The Mindset Trap
I’ve written before how hard the end of last year was for me. I’d accomplished a lot in 2022, but none of it seemed like it was going anywhere. Then I failed to place in a contest and, on the same day, got back some constructive criticism on my novella, and that was more than I could absorb at once. I realized something. There is an indefinable quality some people […]
Activation Energy
It has been a crazy couple of weeks. I have a lot going on right now, and life has been kind of chaotic. I have been babysitting my grandkids a lot, which usually means spending nights at my parents’ house. I was also in the process of preparing to move. My parents own my house, and needed to sell it, but my boyfriend and I decided, for a variety […]
Things that are Making Me Happy, again …
Every once in a while, I write about the things I am enjoying, and good things that have happened to me. So, here is another installment of Things that are Making Me Happy Right Now Last Exit by Max Gladstone Last Exit is an urban fantasy with serious Dark Tower vibes. Ten years ago, a band of young companions explored a series of parallel worlds. But things went wrong, […]
Book Babies: a rant
Can we have a talk about the term ‘book babies?’ a book is not a baby. once you’ve created it and put it out in the world (a process that usually takes way more than nine months) you’re done. Other people’s relationship with it is none of your business. When you make (or adopt) an actual baby, you have a lifetime in which to fuck that person up ( and […]
Portrait of the Writer as a (No Longer) Young Man
50. Oof. It’s here. I didn’t believe it would actually arrive, or rather, I’d hoped it wouldn’t. I guess I’d hoped to stay in some sort of liminal space, not dying but not getting any older, either. Of course, that option is denied to us, and in that, I am not special. And now that it’s here, I feel … fine? I did not, upon waking on the […]
My Secret Origin
I have been in love with story since before I even knew what it was, before I could separate fiction from reality (jury’s still out on how well I can do that). My parents and grandparents read to me from the time I was an infant. My grandmother disliked the nastier details involved in some fairy tales, so instead she read me A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh stories, so these […]