I’ve always had a heart that behaves a bit oddly. I had a couple of Holter monitors to see why. But nada. They offered but did not recommend an invasive and yucky test; the results would get me nowhere as the test was still in the research realm. So we left things as they were.…
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Review: A Catskill Eagle
A Catskill Eagle by Robert B. Parker My rating: 3 of 5 stars Robert Parker is a good writer, though you wouldn’t think so with the kind of formulaic books that he writes. In the first sentence, I already had a sense of the narrator Spenser, plus the sentence itself wasn’t formula writing. By the…
Lifeliner: Chapter 23 Podcast
Judy fears bugs, the viral or bacterial kind, even a cold. For bugs can kill her. She takes pains to avoid them. Somehow though, she catches one. She quickly spirals down, and Cliff races her down the highways to Toronto General Hospital and Jeej. It’s touch and go. The entire hospital hears about it and…
Capt. Trevor Greene Points to the Future of Brain Injury Recovery
Reader’s Digest. Canadian edition. Capt. Trevor Greene. Axe in head. Remarkable recovery. Against all odds. Miracle. Not. I really shouldn’t read these kinds of stories; they just put me in a bad mood, and I have to admit I tossed the Digest down after it asked the question of how Greene did it — why…
Lifeliner: Chapter 22 Podcast, More Family Trouble
The fall out from Judy being absent for so long and then her life being one where death was ever present, continues. First Miriam leaves home, then Julie springs a surprise on her parents. Judy goes through a raft of emotions, but she never loses contact with her girls. Chapter Twenty-Two: More Family Trouble
From Paper to Pixels
This is from a talk I gave to my fraternity on their Career Day. We are in an age of transition. Like those who went from calligraphy to the Gutenberg press, so we are going from pen and print books to tablet computers and ebooks. Up until early last century, manuscripts were written by hand.…
Review: Cradle and All
Cradle and All by James Patterson My rating: 2 of 5 stars Boy, does James Patterson write short chapters. That was my first thought, this from someone who writes short chapters herself, but not quite that brief. This style of writing moves the story along rapidly and doesn’t require the author to put in transitions…
What is Your Being-Yelled-At Reaction?
Ever since my traumatic brain injury, I have had people yell at me. I mean, in-your-face, sudden, top volume yelling. The weird thing is I don’t flinch. I startle when a squirrel bounces by, but I don’t flinch when some stranger sticks his face in mine and practically spits, he’s yelling so loudly. I don’t…
And Last Comes the Dreaded Editing
First comes writing, then comes revising, then come the Beta Readers, then comes more revising, and last comes the dreaded editing. That’s what a publisher is supposed to do for a writer: edit. But these days, some advocate the editing step before finding a publisher or agent; other writers do it on their own because…