Are you an over-sharer? Do you reveal too much of yourself too soon? In other words, are you an open book? I met a man this morning that I’ve been wanting to talk to about a place I want to visit and within five minutes, he told me his daughter (the young woman I got…
Writing a novel, like tackling any creative project—gardening, cooking, painting, etc.—involves a big chunk of your time. We know this, and we go down that path anyway, eyes wide open, taking in the scenery, laying down the stepping stones, climbing over the fences and crashing through the gates, stumbling to the end. We’re done!…
I don’t know that everyone has had a personal 9/11, but a lot of people have. Some are more earth-shattering than others. On the slim chance that you don’t know what a personal 9/11 is: it’s an event that shakes your world so hard that a fault line appears: Before and After. (I wonder what…
Do you prefer your stories to end happily ever after? It used to annoy me to read through 300- to-400+ page novels only to learn that the Main Character’s life had gone belly up. I wanted happily ever after. If that’s you, too, cue the music! Maybe it’s time to reexamine happily ever after. Happily…
There is so much to be sick and tired about. We all have people who seep into our lives unbidden—or maybe even bidden—who anger us, sicken us, leave us speechless, and just tire us out. We wonder when they’ll leave and how much of our soul they’ll take with them. These people are definitely not…
The biggest problem with loving to read is the sheer number of books in the world and knowing I’ll never read them all. I may not even be able to read all the books on my e-reader, never mind the ones that are stacked on my desk and in baskets beside my desk. It’s like…
It’s a fantastic feeling to accomplish a task you’ve been working on for a while. Setting up a new organizational system, remodeling a kitchen, coding, writing a story, planning a wedding or a seating chart. Definitely take a moment to pat yourself on the back, bask in the glory. But before checking the task off…
An intriguing idea popped up in Pinterest the other day. (Anybody else still love Pinterest?) It was a post from Buildwriting, August 3, 2024, called “27 Game-Changing Ten-Minute Writing Exercises That Will Skyrocket Your Creativity.” ( https://buildwriting.com/ten-minute-writing-exercises/) Normally, I’m not a fan of writing exercises because I don’t like being told what to do. Haha….
To resolve or not to resolve. I think it was Shakespeare who said that. I have an acquaintance who has a birthday very close to new year’s who gave up making resolutions because she said they didn’t feel like a gift. True. Resolutions don’t feel very gift-y. They can feel confining and limiting, a lot…
As much as I love New Year’s Eve—which is as much as I love the start of a fresh new school year (a lot)—it can be kind of terrifying. Is that the right word? Electrifying? Tantalizing? Heady? All of the above. 5-4-3-Oh, what am I leaving behind?-2-1! Think of the possibilities. We’re not riding into…
