As most of you guys know, I’ve been working on a collaboration project with friend and critique partner Kerry Schafer. It (hopefully) will turn into a suspense novel about a hotel ghost. This is both of our first co-writing experience, and it’s been an interesting one, with ups and downs. It’s been a pleasure to […]
40 Days of Challenge, or Breathing through the Uncertainty
As some of you may already know from my post on social media, this Sunday I started a 40 Day Yoga Challenge through my local studio. Most of the folks who signed up are committing to an hour a day at the studio, but since I’ll be traveling during some of the time, I’ll be […]
Heads Down Editing
Since I haven’t updated the blog in a couple of weeks, I thought I’d drop in and let you know how the editing process is going. It’s been a lot like pushing a heavy-laden wheelbarrow up a slope; tough at first, but as I go on it’s building momentum and I’m figuring out where to […]
Impossible Things Before Breakfast: Or, the Mindset of the Writer of Fiction
To be a writer of fiction, you must believe in several impossible things before breakfast. You must believe in people who never lived, places that never existed, and series of events that never happened. This is the easy part. What is harder is seeing these made-up things clearly, so clearly that you can describe them […]
Wrestling with the Dragon: Taming Insecurities
Most highly creative people struggle with self-doubt. Am I good enough? Is the work good enough? The difficulty of “breaking in” to most any creative field makes it that much harder. You’re inundated with rejection notes. Passes at auditions. People criticizing you at every turn. But far worse is the Inner Critic – you know […]
The Gun Range: or, Control
In my writer’s group there are two gun nuts: one, a large bald tattooed guy, set off my instincts immediately. But, that could be that he’s large and tattooed. I didn’t actually notice the gun until Saturday, when he brought it out to show the group. The second is a fifty-something woman with short, gunmetal […]
Decisions, Decisions
As I wrote about earlier in the week, I found out I am accepted to both the Odyssey and KU’s Novel Writing workshops. Woot! Sadly, they happen in the same timeframe, so I had to choose. After talking to Kij Johnson and several students she recommended, as well as doing some research on Odyssey, I […]
Contests & Applications
The last week, while fighting a nasty chest cold, I’ve been putting together several entries and applications. Pushing through being sick made the whole process harder, but I’m proud of the final product on all of them. First, I entered the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards which opened last night and continues to accept applications until […]
Voice, Tics, and Understanding
I had to un-learn a lot from college – in real life, you don’t get extra points for using big words when small ones will do. You can’t skip class and still make A’s (I know, I know). And the last thing in the universe you want is to sound like everybody else. Today’s post […]
Pride and Exhaustion
Marathon day and 5234 words… whew! Today I turned a corner in more ways than one. Not only am I within sight of my goal, but the novel is picking up in awesome ways with the entry of my hidden puppetmaster character, Lady Mine Natogara. Naturally, it all comes to a head with a memorable […]
