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with Drake The Duck Muse
Multi-Genre Author ~ Editor ~ Book Designer ~ Writing Coach

The Blog Thingy
Where Emotion and Information are Dispensed Inconsistently... Sometimes
You'll find some interesting stuff here...
a few Op Eds, some Writing Craft Information, Book Reviews, and More. Poke around the categories and see what ruffles your feathers... in a good way!​



Three Wishes: My Encounter With A Book Genie
December 2019 It was near midnight on a night in late December. The madness of the holiday season was nearly over... just the ball drop...
8 min read
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An Open Letter To The Publishing Bigots* Of The World
June 2020 An observation from my writing desk while perusing writing forums on the Internet… It seems to me that many writers are engaged...
6 min read
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A Ship In A Harbor Is Safe, But...
December 2020 One of my favorite quotes is from Albert Einstein... "A ship in a harbor is safe, but that's not what ships are built for."...
3 min read
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What If They Erased Pooh?
March 2021 After spending the past few days nearly suffocated in the news that Dr. Seuss Enterprises (a foundation that I thought was...
7 min read
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Who Is In Your Tribe?
September 2021 I'm not sure this happens in other "industries", but we hear the word "tribe" tossed about a lot in creative circles. ...
3 min read
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The State of Returns... We Should Be Sharing The Risk
October 2021 Since I published my first book in 1993, I've been confused about the return policy our industry seems to accept. Now,...
7 min read
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Indie Publishing: Is There Too Much To Lose?
November 2021 This morning, in one of the Facebook groups I follow, I saw a post, reminding authors about the (primarily monetary) risks...
3 min read
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Tears In The Reader... and A Moment of Wow
December 2021 I've been working on the new edition of my romance novel, A Tryst of Fate , lately. I'm tightening the prose, reformatting...
3 min read
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The Power of The Pen! Community Service and the Written Word
January 2022 For any who take the time to get to know us, they will find that Community Service work is extremely important to Drake (my...
5 min read
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The Sphere of Story
January 2022 The process of story creation can be explained as a sphere of creation. It is a process where ideas form and are passed...
4 min read
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An Author's Flight Plan
February 2022 Migrating my way through the world as a writer has never been hard for me. From my duckling days, I knew that writing...
5 min read
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Validate Reading… No Matter How You Choose To Do It!
February 2022 I spend a lot of time with people who love books, authors, and readers. In almost every case, the conversations are...
6 min read
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Editors Protect The Rush
May 2022 I love words. I love diving deep into sentence structures, vocabulary, and the rhythm of one paragraph, flowing after another,...
4 min read
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Ten Sacred Words
August 2022 Sacred [sey-krid] adjective; regarded with reverence; secured against violation and infringement. Since I was about seven...
8 min read
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A Tribute to Kate McNeil (1979-2022)
Yesterday, as I celebrated her birthday, and my honor of sharing another year of life with such a vibrant soul, I received a phone call...
2 min read
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