Mirka Muse

  I’ve been noticing a trend that, while having trickles of historical roots, has become a flood in the last thirty years or so.   What ...

  I don’t get “ writer’s block ,” which in my not humble enough opinion is clinical depression as manifested in a writer. But I do have chap...

  One of my first beta readers, way back when, suggested that my plotting was strong but that characters lacked distinctive speech patterns....

  A dear friend told me more than ten years ago that her physical bookshelves were emptying. For reasons of space saving, she had gone from ...

  One of my favorite Jewish jokes goes like this: Two people have an argument and go to the rabbi to rule who’s right. After hearing the f...

 HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL ITS LEAVES FALLING ON THE PATH TO A MORE PEACEFUL MERCIFUL FUTURE 🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂 🍂🍂🍂🍂🍂 🍂🍂🍂 🍂

  This morning, I am thinking about polls. Not “the Poles,” who are the people of Poland, but these pesky things asking for our opinion.  ...

  When faced with a seemingly unresolvable ethical dilemma, I resort to The Golden Rule.   Most know the New Testament version: "...

  …TRY SOFTER   I’ve been contemplating this bit of advice, seemingly more a play on an idiom than wise, when out of the cloudy sky it c...

  If we change the word in the title of this post from “trolling” to “commenting,” most of us would recognize ourselves.   Sadly, some o...

  Many writers and literary analysts have said that the power of stories lie not in the events, but the meaning we make of the events.   ...

  You’ve been warned. Right now, I’m Ms. Grump because of my yesterday. I hope to climb out from under today with the help of letting it out...

  August is a good word. It means “respected and impressive,” according to one dictionary. It has a noble origin, according to another: ...

  JULY 29 th , 1981 Twenty-four years ago today, a prince married his bride, and she became Diana, Princess of Wales. The prince still liv...

  Years ago, when I first began writing in earnest, DH gave me the gift of Nancy Lamb’s book, The Writer's Guide to Crafting Stories for...

  One of the pitfalls of staying in school for many years is the dependence on deadlines set by others.   What, you might be saying, is ...

  I had a friend who was prone to bouts of depression. She was one of the most talented and brave people I have ever known. Still, waves of ...

  I’ve heard the saying, “Love shows up.” I’m going to lower the bar here and not address love, but just elemental decency between people...

  Some years back, one of the members of my critique group quit. She not only quit our group; she quit writing.   Her parting words to u...

  Most people know how to give an account of happenings. “This happened, and then that, and after that then this.”   These are accounts,...

  * Disclosure: I never sought representation for my picture book texts because very few agents are open to such. Both my previous agents di...

  Beginning and naïve writers pay little attention to word counts. My first efforts had one 4,000-word story which I thought was a picture b...

  If you use text-to-voice to proofread your writing, you’re listening to a creature of AI. I’m on record that I use this feature when going...

  We know Abraham Lincoln saved the union of states, but at a great cost to his mental health and eventual physical demise. Lincoln suffered...

  I’m fond of reading Author Notes at the end of novels, but I may be in a minority.   To be clear, I understand the reluctance many fee...

  Self-doubt is not only an important part of an artist’s toolkit; it’s an essential aspect of being a good person, striving to do better. I...

  Some years ago, our family were on our way home after a beautiful winter hike. We had climbed mountains to view the ocean and passed count...

  It’s been almost a month since Sokolov died.   I want to say “left us” or “crossed the rainbow bridge” or some such, because the word ...