Pen, Spoon & Dagger

Pat's ebook, Superior Longing, debuts  today! Tiger:         Pat, as an aspiring-to-be-published writer, how does it feel to see your book about to be published?  Pat: First Tiger, thanks for asking me to visit your blog. While it’s great to no longer be ‘aspiring’ at least after 9/15/11 when Superior Longing comes out, writing goes on, with all the ups and downs that brings. While I’ve tried to maintain a ‘professional’ attitude toward writing, defined sublimely by Christie: "There was a moment when I changed from an amateur to a professional. I assumed the burden of a profession, which is to write even when you don't want to, don't much like what you're writing, and aren't writing particularly well." I now can add marketing, which carries the same proviso. Note this is an ebook. I was offered a contract for a print book as well but I have seen the future…. Tiger:         When did you decide to write novels? And...

Do you read the book or watch the move first?  Come on, you know it's an either-or question. I figure there are two types of people in the world. Actually there are three, but I don't count those who never pick up a book and actually read it.  Of the remaining, some read a book and, if they like it, go to see the movie when it comes out...maybe.  Others rush to the local MulitPlex and only read the book if a) the movie was really good or b) the movie was really bad and they're curious to find out if the book is any better. I fall securely in the first camp.  I'm a writer ergo I read.  I rarely go to the movies. I don't want my sense of time, place and character influenced by a casting manager, set designer or film director.  I hate seeing a movie where the characters look and sound nothing like what I'd imagined while reading the novel. I'm still trying to process the myriad of Miss Marples's I've seen paraded across the screen: fat, skinny, tall, ...

July 3, 2011 Archaic Method? Cursive writing no longer has to be taught TERRE HAUTE — Starting this fall, the Indiana Department of Education will no longer require Indiana’s public schools to teach cursive writing. State officials sent school leaders a memo April 25 telling them that instead of cursive writing, students will be expected to become proficient in keyboard use Just reading the above set my blood boiling.   Are they telling us that cursive writing is obsolete?   Will our next president print his name on documents, or worse, just pen a big X? How are we going to determine if a check signature is a forgery if there is no signature? Will our grand kids even be able to read cursive, I mean little things like the Declaration of Independence? At the risk of slotting myself in with the dinosaurs, I'll admit that I learned cursive script back in the 50's, actually using an inkwell and a nib pen (no, not quill). The nuns were very fussy about our writing, both it...