I always like to reflect on my past year and set new goals for myself for the coming year as an annual personal tradition. This is not to brag about my accomplishments or to compare myself to others; it’s more of an exercise in slowing down and expressing gratitude. Despite the shit show of 2020 […]
Category: writing
November writing progress and looking ahead at December goals
I’m happy with my NaNoWriMo progress, even if I didn’t win. I closed out the month with 15,032 words, which was what I wanted to get a good start on my novel. And instead of constantly saying I would try NaNoWriMo, and then quitting on the first day, like I have done since 2008, I […]
Moving past rejection as a writer
One of the most important challenges you will have to overcome as a writer is dealing with criticism and rejection. So I thought I’d share my own personal strategies for moving past rejection. When I made a living as a writer, I received the worst criticism of my professional career; it made me realize I […]
“Obsidian Palace”
What of the sanguine yesterday that you prize so much the dirty linoleum the patterns in the dust internal screams like fractals of light will you ever see inside that obsidian palace Words and photography by Denise Ruttan
Searching for music in a world of monthly subscriptions
I have an older iPhone 6s. Its battery is still fine. It still works just fine. Its screen is pristine and not cracked. So I have not wanted to pay hundreds of dollars for the latest model. But I decided to try Apple Music the other week, thinking, $10 a month gets you all these […]
Starship Earth
He doesn’t like this. The way the stars feel in his hands. All cold and rotten, slimy, like the fish he ate for dinner. He wants to clean himself. He desires to see his skin again. Empty of the callouses of the constellations. Will it ever be home? Will he ever come apart at the […]
Why I Don’t Read Book Reviews
This may sound strange from someone who writes book reviews for this blog. But I typically don’t read reviews in order to influence my decision on whether to purchase a book. I have been told that 80 percent of readers use reviews as their decision point, but I’m not in that group. Here is why. […]
Why Editors Matter
On Twitter, someone makes a controversial statement about writing that goes viral, and then other writers must glom on with subtweets to dissent. The current debate is regarding whether writers need editors. I find this debate rather perplexing because I don’t come from a fiction background, except for my undergraduate degree; I come from a […]
Flash Fiction: Yearning for Water
I present to you another piece in my series of unrelated flash fiction pieces. All photography is shot by me. “Yearning for Water” Story and Photographs by Denise Ruttan Kyra Bartleby emerged from the water, her skin icy at the sudden shock of air. She sat at the edge of the swimming pool and dangled […]
Flash Fiction: “Faery Dust”
I am going to be writing a series of flash fiction pieces to improve my chops to get ready to submit some for publication. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that the shorter the work of fiction, the easier it becomes; because short fiction is hard and flash fiction is some of the hardest of […]
