My Cardboard Balcony

Ladies and gentleman - my very small group of loyal readers - I have a problem. No, it's not one of the multitude of issues and conflicts I've addressed in previous introspections or blog entries. It is not about my financial status, my education's future, or my family dynamics. It isn't even about my occasional bouts of creative ennui. It is, in fact, the opposite. What I've implied, perhaps incorrectly, over the years in my introspections is that my writer's block is mostly a result of not having good enough ideas or not knowing how to get from point A to point B in a plot, outline, or script. While that sounds like a valid reason for a hindrance in writing, it is only responsible about ten to fifteen percent of the time when I cannot seem to get anything on paper or screen. The truth is, the other eighty-five to ninety percent of the time, I am so bloated with ideas that I can almost feel them leaking out of both ears. I have novel ideas, series ideas, sc

"Caramel Kisses" is an unfinished novel I began to write back in 2009 and stopped working on in 2010. The two main characters - Adriana Maguire Reynard and Emma Burking - would ultimately be revised for my later completed novella, "The Liffey Is Half-Asleep," in 2011. Several elements of "Liffey" can be found in their original forms in "Caramel Kisses," such as the characters' names, the haiku scene, and Adriana's penchant for writing. Because of its influence on my later writing, I figured that this story, though incomplete, was worth sharing. Caramel Kisses: Chapter Twenty-Three by Belinda Roddie I started attending grad school a month before my twenty-fourth birthday. Emma and I had moved into a bigger apartment in Petaluma after I had worked long summer nights for my teaching credential, so I could take classes during the day and teach similar classes at night. And with that, my schedule became more hectic, but my income had dou

The meaning that Charlie derived from the book was simple: Its antithesis, meaninglessness. She had read countless interviews on how the author had stated he wasn't trying to be like Camus, or Kafka, or even Joyce. He wasn't trying to make a statement or wave around a flag with the words "Life is a void" stamped across it. He claimed he wasn't an absurdist or even an atheist. And yet, there it was. An excellent novel about meaninglessness. Charlie would have to recommend it to Sam.