Ralph Pullins

About a year and a half ago, I had the terrible and unwanted honor to write my father-in-law's eulogy.  I didn't even mean to write it, not really, I just did what I always do when everything seems overwhelming and impossibly heavy: I wrote.  It is what I have always done; I tried to capture the scattered wash of feelings and organize them into something that seems to make sense to me.  It was not my intention to write what would ultimately become his eulogy that night, I had no claim to that;  I just wrote and shared it with his family, all of them more scattered and devastated than I was, and they wanted me to read it at his funeral mass. It was... difficult. I have been thinking of him a lot recently, partly because Father's Day has just passed, and partly because we miss him terribly still, his absence comes up in unexpected ways, even still, and I find myself shocked again, and for a minute I have to blink my eyes hard, act like I'm OK... The other day, I found mys

About a year and a half ago, I had the terrible and unwanted honor to write my father-in-law's eulogy.  I didn't even mean to write it, not really, I just did what I always do when everything seems overwhelming and impossibly heavy: I wrote.  It is what I have always done; I tried to capture the scattered wash of feelings and organize them into something that seems to make sense to me.  It was not my intention to write what would ultimately become his eulogy that night, I had no claim to that;  I just wrote and shared it with his family, all of them more scattered and devastated than I was, and they wanted me to read it at his funeral mass. It was... difficult. I have been thinking of him a lot recently, partly because Father's Day has just passed, and partly because we miss him terribly still, his absence comes up in unexpected ways, even still, and I find myself shocked again, and for a minute I have to blink my eyes hard, act like I'm OK... The other day, I fou

One of the more common questions a writer gets is one that is pretty much impossible to answer. Where do you get your ideas? It is impossible for any of us to definitively answer because it is different for everyone.  What happened with me was, I was playing in a creek when I was a kid, and I found a stone, beautiful and perfectly smooth, shimmery red and gold.  I took it home and put it under my pillow.  That night, a tiny red and gold dragon came in through my open window, and whispered to me the idea that would become my first story.  He had a British accent. He still comes, that dragon.  We have both gotten older, but still, most nights he whispers ideas into my sleeping ear, and sometimes I write the stories he suggests to me, and sometimes I do not.  If you want to know where writers get their ideas, I'll tell you a secret: it's magic.  As I understand it, it is different for every writer.  For some, a stork delivers them, others, it's elves.  One of my writer friends

One of the more common questions a writer gets is one that is pretty much impossible to answer. Where do you get your ideas? It is impossible for any of us to definitively answer because it is different for everyone.  What happened with me was, I was playing in a creek when I was a kid, and I found a stone, beautiful and perfectly smooth, shimmery red and gold.  I took it home and put it under my pillow.  That night, a tiny red and gold dragon came in through my open window, and whispered to me the idea that would become my first story.  He had a British accent. He still comes, that dragon.  We have both gotten older, but still, most nights he whispers ideas into my sleeping ear, and sometimes I write the stories he suggests to me, and sometimes I do not.  If you want to know where writers get their ideas, I'll tell you a secret: it's magic.  As I understand it, it is different for every writer.  For some, a stork delivers them, others, it's elves.  One of my writer

I'm at the point in writing the new book where I suspect most people quit. It is big now, and the end is within sight.  I have just the last section, maybe a third of the novel, including the denouement.  It is clear that I can finish it.  It is within reach, which is some of the problem. When you first start writing, you are filled with bright shining optimism and inspiration.  It is this that drives you onward, the beautiful vision.  It is similar to falling in love; at first everything is awesome, you're being careful with one another, you wear nice clothes go out to nice places.  Then things get a little comfortable down the line, you stay in, watch movies, cuddle on the couch.  Then after that you've been together a long time, you let out your farts unabashedly, you sit around in your sweat pants and play video games and yeah it's comfortable, familiar, but it is a far cry from the excitement and passionate fire of the beginning. I bet it is at this point that peop

I'm at the point in writing the new book where I suspect most people quit. It is big now, and the end is within sight.  I have just the last section, maybe a third of the novel, including the denouement.  It is clear that I can finish it.  It is within reach, which is some of the problem. When you first start writing, you are filled with bright shining optimism and inspiration.  It is this that drives you onward, the beautiful vision.  It is similar to falling in love; at first everything is awesome, you're being careful with one another, you wear nice clothes go out to nice places.  Then things get a little comfortable down the line, you stay in, watch movies, cuddle on the couch.  Then after that you've been together a long time, you let out your farts unabashedly, you sit around in your sweat pants and play video games and yeah it's comfortable, familiar, but it is a far cry from the excitement and passionate fire of the beginning. I bet it is at this point tha