Hello, Everyone!

I am throwing out a reminder to followers of this blog that I have launched a new website which I am now maintaining at www.strokingthepen.com/blog.  Here are direct links to a few of my recent articles. 

Pro Bono with Benefits

How to Write or Get Your Writing Done

In The Middle of the Night

Since I have transferred all of my blog material to my website, I will be closing this blog down soon.  I hope all your writing is going well!

New Directions

Hi Everyone,

I have created a new website, https://strokingthepen.com, which I hope you will visit. In fact, I have transferred my entire blog over to my new website https://strokingthepen.com/blog/, and I will soon be retiring this blog. 

Even though I have enjoyed my many years of writing, I feel it is time for me to move on to my own hosted venue.  I am very excited about this new adventure and hope that you can follow me there!

Again, it's https://strokingthepen.com. Please come visit and let me know what you think! 

Everything is a New Perspective

These last seventeen months have been ones of overload leading to renewal and a fresh perspective, and what feels like a new lease on life. My partner recovered well from his heart surgery. Late last spring, I changed law firms and now walk less than sixty seconds to my office. To celebrate all of our good fortunes, my partner and I spent a beautiful week during September 2016 in Rockport, Massachusetts with his family. Sometimes we visited castles, museums and islands, and other times we sat on the front porch eating snacks, sipping beverages and talking about memories and experiences.

I wish I could share that I have gotten plenty of creative writing done this year, when in fact my attention has been focused on writing articles for the Reap Record, the newsletter for Redwood Empire Association on Paralegals. I also, upon invitation, wrote an article on construction defect for our local Bar Association journal. 

My creative writing has been on the back burner for too long, but now I am pushing myself to submit a short story to our local anthology.  I am exactly ten days away from the deadline and about 500 words in, with the story allowed a maximum word count of 2500.  All stories submitted for consideration must be about Sonoma County. Two of my characters are from the late eighteen-hundreds who lived a small town in the northern part of the county, and my main character is from the same town in the mid nineteen-seventies.  In fact, if you were sitting in my office right now, you would see the pictures of my characters pinned to my bulletin board, along with photographs of that small town that burned down years ago.

Now that I am back in action mode, I have decided it's time to set some goals:

• This week I will complete my short story and submit it before the deadline.
• This weekend I will work on my tax returns.
• Next week I will complete my article on family law for the Reap Record.
• During the coming weeks, I will do the necessary footwork for a mutual project in the works.

Finally, it's time to get devote at least an hour a day to sitting in the chair and working on my stories. At some point, I will also decide whether to permanently shelve my novel, or refurbish parts into a new story. 

Happy writing all, and always allow words to empower you.