 Red Room Writer Profile
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John Erwin Doerper's Blog
March 26, 2009
- Today was a day like many others, with only a minor difference: I’m fighting off the tail end of a cold season bug, which turned out to be a rather muscular dragon's tail knocking me back down every time I got up. A gentle rain fell as I woke up. It served as a musical backdrop to the crying of gulls, the singing of the resident male robin, and the trilling of song sparrows. Despite a light ...
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February 13, 2009
- I do not fear dark places, perhaps because I grew up with them. My father was a stickler for turning off unnecessary lights to save power and to please him (and to avoid the rod) I learned to navigate stairways and hallways in the dark. This came in handy as I grew older and began to take long walks in the dark (because at night, I had the back roads and alleys all to myself). My nocturnal route ...
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February 11, 2009
- I hate Google searches because they kill creative spontaneity by providing instant references to a term or phrase I want to use in a story. Most of these are trivial and would drag my story down or alter its meaning in the popular consciousness. Take this morning's search: I was about to write down the story of a ghostly appearance that has haunted me on and off for almost forty years. I first ...
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January 28, 2009
- I learned this week that a plankless deck is of less use than a gateless gate: Beware the laid-back workman. Over the years we’ve had all sorts of workman fixing things around the house: those who drove the neighbors to distraction with the loud Jesus music they played for two weeks, one who appropriated tools, buckets, and other objects which did not belong to him, and three who had to be ...
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December 24, 2008
- The morning news were once again filled with reports of slick roads, snow in the forecast, and the problems shoppers were having of connecting with merchants. Aping the national media, the local newspaper wrote that “retailers are probably wondering what they did to deserve such a challenging holiday shopping season.... There was also the late Thanksgiving, meaning fewer shopping days between ...
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December 20, 2008
- I think I saved half a dozen hummingbirds last night. Saying that, I feel a bit like like a presumptuous ass for violating my non-interference rule. After all, I firmly believe that Mother Nature knows best. If she wants to keep an animal alive, she’ll do so without human interference. But it’s been hard not to put out fresh (that is, liquid) nectar for those crazy Anna’s hummingbird who ...
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December 14, 2008
- Nearest Book Meme"Leaf sprays are slender and delicate." Stuart, John D., and John O. Sawyer, Trees and SHrubs of California. California Natural History Guides, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 2001.(Gowen Cypress, Cupressus goveniana) Grab the book nearest you. Right now.Turn to page 45.Find the fifth sentence.Post that sentence (with attribution) ...
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November 25, 2008
- At the stroke of midnight my green word count bar turned purple and a winner's certificate popped up. Great. Now I can let this one simmer on the back burner for a while and go back to the project I was working on before 1 November.
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November 20, 2008
- I got my first car in 1963. It was a Chevrolet Corvair. I thought it was swell, but I didn't know much about cars or driving them, and I flipped it onto its roof a few weeks after I got it (unlike most American youngsters I was more into riding and driving horses than cars at the time; I never learned how to fix a car, but I've built a buggy and a wagon from scratch, that is from the wheels ...
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November 18, 2008
- 50,128 I used to do my best work in the quiet hours of the night but I haven't done that for a while because I haven't had to. But with a new project coming up, I decided I'd better cross the Nanowrimo finish line first. I did so at 4:00 this morning. (The novel needs at least another 50,000 words before I dare call it a first draft.) Now I lie me down to sleep....
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November 15, 2008
- When we saw on the news this morning that a wildfire was creeping from Corona to Yorba Linda, where my wife's brother lives, she called him to find out if his house was in any danger.He picked up the hone and barked, "Can't talk. I'm evacuating." Click.We got more details when he called back half and hour later, after he made it a friend's house with his teenage son. He had been at ...
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November 11, 2008
- Well, almost a train wreck. By early last week, I had typed some 27,000 words and thought I was heading for an early completion of the task. But then I made the mistake of reading what I had written. CRASH!I knew I should not read and edit before 1 December, but it was too late because I had started cutting. When I was done, more than 12,000 words had been flushed down the trash basket vortex. ...
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November 6, 2008
- A gentle rain started falling this morning and I love every drop of it.It drums on the glass roof of the greenhouse window, sticks to the katsura tree and hazelnut leaves, weighs down the figs and empress tree until the leaves become so heavy, they drop off, and drips down from the glossy foliage of the camellias, forming small puddles on the ground which the little brown birds prefer for bathing ...
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November 4, 2008
- I voted two weeks ago by mail and today I feel a sense of deja vu. Should I have waited until today?Of course, voting early had one advantage: as soon as the arrival of my ballot was logged at the court house, the campaign mail stopped coming and the crank political phone calls ceased. Perhaps the peace [of mind] was worth it.
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November 3, 2008
- I started typing shortly after midnight last Friday (could not sleep) and I've been poking along ever since. Crossed the 10,000 word line today. I even have a plot of sorts now.
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