I’m a busy guy. I manage two writing centers at a community college in San Antonio, Texas, USA. That takes fifty hours per week. My wife has a business that I help with. I take care of her purchasing, public relations, and I occasionally assist her with sales. On top of all that, I write, … More Pardon Me While I Ramble
So, as I have mentioned more often than is dignified, I have a theater company. Specifically, an online theater company we started in 2020. We did well critically in our first season, but the opposite of well in terms of making any money. We were also really bad at even breaking even. Frankly, we weren’t … More Allow Me To Use This Space To Express My Opinion That I Have Too Many Spaces To Express My Opinions
I have two images of wealth in my mind. One looks like what most people envision. A lavish lifestyle, a big plastic mansion, a luxury yacht, 8 sports cars… You get it. Then there is this second image. In this picture, there is a place called home. It’s quaint, rustic. Filled with messy, silly, somewhat annoying … More The Two Paths to Wealth
“I’m not telling you it’s going to be easy. I’m telling you it’s going to be worth it.” Art Williams This anxiety that is my constant companion of late scrapes it’s nails across my chest. It hangs at the corners of my mouth. It paces and wrings its hands over and over and over wearing … More On Being a Nurse
Several days ago, I found myself sitting in a Zoom meeting at work. My mind was wandering, mostly because I wasn’t even for sure why I’d been invited to participate. An idea suddenly came to me, so I reached for the notebook I always keep at hand to capture writing topics when they come. The … More Troy’s Law of Complexification
Why nostalgia is important? Nostalgia is a shield against existential challenges. Evoking positive experiences and feelings from the past can help you cope better with the present and the future. January for me is the month to think about what happened the year before. To make a balance, to see what went well and what … More Why Nostalgia is Important?
It would be illusory to think that we leave our personal culture, beliefs and values in the locker room of our workplace and work mechanically. It would be also boring, I think. Therefore, some questions about work popped up. I believe that most of us hope to have the opportunity, through work, to gain recognition … More Some Questions about Work
Leonardo da Vinci was the most creative genius in history. Of course, saying that I learned things from Leonardo is perhaps a bit risky, because in fact Leonardo is the very embodiment of genius. As we know, Leonardo lived in a particular era for humanity, the Renaissance, when literature, philosophy, science and the fine arts … More What I Have Learned from Leonardo da Vinci
It’s a rainy Monday evening here in Salt Lake City—a perfect occasion to sit on my living room floor and write. Here’s what my mind has been mulling over: A person’s love language is how they feel and receive love. When someone tells me they read my latest poem or article that I posted, I … More Love Languages: A Question for my fellow writers
Billy Osogo I ponder endlessly on writing. As an art, there’s so much to it that even those we look up to as its masters seem to be just scratching the surface. I recently came across an excerpt by Kenyan writer Bivanyanga Wainana. In his book, One Day I Will Write About this Place he … More WRITING SPRINGS
I find writing to be an immensely rewarding investment of time. Whether it’s writing poems like my friend Ellen or plays like my friend Jack Canfora. Whether it’s journaling, writing short stories or full length novels. I came across an excerpt that struck a chord. It’s by Nobel Prize Winner Mario Vargas Llosa. In his … More CALLING ALL WRITERS: ASSEMBLE!
We’ve lived in this house for eight years. We’ve watched its carpets collect happy dirt. We’ve watched its windows slowly adapt to each passing season. We’ve remodeled; hosted parties; built a container garden on the deck. We’ve relocated litter boxes; hung up photos of our families and bizarre expressionist paintings; we’ve scattered scented candles. We’ve … More SnapDragon Speaks: On The Painted Wall.
There are many things I do not know. Like what it takes to make a light switch work; or how many species of bird reside in my home state. I do not know advanced mathematic formulas; I do not know why the daffodils come back each spring. I’m just one person, with a single, yet … More SnapDragon Speaks: On Knowing.
Greetings, Dear Reader! The SnapDragon Family is currently on the road, seeing some sights during this all-too-depressing season of lockdown during winter in Pennsylvania. (starts shivering, and hides head beneath a blanket) We’re cozied up in our Berkshire Class-A RV, embracing the open road and relishing the chance to travel to the American southeast. Sure … More SnapDragon Speaks: On All I Need.
Hi. SnapDragon here. It’s been awhile. And who knows why, really. I mean, I do have a toddler. I tend to the house and home. I technically work full-time, although it’s more like a part-time, online gig at the moment. (No complaints. But it still takes up minutes of my day.) And by the time … More SnapDragon Speaks: On Thought-Jelly.
“Throughout our lives we long to love ourselves more deeply and to feel connected with others. Instead, we often contract, fear intimacy, and suffer a bewildering sense of separation. We crave love, and yet we are lonely. Our delusion of being separate from one another, of being apart from all that is around us, gives … More Missed Connections
Every one of us wants a good life, right? I don’t think there is anyone in this world that says: “F*ck good life! I want to live as miserable as possible!” The thing is that a good life is formed of multiple areas, which has different levels of importance, depending of what you want (career, … More Losing Focus: An important problem nowadays?
Provided by AP from Clear Air Turbulence Why is it always said, he cried like a little girl? We never say, she cried like a little boy, do we? For that matter, we never say she cried like a little girl either. Of course I’m forgetting that’s because it’s acceptable for girls to cry! Silly … More Why Crying Like A Little Girl Is The Manliest Thing You Can Do
Provided by Bobbie Herron from Aloft with Inspiration A few weeks ago I posted a piece called “Final Chapter…” At the time I had every reason to believe that I would need to discontinue my blog, sketching, teaching art, reading for pleasure…all the activities that had given meaning to my life thusfar, all because of … More Why giving up doesn’t work
“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.” – Paulo Coelho I have forever had this idea of myself that I don’t finish what I start. I have had this belief that I get really excited about things at the start of something but then I just sort … More Achieving Impossible Goals