The Big Red Book
There are well over 2300 days of school between your first day of kindergarten and graduation from high school. This doesn’t take into account if you attended pre-school and any...
Category: Writing
Transformational Grammar
Most people have one of two reactions to that second word in the title. Either they yawn in anticipation of total boredom, or they sigh in abject defeat to an...
The Hook, the Rack, and Strong Verbs
You gotta hand it to the Ancients. They knew little about medicine, but they made up for it with ingenuous torture devices. And the names! The Brazen Bull. Chappy Chopper,...
The Punctuation Personality Test
Ever seen those clickbait ads/quizzes on Facebook or Yahoo? What kind of Thanksgiving dish are you? or We can guess your home state in ten questions! Maybe, These are the...
Walter and I Work Out
(In honor of James Thurber, creator of Walter Mitty.) I exercise a few times a week at the Joe Farmer Rec Center in Allen. It’s adequate–a full-court gym, two racquetball...
Where Do You Get Ideas (part 2-Devlin Spudd is born!)
Flashback six years or so. It was late, I was tired, my mind was racing, and my body refused to rest. Replaying events from the day, from classes to Debate...
Where Do You Get Ideas? (part 1)
BY HURLS · MAY 12, 2023 Said to be the wisest of all the Greek Muses, Calliope inspired writers. Being cool Cats, we had a writing center at Wheeling High School called the...
Writing Worsely, I Mean Badly (According to Bruce)
Bruce, here, is Bruce Ballenger. He wrote an article entitled The Importance of Writing Badly, one of the guiding forces when I taught Creative Writing and, more importantly, when I...
We’re All Writers
Some people seem impressed when they discover I’ve published a book. To be clear, I’m extremely proud of Chasing Rainbows and Dogs that Won’t Hunt. I love the characters and...
