The raving writer

Watching a bulldozer clear new pastureland on the farm. (It's a good thing to have cousins who own very large machines.) # Heading for NYC very early in the morning. Meeting editor, hitting [...]

Note to self: When doing full-text search for "Battle of Bouvines," remember that "Battle of Bovines" will bring up very different results. # 20yo son: "The car's [...]

Picturesque winter farm scene: Border collie lying on porch, gnawing an enormous lump of frozen-hard manure. Not exactly Currier & Ives. # When I search for "Real Marriage" and [...]

And this brings us to the hype. Given that Real Marriage isn’t all that different from scores of its predecessors, you might think that Thomas Nelson would have trouble marketing it to [...]

A cold coming we had of it, Just the worst time of the year For a journey, and such a long journey: The ways deep and the weather sharp, The very dead of winter. And the camels galled, [...]

Have just spent far too long figuring out how to spell CAMOUFLAGE. Kept sticking in unnecessary U vowels. # CAMOUFLAGE. Impossible to spell. "To escape the notice of predators." This [...]

I need a metaphor. What's a thing that draws different things together to make one thing? Answer can't use word "thing." # OK, you guys are close, but I need actual THING that [...]

Although I should be worrying about more momentous things, I want to know how to cook fennel. I grew it. I like to eat it. What do I do now? # 2 new horses now at farm. Draft horse, eclipsed by [...]

Post-meeting and pre-lunch, hanging out at a spare desk in the Norton production offices and working on timelines. # Home-school-mom dilemma: Do I shake11yo dd, engrossed in Martin the Warrior, [...]

Sick, watching I Am Legend for comfort. Nothing like huge global catastrophe to make cough/itty-bitty fever completely irrelevant. OR IS IT? # Turns out that when a medieval chronicler ascribes [...]

Eating potato chips for dinner. This is usually a subtle, hard-to-discern sign of an out-of-balance day. # Just finished watching pilot episode of "Once Upon a Time." Very entertaining. [...]

Interesting piece here from a Harvard dean about what elite colleges are looking for. I only have one question… College counselors and admissions directors crowded a hotel conference room [...]