Finding the perfect blog theme is like finding a good mate, a needle in a haystack, a perfect pair of pants that actually fit. When it comes to my blog, I like to keep it simple, nothing too stylized, no flashing lights or soundtrack that sneak up on you, no hard to find links or [...]
(Or at least get a face lift.) When my local webhost server told me he could no longer afford to host Loose Leaf and was planning to shut down his operation, I seriously thought about not blogging anymore. Being on an out-of-date Moveable Type publishing platform with a blog the size of Texas, I knew [...]
My very first blog entry appeared online on March 12, 2005. In honor of that I’m posting a collection of excerpts on blogging from entries written over the past four years. ——————————————– When something exciting happens and my husband Joe hears me say, “Now that’s something to write home about!” he knows it means I’m [...]
AKA: Computers aren’t the only things with hard drives that crash. My blog is the driving force behind my writing. It’s the place where everything starts, the day to day marriage between my love of the written word and my love of record keeping. If my published writing was a theatre film, my blog would [...]
I took some time off from my blogging schedule to have lunch with a friend who has a new blog so that we could talk about blogging. Listening to the radio on the drive to the appointed restaurant, I caught the The Diane Rehm Show, which was all about blogging. Her guest was Scott Gant, [...]
Suzi Gablik is an art critic, artist, and teacher with an interesting sidekick named Virgil. A reptilian muse with an impressive IQ, Virgil wonders if President Bush googles himself. He isn’t too shy to ask Ivana Trump about her bra buying habits or to say “doo doo” in public when necessary. Virgil is currently busy [...]
Last week when I was in town hanging flyers for the April Spoken Word Night, I saw an interesting scene. Two workers were laying a new sidewalk in between the old Rake’s mansion property and the new Village Green site and leading to the Hotel Floyd construction. It looked like an elaborate production. I was [...]
My writing is an extension of and a way to organize my thinking. I’m more of a thinker than a writer. For me, writing is the natural final product that results from thinking. I think! ~ Comment recently made by Colleen to Kim (a thinking blogger). I’d like to thank Blue Mountain Mama – who [...]
Tell me a story of things that smell lovely … Jasmine … Patchouli … I love you truly … ~Colleen As a blogger, I don’t need to know that Janet likes Johnny Depp, Naomi has a sweet tooth for chocolate, Rick grows hot peppers in his back yard, or that Terri drives around her island [...]
The following essay is the one that recently aired on our local PBS station, WVTF, and it appears in its entirety here. You can listen to me reading it at the WVTF website. When I first started blogging in March of 2005 many people asked, what’s a blog? Less people ask me that same question [...]
When I say “work” I only mean writing. Everything else is odd jobs. -Margaret Laurence I don’t remember who was holding the camcorder at the time, but the question posed was, “what do you want to be when you grow up?” My brother Jim had just answered. “A photographer,” he said. He was nearing fifty-years-old [...]
I followed the muse into town today. It came in the form of a pink pick-up truck with a license plate that said “FARM USE,” but I read it as “FAR MUSE.” The truck was moving slowly, and I was worried I’d be late. I was meeting Ginnie from Golden Daze for breakfast at the [...]
Our regional blogger meet-up at the Café Del Sol – called together because fellow-blogger Terri Dulong was in town – came and went like a whirlwind that left my head spinning. At one point I counted 8 bloggers (all talking at once), 9 if you count Bernie, who made a brief appearance and who doesn’t [...]
AKA: Writers with Floyd-ties Hobnobbing One of the best parts about participating in the Franklin County Book Festival this past weekend was hanging out with Fred, Floyd’s First Blogger, and running into fellow presenter and old friend, Jim Minick. Jim is a regional writer, past Roanoke Times columnist, a teacher of writing and literature, and [...]
This is a photo of me at a Scrabble game yesterday, talking on the phone with my blogger friend, Naomi of “Here in the Hills.” I’m at the Café Del Sol in Floyd, Virginia, and she was calling from Los Angeles. Here’s the story: Mara called to cancel our Scrabble game at the Café Del [...]
I was in the Café Del Sol posting flyers for our Spoken Word Open Mic this Saturday night when I witnessed an actual impromptu purchase of Fred’s new book, Slow Road Home,” at the Café counter. As a friend of Fred’s, an author with a book myself, and a roving blogger who likes to record [...]
The fact that the attendance of our 4th monthly regional Blogger Meet-up at the Café Del Sol was less than normal turned out to work in my favor. I came to the meeting equipped with a pen, a notebook, and a list of blogging questions, and for over an hour I had an audience with [...]
Alina’s in the market for a new laptop. She perused the table full of them at our recent Blogger meet-up, asking pertinent questions about their performance and convenience, before settling down to take mine for a test run. Behind her, Fred was signing some of his newly published books, Slow Road Home, for Rigel. Rigel [...]
