Michael T. Miyoshi's Blog, page 14

Writing Prompts

I do not use prompts to write my blog, but perhaps I should.

Life has its ups and downs, its highs and lows, its bumps and bruises. And that is just the writing part of life. Those times when I have many ideas and when I have few. Those times when I cannot write myself out of a paper bag. Wait, I think the saying is “fight myself out of a paper bag.”

At any rate. There are times when I have droughts when it comes to writing.

Fortunately, this is not one of those times. I have been having ...

I Sold Another Book

I sold another book! Woo hoo!

It is funny. When you think of an author selling a book, you think of that author getting the book published by some book company. Or making a movie deal. Not so with self-published authors. At least not so with me. When I say that I sold another book, I really just sold one book.

Now, I know in the grand scheme of things, selling a single print-on-demand book is not that great of an accomplishment. It does not generate much revenue. After all, it is just o...

Mama Told Me Not to Swear

I told the short version of my mom telling me not to swear story before, but I figured I might as well tell the rest.

Way back in third grade, my mom told me not to swear. She might have said it was a sin. Or that it was not a nice thing to do. Or something like that. I do not remember that part. In fact, I do not remember much of the story. I just remember she told me not to swear. So I did not swear until I was an adult. But even then, I could not get over the fact that I was disobeyi...

April is National Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month so
I thought that I ought to give it a go.

I know that poems need no rhythm nor rhyme
But it is how I write poems all of the time
And poems are poignant and oft have a point
But mine are just silly and often disjoint.

Still please don’t dismiss me ‘cause I have naught to say
Don’t just read a stanza and be on your way
For my poetry might be just as good as another
At least if you are my sister or brother.

It is said there’s a friend that sticks closer than a br...

April Fools’ Day

Today is April Fools’ Day (unless you are reading this early), and it is fun to reminisce about April Fools’ Days of yore.

When we were kids, we used to pull practical jokes on each other on April Fools’ Day. Nothing big. Just tell somebody to look over there and steal a French fry. Or pour cold water over the shower curtain when somebody is taking a shower. (Okay. That was as a bigger kid.) But at our house, the favorite joke was one that our dad taught us. Water over the door.

Our dad ...

Pet Peeves

Some people like to make pet peeves their ammunition.

I stole the idea of a question of the day from one of my colleagues. It is a good way to get things rolling in the morning. Just ask a question that everybody needs to answer. It only takes a few minutes and it can be a good way to take roll in the morning. And the students usually have fun with it. Thank you, Seth.

Well, I ran out of questions to ask, so I asked what questions my students thought would be good questions of the day. ...

The Brightest Person in the Room

I am always the brightest person in the room… Until somebody else walks in.

You know people who are the brightest people in the room. Who are always the brightest people in the room. No matter who else is in the room, those people are the brightest. And if all those brightest people in the room happen to be together, you still know somebody who is the brightest of the bright. I am not that person. In fact, I am only the brightest person in any room until somebody else walks in.

I do not s...

Nounify Verbs and Verbify Nouns

Maybe it is just me, but I think it rather annoying when people nounify verbs and verbify nouns.

Have you ever noticed that people create nouns from verbs and verbs from nouns? And that it seems to be happening with greater frequency? I have. First of all, I think it strange. Second of all, I think it annoying. Third of all, I wonder if there is any way it will ever stop.

Maybe it is just me, but I think it strange when people nounify verbs and verbify nouns. One of the first times I wa...

Like, Subscribe, Review

I have a blog, a YouTube channel, an Amazon author page, and various social media accounts. And I think you should like and subscribe to all those different media. And I think you should leave reviews of my books. But this will probably be the only time I will ask you to do that.

Like many YouTubers, I used to tell my audience to like and subscribe. Or at least I did a couple times. Then, I forgot. Then, I decided that I was not going to do it even if I remembered. After all, people will...

I Am So Weird

I just read one of my blog posts (that is ready but not posted yet), and all I can say is, “I am so weird.”

They say that kids say the darnedest things. I must still be a kid then because I say the darnedest things too. Sometimes I mean to say them that way. But sometimes they just come out that way. Darnedest.

Speaking of darnedest. What a strange word. First, I thought I would spell it like it sounds. DARNDEST. Spell checker did not like that. So I thought about the word a bit and re...