A fly by the seat of your pants approach to writing life
A self-diagnosis of my writing process I’ve been mulling over an idea for a larger writing project for quite some time now. Whenever I find time to write, though, I find myself staring like a gaping fish at my blinking cursor or my blank notebook page (a familiar feeling to...
For those of you that don’t want to read the whole story, I’ll give it to you right from the beginning. I know it’s not recommended to give away the punchline before you tell the joke but hey, we’re all busy people. I schedule in 1-2 hours, 1 day a...
I love my day job. It gives me responsibilities that I know are making contributions to the development of devices that can save lives. My job fills me with purpose and provides me with opportunities to grow both professionally and intellectually. I am driven to succeed, to do my job...
Many of the short stories I have written over the last year saw their genesis through NYC Midnight‘s Flash Fiction or Short Story Challenges. In these challenges, writers are given a certain amount of time (48 hrs for the Flash Fiction Challenge, varying lengths of time for the Short Story...
As an aspiring writer, I consider reading to be a critical part of honing my craft. However, though I love writing short fiction, I haven’t read that much short fiction. Because of this, I also don’t yet have a good handle on magazines and journals that would be interested in...
Let’s get real about motherhood for a sec. My son is six weeks old. Yesterday was filled with bouts of red-in-the-face crying. No food, cuddle, swing, pacifier, or yoga ball bounce (usually a sure-fire thing) could soothe his woes. At times like this, my heart will rage in my chest,...
Engineering is all about problem-solving and optimization. Oftentimes you may be caught in a scenario where you have to pick two design parameters and get as close as you can with the third. Many will apply this ‘pick two principle’ to career success and work-life balance. As I look now at my three competing passions (family, engineering, writing), I hate to believe this is true.
