Warren Bluhm's Blog, page 16

380 poem

What else can I say?
Have I said it all,
in different ways
again and again and again?
Were you listening?
Must I repeat myself
again like the Department of
Redundancy Division rehashing?
Did you get it the first time?
Then why are you expecting
the same result? Are we insane?
I can only speak for myself but

How to Play a Blue Guitar: A Manifesto

On a lark I picked up my book How to Play a Blue Guitar yesterday morning and realized (again) that it’s a subversive little book in disguise. Maybe I should have called it Son (or Daughter) of Refuse to be Afraid, because it is a gentle nudge to live a kinder, gentler, more fearless life.

In between the short stories, and even threading through those stories, are a call to stand up against the emerging dictatorship of The Ones Who Think We’re Theirs, who would crush the individual under ...

By definition

Once I believed Thursday was the most tiresome day of the week — not quite Friday, and well distanced from Monday.

Somewhere along the line I stumbled on the obvious truism that every day is what you decide to make of it.

I wrote this on a Thursday, and so it is by definition a tiresome message …

… if you accept the definition in the first sentence.

Do you?

A list or two

“Write only what you love, and love what you write. The key word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for,” said Mr. Bradbury.

Something I love: I love sunny days with nothing to do – walking along water – my memories of Willow The Best Dog There Was – Ray Bradbury books, Terry Pratchett books, Lucy Maud Montgomery books, the Bosch books and TV show, Carol Jean Townsend, exploration stories (space, time, dimensions)(Hey! That’s why Jee...

The world of instant books

Last week I wrote a series of blog posts about my “rules for writing.” You guys seemed to like them, so I packaged them all together in a mini ebook.

You remember:

Show up every day.Have fun.Write what you love.Be silly sometimes.Don’t think.

I’m not here to sell you on something you just read last week and can click for free — although if you want to send 3 bucks my way and have those posts all in one place, I would not want to dissuafe you.

I just want to sit for a moment and s...

In which I beat the odds

I had a great time Saturday night at OtherWorld Books and More in Sturgeon Bay, the first gig in my not-exactly-a-book-tour since publishing Full: Rockets, Bells & Poetry earlier this summer. A rainstorm canceled the sidewalk sale at the last minute, but the folks at Park Place mini-mall had fun bringing the event indoors.

Margaret Magle and her husband, David, have created an otherworldly mix of new and used books, gaming supplies, comic books and even train sets and other toys that take...

In a perfect world

In a perfect world I — am right here, sitting amid the clocks in the morning quiet, coaxing my hand from left to right and dropping images and cryptic symbols onto the page that represent the words coursing through my head.

Will future archaeologists look this page over and say, “Aha! 21st century English, we’ll need to find an expert to read this,” or will it make absolutely no common sense to them? “Markings in a sheaf full of thin materials, what practical use did this object have all ...

Brush with greatness

I had the pleasure, moons ago, of being in the audience when the great motivational speaker Zig Ziglar spoke. He was an electrifying presence, and you walked away thinking you could accomplish whatever miracle you set your mind to accomplishing.

“You can have anything you want in this world if you just help enough other people get what they want,” Zig would say. That’s why I have never begrudged rich people their riches: In the vast majority of cases, that wealth represents the millions o...

Heinlein’s rules for writing

You must write.You must finish what you start.You must refrain from rewriting except to editorial order.You must put it on the market.You must keep it on the market until sold.

On Sunday when I embarked on this week’s posts, I mentioned Heinlein’s Rules for Writing , and I admit it’s pretty audacious of me to set out my own five rules for writing as if I’m in Heinlein’s league. (No, I’m not, just for the record.)

Dean Wesley Smith has a tremendous short book about Heinlein’s rules with...

Writers don’t think

In the titular essay of Ray Bradbury’s book Zen in the Art of Writing, he writes of three important concepts for success: Work. Relaxation. Don’t Think.

“The artist must work so hard, so long, that a brain develops and lives, all of itself, in his fingers.
“So with the surgeon whose hand at last, like the hand of da Vinci, must sketch lifesaving designs on the flesh of man.
“So with the athlete whose body at last is educated and becomes, of itself, a mind.”

Once you get past concentratin...