Aug 23

My New Approach to Clapping

And I’m Still Not Clear on What it Accomplishes — I’m still not sure of the value — if any — of clapping for stories, but I do it anyway. Lately I’ve tried something new, and it’s quite simple: if your story holds my interest enough that I read it to the end, I’ll give you 50 claps. Simple enough. …

Clapping

1 min read

My New Approach to Clapping

And I’m Still Not Clear on What it Accomplishes

I’m still not sure of the value — if any — of clapping for stories, but I do it anyway. Lately I’ve tried something new, and it’s quite simple: if your story holds my interest enough that I read it to the end, I’ll give you 50 claps. Simple enough.

…

Aug 22

Is It Time to Leave Medium?

And Why Would You Want to? — This is where I add my own 2¢ to the growing debate over what amounts to little more than The Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” I’ve been writing in Medium for over 5 years. In that time, I’ve seen a lot of changes both to the platform…

Leaving Medium

2 min read

Aug 16

Advice to Writers? What if You’re Wrong?

Don’t Tell Me What I Can and Can’t Do — If you’ve been a writer for any length of time, and you’re serious about your craft, you’ve probably come across this bit of misinformation: ”Everybody has a book in them” or, more specifically, a novel. As a veteran of the NaNoWriMo wars, I’m here to tell you as elegantly as…

Na No Wri Mo

2 min read

Aug 14

Is This the Best Writing App Ever?

Just About. And For Me, it Just Got Better — I used to envy Macintosh users. I have a PC and so can’t use what I consider the best writing app. If you use it, you’ve already guessed I’m talking about Ulysses. I had it on both my iPhone and iPad and had limited success using it as a blogging…

Ulyssesapp

3 min read

Aug 11

How Do YOU Decide How Many Claps to Give?

It’s an Important Question — This morning on Medium I read an excellent story about an app which, as the result of reading it, I decided to give the app another go. How’s that for a mouthful of an opening sentence? It’s probably scared off half my readers. But for those of you who managed…

Claps On Medium

2 min read

Aug 7

Dear Software Reviewers

Please Read Your Own Reviews — Yesterday, for want of anything better to do, I Googled “best free blog editors for windows 2022.” This is something I do from time to time to see if there’s any compelling reason to abandon my current editor (which I’ll get to in a bit). The top four hits all…

Software Review

2 min read

Aug 7

I’m Not a Real Writer

Not According to Some Medium Elitists, Anyway — All too frequently I see stories on Medium telling me that I’m not a “serious writer” — whatever the hell that is — because I don’t write my stories by pen or pencil but insist on using my keyboard. These stories try to convince me that I can’t consider myself…

Writing

2 min read

Jul 29

Writing Your Legacy

Crafting A Meaningful Life Story — A Book Review For nearly a year I’ve been part of a life review study conducted by the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. For this study, we were asked to write down a few pages covering various topics of our lives as set out in the book…

Book Review

2 min read

Jul 25

Well DAMN! I Lost Another One!

When Will I Ever Learn? — Last night as I was drifting off to sleep, I had a great idea for a story. I was going to grab my iPhone and dictate the basic idea, but it was such an incredibly good idea that I knew I’d remember it in the morning. Satisfied with my decision…

Lost Stories

2 min read

Jul 25

Mornings Are When I’m At My Most Productive

And as Much as I Hate to Admit It, I’m A Morning Person — Six-thirty a.m. is when I usually wake up. It’s either six-thirty or ten a.m. There’s no in-between. And it’s rarely the latter. I’ve tried sleeping in later, but it just doesn’t work. As soon as the clock reads “6:30,” the voices in my head start nagging me. “Time to get…

Morning Routines

3 min read