The Monroe Minute

Observations on the craft and the quiet.

Welcome to the Archive.

The Monroe Minute is a series of entries focused on the art of storytelling, the architecture of a good sentence, and the pursuit of a mindful creative life. I spend my time here sorting through the noise of the digital world to find the quiet truths that help us write better stories.

Below, you will find my latest entries, organized by date. I hope you find exactly the thread you were looking for.


The Muscle of the Sentence

Strong verbs provide the skeletal structure for any narrative.

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The Digital Desktop as a Mirror

Clutter in the digital realm creates a subtle, persistent cognitive drain.

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Borges and the Infinite Library

Literature is a vast, interconnected map where every book echoes another.

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Subverting the Expected Path

Predictability is the silent killer of engagement.

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The Evening Tea as a Boundary

A simple ritual can signal the mind to move from ‘output’ to ‘reflection.’

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Flannery O’Connor and the Concrete

Fiction operates through the senses, not through abstractions.

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Pacing Through Punctuation

Commas and periods are the musical notation of prose.

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The Sound of a Quiet Room

Silence is never absolute; it is composed of the house’s breathing.

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Hemingway and the Iceberg

True narrative power comes from the seven-eighths of the story left underwater.

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The Architecture of the Noun

Specificity provides the anchor that allows abstract ideas to float.

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