My Idea for a 2023 Podcast
At the beginning of 2023, I plan to start a podcast, and I finally have a topic in mind: physician-writers. I like this topic because it covers a broad range of interests of mine but within the context of a narrow focus. I see myself talking about writing, creativity,...
Pinning Down a Pen Name
I’ve finally pinned down pen name for myself for my fiction writing: Wyeth Quinn. Selecting a pen name is no easy task. It needs to be unique, relatively easy to spell, and have both domain name and Twitter handle availability. It also needs to “feel” right. I...
Amplifying Excellence Via Twitter
I like to amplify excellence using Twitter. I recently attended a writing conference where two of the speakers, working together, were excellent. They were able to interactively share extensive and complex legal information to a room of over 100 people over 2 1/2...
Creative Walks
I go out for a walk each day from variety of reasons. First and foremost, it’s for the physical exercise (for me, at this time in my life, walking and health are intimately related). I also use my walks as mental exercise. I always have a podcast ready to go, and I...
Being Late
There's only one reason for being late to a meeting: poor planning. That's why I see it as a sign of disrespect towards the person (or persons) I committed to meeting: they weren't worth the effort to plan for carefully. Simply put, I see being late as a deep personal...
My Default Answer is No
I have a well defined mission in my life, so when acquaintances ask me to do something, my default answer is generally no (unlikely when my wife asks me to do something, where my defat answer is yes). Unfortunately, when some people are persistent enough, a yes...
For “Personal Reasons”
I am not Mr. Manners, but there is one thing I know: when someone says, “For personal reasons, I don’t want to do this,” what they are really saying is “It’s none of your business why I don’t want to do this.” Robert Heinlein wrote a book called Friday, in which the...
The Ethics of Retweeting
I ran across a tweet the other day which raised an interesting point about retweeting. Paraphrasing, it suggested that we shouldn’t just consider the content of the retweet, but the why of our retweeting. Keeping in mind that a retweet is always a form of...
For Ikigai, What’s the Alternative to “Passion?”
As I have pointed out before (Why “Following Your Passion” is Overstated), I am not fond of the word passion as something noble to strive for, and it’s certainly not my favorite choice for the apex or driving force of pursuing one’s ikigai. But what are the...
My Three Top Books on The Craft of Writing
Here are three books I reread at least once every year: The Elements of Style, by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White.On Writing Well, by William Zinsser.Writing Tools, by Roy Peter Clark. Combined, they cover most of what I need to know to become a solid journeyman in...