occasional posts by risa aratyr
thoughts, news, and items of writerly interest
photo credit: www.unheralded.fish I’m not a fan of guilt or shame. I have a particularly hard time with them in their role as culture-police; mechanisms embedded in the ethos to modify social behavior. Dishonor shouldn’t compel sororicide or homicide or suicide. Taking the blame isn’t the same as taking responsibility. But I do feel guilty. … Read more Standing with Standing Rock
I’ve been erratically blogging at Neither Here Nor There since July of 2008. I’ve got four whole separate bodies of blog-work on this site: My Writerly Life (earliest incarnation, self-explanatory), WC Fields (World Cup 2010), Be-Coming Home (the journey from the fire that destroyed our home to our new home), and Write-Minded (my current offerings, … Read more Backtracking to Blog #1
The writing I did over the summer was big fun. Top of the list – my fiction. I was hoping to spend way more time on Shadow’s Road, but just thinking about the time I did spend on it makes me giddy-happy even now. Did a little writing on my newly-updated, just-gorgeous website over the … Read more Un-Fun Writing
Writing long-hand is an exercise in erasures or cross-outs, depending on whether pen or pencil is your instrument of choice. Long-hand lays waste to a lot of paper. Brilliant words have been irretrievably lost to long-hand; many a writer has erased faulty phrases or wadded up and tossed pages black with cross-outs, only to discover … Read more Back-Button Blues
“Putting pen to paper” has a ring to it, yeah? More than a nifty phrase, putting pen to paper is a sensuous experience; tactile, visual, olfactory, auditory. I love putting pen to paper, always have. Especially if it’s nice paper. Extra-especially if it’s the right pen. My pen-of-choice has a barrel that’s not too chubby, … Read more Putting Pen to Paper