Milestones and Priorities
I just finished a milestone revision of my latest novel, and it feels amazing. To stretch my limbs and mark the moment, I took a walk up a sunny hill and honestly, I feel so good. Revising line-by-line is my absolute favorite part of the writing process, and when I get the words right, the ideas sing in my mind.
I’m also fried. Ha! And my to-do list is long.
I’m so thankful for this work and the people who support me. Yes, the world is wild and terrifying right… Continue reading
Sunny July Days, Sweet and Dangerous
In mid-July, while visiting family in Minnesota, I had the pleasure of attending a baseball game with my sister’s family and hanging out in the section at the end of the third baseline. Baseball is the best. The Mud Hens were hitting virtually every pitch, and the score was 8 to 1 by the time of the seventh inning stretch. Did I care that the Saints were losing? Not at all.
At one point, a little girl dropped off the top of the wall before us, and a player ran… Continue reading
Writing vs. The To-Do List
Writing is at the top of my to-do list. It’s listed there in large, blue type so I see it first thing whenever I open the file. It comes before completing a project for my granddaughters, ordering a flag, sending a condolence note, sending bookplates to a couple of readers, writing a thank you note, returning emails, and making a photo album for 2021. The other things matter to me, some a great deal, and some are so timely they get moved high on the list. But if I start… Continue reading
The Plot of Lies
Sometimes, when I take a break from a novel to write a short story, I end up with a piece that is unlike anything else I’ve ever known. Such is the case with “The Plot of Lies,” a story about writing stories, also known as metafiction. To my delight, the story was picked up by the quirky Canadian online magazine Fleas on the Dog, which is the perfect home for it. Issue 11 is up now, and free, for anyone who wants to pop by and take a look… Continue reading
April Fool’s Day 2022
There’s a spider on your back.
That’s what we always told each
other on April Fool’s Day
when I was a kid. I had
a tiny inchworm in my
hair for real this Tuesday night,
and even after a friend
removed it for me, I kept
expecting to feel the bug
dropping down my neck.
Still do.
Living With the Difficulty of a Novel
Measuring progress can be tricky, especially for a writer who doesn’t have pages adding up, let alone when a writer is deleting them. Over the past month, I’ve hardly written any words in the main document of my novel. I’ve detoured instead into research, character studies, and questioning the shape of the entire project.
For a while, I was worried enough that I searched for the basics of novel writing and rediscovered the stuff about honing a one-sentence concept, building on that for an outline, expanding next to chapter paragraphs,… Continue reading
Ari & Milo, my serial novel, is now up on Wattpad! I drew illustrations to go with each chapter, and best of all, it’s free! Because of problematic themes, this novel is for mature readers age 17+.
Book Trailer for Promised