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50/50 Exercise #12: A Letter to the World

Dear Dad,

I have about 30 minutes left to tell you everything I need to say, and there’s no way it’s enough. God, I don’t even know where to start, so I’ll just dive in with a couple of minutes of background information, how I got to be typing this letter right now, and then I’d better get straight to the message I’m supposed to deliver. That’s the important part, but it also seems pretty important (to me, anyway), that you have some reason to believe that I haven’t gone completely out of my mind and run off to Belize like I always talked about doing.



This symbol means negation. This isn’t part of the message per se, but they say it’s important for you to know this if you’re going to understand all the rest.

No time for the whole story, so here it is in a nutshell: I was sitting on the picnic table on the patio, and I heard a noise down in the woods, a kind of crackling sound. …more

Fifty Pages in Fifty Days

I’ve signed up for a “50/50 Subscription Class” offered by one of my favorite writing instructors, Max Regan. “Students will receive a writing exercise via e-mail each day and will write at least one page of text a day,” says Max’s introduction to the course. Fifty days, fifty pages—hence the title. For more information about the course, visit Max’s 50/50 blog.

The class provides no mechanism for feedback; its purpose is merely to inspire and stimulate participants to cultivate or expand their every-day writing habit. I’m planning to post my 50/50 output here, however, so that friends and fellow writers who’ve expressed interest or curiosity about my writing can take a look and give me some comments. [ View the archive of all my 50/50 pieces. ]

If you’ve found your way here, either because I invited you or just by accident, I’d love to know what you think. Please post your feedback as a comment on the posting to which it applies, or if you’d prefer not to make them public, . (Or call me on the phone if your critique is too scurrilous to put in writing.)

(Lame) Excuses

[None of the writing projects I’ve been working on lately are in good enough shape yet to go on the blog, so I thought I’d post something I wrote a while back (January 25, 2006) in the interest of having something fresh for anyone who might be keeping an eye on the site. This piece has been well received by most of the writers with whom I’ve shared it.]

Why I don’t spend more time writing:

  • Because it’s too hard to do anything when I first get out of bed in the morning, and then I’m too busy for the rest of the day.
  • Because by the time I’m winding down after all of the day’s activities, I’m too tired.
  • Because even though there’s nothing (whatsoever) worth watching on television, I park myself in front of the TV for at least five or six hours a week.
  • Because I’m too busy trying to get laid.
  • Because even though I’m thoroughly bored with my ordinary work, while I’m doing that work, I know what I’m supposed to be doing. …more

Welcome, fellow keepers of secrets and tellers of lies

I’d like to welcome some new readers—my classmates in the Spectrum Center’s “Secrets & Lies” writing workshop. Thank you for sharing your work and giving me the opportunity to share mine with you. And we owe many thanks to the instructor, Max Regan, for all of the useful feedback and fresh ideas for improving our writing.


© 2007 Edward F. Gumnick

Mastery of Learning

In the last several years, I’ve spent a lot of time exploring ways to broaden my understanding of the Universe and of my little corner of it. One way that’s produced striking results was a course I took last summer called Mastery of Learning. It’s taught by Chris Welsh, whom I met by way of Mattison Grey, a client, coach, and friend of mine. (You’ll read about Mattison in future blog postings.)

Chris calls Mastery of Learning “an evolutionary program designed to rekindle your curiosity and give you the tools to satisfy it.” He presents the course as a series of one-on-one training sessions. He customizes his presentation to suit the interests, needs, and schedule of the learner; in my case, there were five sessions, each about three hours long. Each session combines teaching, training in specific learning skills, and some very masterful coaching to bring clarity and focus to what you’re learning.

It’s essentially a course in learning to learn more effectively. But at the same time that Chris is working with the learner to cultivate some very useful learning skills, he introduces …more

A Nonbinding Resolution Establishing the Blog

WHEREAS: I have been meeting many interesting, interested people who’ve expressed curiosity about my ideas and, specifically, my writing,

And WHEREAS: I enjoy spending lots of time talking to those curious people, but there are only so many hours in the day,

And WHEREAS: I often find myself repeating the same stories and observations over and over again to different people,

And WHEREAS: Spoken conversations, though delightful, usually produce no permanent record that can be shared with others,

And WHEREAS: I want to cultivate the habit of producing publishable written material on a regular basis,

And WHEREAS: I have ready access to the medium of the Internet and to the tools of blogging,

THEREFORE be it resolved: That I will establish a weblog and post material to it on a regular basis; that I will make its existence known to such people as might be interested in reading it; and that I will be curious to see where it leads.


© 2007 Edward F. Gumnick