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Bzzzz

June 2, 2023
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| Uncategorized
Author in white bee suite inspecting a frame of bees with reproduction.

As I believe I may have mentioned in a previous post or two, my wife and I keep bees. I have difficulty, however, calling us beekeepers. “Beekeeper” sounds so all-encompassing. Like a 24/7 kind of thing. Always on alert, always keeping our eyes peeled, ready for anything. Keeping those bees safe from harm, never wavering from the task. Diligence! Like if you were an old-time lighthouse keeper. Blink an eye and you’ve got a pileup on that submerged reef. We are in no way that obsessed. Yeah, we keep bees, but we do other stuff too. My head isn’t…

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Jail

May 16, 2023
| 1 Comment
| Prison

For the last eight months or so I have been visiting some inmates in a nearby prison a few times a month. When I was first approached about doing this I was caught off-guard. It’s nothing I would have thought about doing on my own. It’s not that I was averse to doing it, it’s just it never occurred to me. I don’t look at myself as a save the world and embrace everyone kind of person, ready to wrap my arms around the poor misunderstood unfortunates, etc, etc. Nor do I think I am a hard-ass, why should…

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You Can’t Go Home Again

May 2, 2023
| 2 Comments
| School, Writing
Author studies ceramic mosaic of sun, sky, clouds and flowers at Albuquerque Academy in New Mexico

This past week I’ve spent a few days back at the school I retired from last June. One day was a straightforward substitute teacher job for the grade I taught for 17 years. The other 3 days I was helping to grade the New York State Assessment Tests that are given by the state to the students every spring. It is 3 days where the students are pulled from regular routine and forced by the state to take time-consuming exams that are, my my opinion, often very poorly thought out. An example of this is penalizing students for not…

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Stuck

April 16, 2023
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| Ideas, Writing
toy plush shark isolated on white background

It’s not often I get stuck on what to write. I sometimes get stuck on how to write it well, but the actual what isn’t usually a problem. However, as you may have guessed, it’s a problem at the moment. But there may be a couple valid reasons for this. I just had eye surgery. Nothing major, just cataract surgery in both eyes. Yup, that procedure old people often have done so they don’t end up driving off the road at night. I guess I am now officially part of that group. As I’ve stated on several occasions, I…

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More weirdness…renovations

April 2, 2023
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| Renovations, Writing
Small bathroom with walls and ceiling ripped out. Only toilet left standing.

Last blog I wrote about some weirdness going on in my life. Part of the weirdness was that I would be speaking in Lake Placid, NY about being an author. That engagement has come and gone and I’m pleased with how it went. I spoke with another author, E. S. Curry, and we touched on our writing processes, thoughts and concerns about writing, and just what it’s like to be indie authors in general. I don’t really have fears about speaking in public. I taught in a public school for 24 years, so that’s a lot of speaking in…

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Weird Week

March 16, 2023
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| Writing
Published Book Covers

This has been a weird week. And next week should be an exciting one, too. Whenever my routine gets rocked in any way, it throws me off. That’s certainly the case this week. Not in a bad way though, in a good way. There is a cable network TV show that is doing some filming nearby. I have never heard of the show. This shouldn’t come as a surprise as I know next to nothing about what’s on TV. I’ve reached the point in my life where how I spend my time is important, and watching cable network TV…

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Labels

March 2, 2023
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| Writing
In graduation gown in front of school.

I just launched my author website: jemullane.com. I am finding it difficult to accept the fact that I now have an AUTHOR website. I guess this means I can now identify myself as “an author.” I realize I could have done this before the launch (and doesn’t it sound a bit pretentious? LAUNCH? It’s not the QEII or the space shuttle or anything) because I’d written and published a couple novels, and while technically, yeah, I’ve been an author for a while, it’s not where my mind would first go. Until a few months ago I would have labelled…

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How far would you go?

February 16, 2023
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| Retribution
Looking Up Through the Trees

How far would you go to bring retribution to someone guilty of a terrible wrong? This is a question I’m wrestling with in a book I have yet to publish. Whenever I revisit it, I find myself continually wanting to tweak something here and there. I really struggle with when to restructure a sentence, or find a better adjective, or just cut a couple paragraphs of what might be unnecessary filler. I know I’m not alone in this; I have spoken with other authors who have the same issue. When is what I’ve written “done?” I know if I…

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Ideas

February 2, 2023
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| Ideas, Writing

Where do you get your ideas? Over the years I have seen or read quite a few author interviews and this question always pops up in one form or another. I have a vision of the author rolling his or her eyes, gritting their teeth, trying to be as pleasant as possible while answering a question they are patently sick to death of. So, it may seem strange that after my first novel was published and I was actually asked that question myself, I was totally unprepared as to how to address it. The truthful answer to the question…

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Snow

January 16, 2023
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| Seasons, Snow
Snowy Trees

A few weeks ago, we got slammed with quite a bit of snow in the space of about 24 hours. About two feet or so. Not as much as some past occasions, but still pretty significant. I’ll say one thing for it though, it was absolutely beautiful. Early in the morning, before there was much in the way of traffic, it was deafeningly quiet. The snow thickly coated houses, roads, trees, the mountains across the river—it seemed to just swallow up any sound. Listening for a while all I heard was the occasional whoosh when snow got too heavy…

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