was also the lure of becoming rich and famous through my writing but reality set in quickly. Writing for a living takes a lot of work. The …
Recent Comments