inspirational Archives - From the Write Side

December Girls

December girls stand arrow-straight, wear winter white, carmine and black, cool colors for red-hot thinkers, the doers in the darkest part of the year's final gasp. December girls love with fierce ambition and deep commitment, spend themselves on soul causes. They draw Sagittarian bows, release the fletched and sacred darts toward future fate not yet revealed, set their sights on a higher plane and soar, unsullied into the coming year. ~~~ May you join this December girl in welcoming a new year, new ventures, and [...]

By irvinjgdm|2022-11-30T18:35:56+00:00November 30th, 2022|Blog|0 Comments

July Blog: Sometimes I Just Want To Run Away…

READY? What's that old line about "the world being too much with us"? Sometimes the obstacles laid along the road create a wall too high to scale. Sometimes they force us to confront truths we would rather avoid. If you're a little like me, maybe they cause you to contemplate, if only for a moment, running away, and summer provides the opportune moment to try a faux escape. After all, it's July, summer's highpoint in the northern hemisphere. In this month of heat, humidity, and [...]

By irvinjgdm|2022-06-30T15:36:54+00:00June 30th, 2022|Essays|0 Comments

May 2022 Author of the Month: MELISSA W. HUNTER

Every once in a while a novel comes along that stirs your heart. Melissa Hunter's debut novel What She Lost is that kind of story. Based on the real-life story of her grandmother, the novel follows the efforts of a young woman to survive the Holocaust during WWII. Melissa is a Cincinnati, Ohio, girl who studied creative writing and journalism at UC, where she received a BA in English literature and a minor in Judaic Studies. She has been a blogger and contributed articles to [...]

By irvinjgdm|2022-05-10T10:51:23+00:00May 1st, 2022|Author of the Month|0 Comments

The Importance of Reviews

As the year 2021 reaches its conclusion, it's feel like the right time to nudge readers toward reviewing the books they read. The publishing world has become reliant on the numbers game...how many books sold, how many Likes clicked, the number of positive and negative everything. Your simple rating of a book can power an author's career or sink it for the foreseeable future. Why do writers always ask readers to write a review? Because our success in the business side of this art and [...]

By irvinjgdm|2021-11-30T13:05:37+00:00November 30th, 2021|Essays, inspirational|0 Comments

A World Turned Upside Down

Note: I drafted the following essay before our country erupted in chaos in protest of the police brutality and murder of George Floyd. I felt a need to add an uplifting look at the pandemic-infused world. Now, our nation is even more in need of healing. Next month, I may address this canker at the heart of our society, but for now, I offer you a breather in the midst of uncertainty. Thank you for being there...on the other side of my words. You are [...]

By irvinjgdm|2020-05-31T17:01:37+00:00May 31st, 2020|contemplative, emotive, Essays|0 Comments

Celebrating the Two-Headed Beast: A Toast to Time

New Year's Eve...one foot in the past, one in the future. We watch a ball drop, twine arms and sip champagne and the months of the old year wind out behind us like a scroll. January...weather alerts and bowl games. February...does he/she love me, does he not? March...the winds blow, carrying the faint aroma of rebirth before the cold clamps down again. April, T.S. Eliot's cruelest month...but you get the picture. Twelve months gone. Our past is written, at times in lyric poetry, often in [...]

By irvinjgdm|2015-12-30T15:35:39+00:00December 30th, 2015|Essays, motivational|0 Comments

Heads Or Tails: Choosing to Stay in the Moment

The steamy days and cool nights of August whisper that football is coming. Practice fields echo with the rumble of young men wearing cleats, helmets and shoulder pads as they struggle through two-a-days and learn new play routes. Newspapers devote a significant amount of daily sports coverage to the antics of players, on and off the field. August stretches closer to September. Suddenly it's game time. Then the choosing starts. Each contest begins with a coin toss. Heads or tails. Kick or receive. With the wind or against it. [...]

By irvinjgdm|2015-08-13T15:59:20+00:00August 13th, 2015|Essays|0 Comments