Baby Steps

My oldest started preschool yesterday, and my husband starts his (FINAL!!) school year in a couple of weeks. We're slowly getting back into something resembling routine, and that means I'm taking another crack at the old blog. Writing has been slow lately--possibly because I started rereading Harry Potter and that's all I want to do …

Little Fiction

Yikes. What just happened to June? We got word a couple weeks ago that we got into the family housing at the university, so we're packing everything up and getting ready for the chaos that is moving. But it will be lovely to be nearer the university and closer to some fun places to visit …

May and Beautiful People

May was a month for stepping back, planning, and reigniting the flames of creativity. Work is slowly moving forward on the Endless Sands, and there is hope that life may one day return to a semi-normal routine. One day. Okay, scratch that last part--who am I kidding? What I read this month: Rain Reign by …

Handwriting drafts

Last year, I was having some trouble getting started on a certain project. I'd written the first five or so chapters three times and completely scrapped them every time. It became so frustrating that I couldn't even stand to open up that folder on my computer. So I grabbed a notebook, headed outside, and hand-wrote …

The pain we writers go through for our writing…

My daughter had her first dance class the other day. Bunch of three- and four-year-olds doing tap and ballet and tumbling in a wonderfully old and rickety studio. It was a sight. I was sitting by the door to the dance floor, as there were more parents than seats in the lobby. When class ended, …

Outside the lines

There came a point in my childhood where coloring became a painful activity. Crayons were bulky and dull and never stayed in the lines. There were always white spots, no matter how many times I went back over the picture, and I could always see where I had colored in different directions. Eventually, I decided …

Lessons in dialogue from Amy March

Little Women is one of those life-changing books that I go back to over and over again. I adore Jo (what young, aspiring writer doesn't?), and the sisterly relationships are something I can relate to. As I've delved deeper into the art of writing, I've appreciated more and more how incredible Louisa May Alcott is …

A writerly order of operations

Queries are painful. There's no getting around it. They rate only slightly higher than titles in my view, and therefore both query and title are generally left for last in my writing process. But I'm halfway through a revision and writing a rough query to submit for a five-page critique. And I'm rewriting and rewriting …