Doing What Works

Good stories don’t magically appear on the page. Someone grinds them out. In this encore edition of Doing What Works I tell you how I wrote my second book, why I didn’t want to, and why I’m glad I did.
 
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Left for Dead: A Second Life after Vietnam is the memoir of Jon Hovde.
 
Staying the Course: A Runner’s Toughest Race is the memoir of Dick Beardsley.
 
Platoon helped me get in the mood to write Left for Dead.
 
There’s a difference between a story and a sequence of events; the writers of South Park know!
 
There’s no such thing as writer’s block.
 
The Summer of Ordinary Ways “wrings intensity,” as one person put it, “from the seemingly mundane.”

Katie exudes joy, but even she was no match for the dog entrusted to her care for a week. We hope you enjoy the canine edition of Doing What Works!

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Watching Marley & Me for the first time, with friends, left a bad taste in Katie’s mouth.

A Tamagotchi is as close as caring for a pet as she got when she was little.

Peek-a-boo teaches a child that whoever just disappeared will come back.

If you get the first three years right with a child you’re probably set.

Dogs can smell fear!

Notice I’m tensing up, decide that can’t be good, tense up even more.

Much of what Maureen knows about dogs came from City Slickers.

George Carlin likes people on a case-by-case basis.

Summer camps, graduations, even a cup of coffee with the latest edition of Doing What Works. Aren’t traditions the sweetest?

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A seven-mile road race on hills.

There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.

Leading with lollipops!

Much of adult life is deeply repetitive.

Do we ever outgrow our need for reassurance we aren’t alone in our pain? It hurt to hear Darrell’s account of an accident he got into as a child, but this edition of Doing What Works is the friend he didn’t have back then.

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Jerry Seinfeld talks benign neglect.

Gracefully surrendering the things of youth!

Do you push people away without realizing it?

With thousands of telephone interviews in the rearview, you’d think Darrell and I would know how to give good phone. And you’d be right! Say hello to this edition of Doing What Works.

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Farm to Fork!

Start having conversations with your children the moment you meet!

If you’ve ever been soured on indulging your creative side, let Katie help you reclaim that dream. Please don’t miss this edition of Doing What Works.

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Where I got the idea to have a stick figure artist illustrate my work.

Sir Ken Robertson tells the story of a six-year-old drawing a picture of God. “But no one knows what God looks like,” her teacher said. To which she replied, “They will in a minute.”

The ceramics class and quantity before quality.

Katie’s tablet!

Jeffrey Zachmann makes kinetic sculptures.

Bob Culbertson plays the Chapman Stick.

Understanding Comics is the bible of comic writing.

On Katie’s second-longest bike ride, which happened to be on the hottest day in a dozen years, she tried an experiment. No music in her headphones, no texting during breaks. So we had that much more to talk about in this edition of Doing What Works!

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Another first for Katie on this trip? Energy gels!

The cafeteria in hell.

Pigeonholing, labeling, pattern recognition. Call it whatever you want, but don’t be too eager to call it! We explain why in this edition of Doing What Works.

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Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

Jeff Bridges on the dark, but really the enduring, side of marriage.

Positive illusions might play a part in a happy marriage.

How far back was it evident you’d become the person you are? An exploration of why that matters in this edition of Doing What Works.

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Scott Adams says he’ll remember family time much more often and intensely than anything else.  

When I had a sweet little girl, I played with her.

Save your story.

Write down one thing you do every day.

Are you a Scanner?

Anything short of perfection used to feel like failure to Katie, but had she been academically perfect in college she would’ve given up everything else that made it worthwhile. This edition of Doing What Works is a plea to go easier on yourself.

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Pamie Ribon has compassion for young people who don’t yet realize emotions aren’t permanent.  

How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big is worth a read!

Too Funny to Fail is too good not to watch.