Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips
There are various techniques to start a piece of writing. One involves copying the words of another writer for a sentence or two until your brain warms and your own words flow. I think of those words as writing seeds.
Staring at the screen with the little cursor bar blinking with a frequency that [...]

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by Dwayne Phillips
Some musings about personal spending and saving.
I’ve never been a good consumer. By that I mean that I have never consumed enough. It seems that the American economy in the past half-dozen decades has been driven by consumers. The more people consume, the more jobs there are for producers who then become consumers [...]

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by Dwayne Phillips
eBooks are taking over the world. Well, they won’t finish off the published paper books this weekend, but the trend is there. As with most things, I see some good and some bad in this.
I think it is good that college textbooks are becoming available in digital form. Pay $10 for a PDF [...]

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by Dwayne Phillips
I like to be ready. At times I forced myself to be less ready and learn during the moment. Those were quite satisfying. Project managers can take something from this and help their people learn.
I like to plan. Well, not to plan, I guess what is really like is to be prepared. That [...]

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by Dwayne Phillips
The guitar player and inventor Les Paul died on August 13th, 2009 at age 94. He influenced my life in several ways and continues to influence the lives of others in an American family. For information on Les Paul, start at the Wikipedia article.

It was the summer of 1975. I was attending a [...]

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by Dwayne Phillips
HP printers struggle to work under Linux if SELinux is “enforcing.” It seems that HP and others would have taken care of this foible by now.
I have a new computer, actually two new computers. Well, they aren’t new and they aren’t really two, they are one. Now I have confused myself.
I made a [...]

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by Dwayne Phillips
We spend too much time avoiding some tasks. They are not interesting, praiseworthy, or worthy of note. We simply cannot stay on task. I recommend changing tasks - at least temporarily. There are many benefits to changing tasks. Some benefits apply to the original task. All the benefits apply to me.
I read a [...]

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by Dwayne Phillips
Okay, soon after reading you may start disagreeing with me. This is about T H I N G S. People are not mentioned here as they are in a completely different and far more important area of life. These are NOT listed in order of importance.
Pencil and Paper - to record the events [...]

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by Dwayne Phillips
This is the first post with this title. In the future, I will probably have more with the same or similar title. Just some thoughts about things I find essential, or at least somewhat important, for a writer.
Essentials
Paper and Pencil - Yes, let’s start with some real basics here. If I had a [...]

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by Dwayne Phillips
Managers often start things that they cannot sustain. Great endeavors begin with gusto, but fade away quietly. I dislike these. There are ways around the continual disappointment of the unsustainable.
I’ll never forget the evening. My dad had pulled out his slide projector (in case your are too young to recall these machines, see [...]

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