Tag Archives: writing

What Beauty Gets You

Posted on August 28, 2012 by PB Rippey

I returned from Big Sur with a line in my head that needed to be inserted into a poem I’m working on. I am lucky the line didn’t leave me, creative synapses firing long and repeatedly enough for me to … Continue reading →

Posted in Fiction, ocean related, Poetry, Writer's Angst, writing, Writing Progress, WTF | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Quote For The Weekend: Robinson Jeffers (Early Edition)

Posted on August 23, 2012 by PB Rippey

To feel greatly, and understand greatly, and express greatly, the natural Beauty, is the sole business of poetry. The rest’s diversion: those holy or noble sentiments, the intricate ideas, The love, lust, longing: reasons, but not the reason. —Robinson Jeffers … Continue reading →

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Dear Lucky Agent Contest

Posted on August 22, 2012 by PB Rippey

I’m going to enter. Are you? Follow the link below for complete details. Link: Lucky Agent Contest CONTEST DETAILS This contest will be live for approximately 14 days—from Aug. 13, 2012 through the end of Monday, Aug. 27, 2012, PST. … Continue reading →

Posted in Children's Books, Fiction, middle grade, writing | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Tribute To Mike deGruy

Posted on August 22, 2012 by PB Rippey

Mike DeGruy loved the ocean. He wrote about it, filmed it, lectured on it (all over the world, to all ages), explored it. He died last February in a helicopter crash, in the midst of doing research for a film … Continue reading →

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Status: Guest Blogger

Posted on August 20, 2012 by PB Rippey

Today I am the guest blogger over at M For Mommy. M asked me to write about relaxing and having to write that post made me think: do I relax? Ever? An interesting question to ponder, if not slightly challenging. … Continue reading →

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Quote For The Weekend (Saroyan Edition)

Posted on August 18, 2012 by PB Rippey

How do you write? You write, man, you write, that’s how, and you do it the way the old English walnut tree puts forth leaf and fruit every year by the thousands. . . . If you practice an art … Continue reading →

Posted in Fiction, Writer quotes, Writer's Angst, writing, Writing Tips | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Snow White Revisited (Part I)

Posted on August 13, 2012 by PB Rippey

And just like that, 2 hours of sitting in traffic was replaced by the type of couch that swallows you in a smooth, nerves-loosening manner, windows looking out on lush greenery, walls hung tastefully in my sister’s collection of California plein air, … Continue reading →

Posted in Faction, Fiction, Poetry, poetry reading, Santa Barbara, writing | Tagged , , , , , , | 7 Comments

All Heated Up (With Spiders)

Posted on August 9, 2012 by PB Rippey

We are experiencing triple digit weather. Triple digits means hatchings and unwelcome visitors indoors. Cloth-eating moths. Black widows. Giant waterbugs, which I call cockroaches, which my husband insists are waterbugs—regardless, they make the cats crazy in the middle of the night and startle … Continue reading →

Posted in books, Children's Books, Fiction, Me and Us, writing, WTF | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Links Time

Posted on August 2, 2012 by PB Rippey

It’s been a week of discovering useful blog links. I’ve hopped from link to link and then some, pausing only to drop the boy off at summer camp, pick him up, play Batman & Dinosaurs, fix dinner, twist myself into … Continue reading →

Posted in Avoiding My Writing, Children's Books, Fiction, middle grade, writing, Writing Tips | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Quote For The Weekend (Yet Another “Revision” Edition)

Posted on July 29, 2012 by PB Rippey

I work hard, I work very hard. All the books at leat 30 revisions. —Ha Jin In working on a poem, I love to revise. Lots of younger poets don’t enjoy this, but in the process of revision I discover … Continue reading →

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Deep Summer Checkpoint

Posted on July 25, 2012 by PB Rippey

Two summers ago I wrote: I create escape beneath my yard’s wind- bent gazebo, books on spread gingham, the shrunk house I dragged into our shade, ticking stove, stranger’s voice in the toy wall phone he refuses. Create with a … Continue reading →

Posted in Children's Books, Fiction, middle grade, Poetry, Writer quotes, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Quote For The Weekend (Heatwave Edition)

Posted on July 21, 2012 by PB Rippey

Have we fallen into a mesmerized state that makes us accept as inevitable that which is inferior or detrimental, as though having lost the will or the vision to demand that which is good? Such thinking, in the words of … Continue reading →

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When Agents Call (Others)

Posted on July 19, 2012 by PB Rippey

If you’re agent hunting, you’re going to want to click on over to Beth Hull’s website for installments 1 and 2 of how she procured her literary agent. I find such stories fascinating. And Beth’s pieces are accompanied by drawings that always make … Continue reading →

Posted in Children's Books, Fiction, middle grade, Writer's Angst, Writing Progress | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Deadwhat?

Posted on July 16, 2012 by PB Rippey

Deadlines, deadlines, self-imposed deadlines. Sometimes, while the boy attends summer camp,  I sit in a small boat in the silly above ground swimming pool and deadline-away. Floating, bumping into pool sides and ladder and capsized toy boats titillates the creative side of … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Club, books, Children's Books, Fiction, ocean related, To Explain, Writer's Angst, writing, Writing Progress | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Quote(s) For The Weekend (Beach Edition)

Posted on July 8, 2012 by PB Rippey

The cure for anything is salt water – sweat, tears, or the sea. –Isak Dinesen We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing … Continue reading →

Posted in Avoiding My Writing, ocean related, Quotes, Writer quotes | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Phases (Moon)

Posted on July 3, 2012 by PB Rippey

As I drove myself and the dog home from dropping the boy off at summer day camp (where they create 4th of July art, squirt water at each other, learn how to play Red Rover and build Lego creations all … Continue reading →

Posted in Avoiding My Writing, Fiction, Pets, Writing Progress | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Askew In The Valley

Posted on June 26, 2012 by PB Rippey

My poem is out in Askew Poetry Journal’s Issue #12 Spring/Summer 2012  (here’s the link to Askew in case you’re interested in submitting or subscribing). They also have a Facebook page with samples of poetry from this issue. Dorothea Grossman’s poems are a delight … Continue reading →

Posted in Poetry, Quotes, writing, Writing Publications | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Author Interview #1: Bridget Hoida And SO LA

Posted on June 18, 2012 by PB Rippey

Introducing Bridget Hoida, whose first novel, So LA, is due out in bookstores June 20th. I happen to personally know that Bridget is brilliant, but I can also tell you without a hint of bias that she writes about Los Angeles with … Continue reading →

Posted in books, Fiction, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Quote For The Weekend (Father’s Day Edition)

Posted on June 17, 2012 by PB Rippey

If the new American father feels bewildered and even defeated, let him take comfort from the fact that whatever he does in any fathering situation has a fifty percent chance of being right. —Bill Cosby LATELY, our preschooler insists that … Continue reading →

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Quote For The Weekend (Ray Edition)

Posted on June 10, 2012 by PB Rippey

If we listened to our intellect, we’d never have a love affair. We’d never have a friendship. We’d never go into business, because we’d be cynical. Well, that’s nonsense. You’ve got to jump off cliffs all the time and build … Continue reading →

Posted in Fiction, Quotes, Writer quotes, writing | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

Short Story Writing Drama

Posted on May 30, 2012 by PB Rippey

Because I’ve been a Glimmer Train Finalist several times and, once, long ago, when GT published poetry, a Top 25 Finalist, and because, of course, GT is one of the best fiction journals in the country, I subscribe and receive … Continue reading →

Posted in Adult writing, books, Children's Books, Fiction, Writer's Angst, writing, Writing Progress | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Guest Blogging

Posted on May 29, 2012 by PB Rippey

Yesterday, which I thought was Sunday due to the 3 day weekend and synapses firing improperly or not at all after my husband and I watched a late-night Sunday (which I thought was Saturday) Mad Men marathon accompanied by intensely seasoned … Continue reading →

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Roar While You Can

Posted on May 21, 2012 by PB Rippey

I picked up the preschooler from his place of happy learning and song and drove him up the coast to a museum party celebrating a new installation of animatronic dinosaurs. My husband phoned as I stood in a vast, beamed hall … Continue reading →

Posted in Me and Us, Santa Barbara, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Quote For The Weekend (Wildlife Edition)

Posted on May 11, 2012 by PB Rippey

You may not believe in evolution, and that is all right. How we humans came to be the way we are is far less important than how we should act now to get out of the mess we have made … Continue reading →

Posted in Avoiding My Writing, Fiction, To Explain, Writer quotes, writing, Writing Progress | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

The Oak Drug

Posted on May 7, 2012 by PB Rippey

Oak trees are my valium. Last Saturday I listened to friends chatting and a creek dance over boulders as I gazed up into a canopy of arms at all angles and a puzzle of jagged green leaves on blue sky and—zzzzzz. Whatever … Continue reading →

Posted in Avoiding My Writing, Fiction, ocean related, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment