Looky, Looky

Well, I’ve learned a valuable lesson from Monday’s post: NO MORE SPIDERS! I can talk about them (I think), but pictures are right out. It’s funny how certain animals affect us. Birds? Mostly people are okay with them. Dogs? Cats? Obvious family pets. Turtles? I don’t think I’ve met anyone yet who hates turtles. Frogs, […]

Getting Back Into Things

Well, the break is over, we’re getting back into the swing of normal life now. The Magpie has gone back to school after a nice visit. She was anxious to be home, but anxious to return, I’m sure, I remember those feelings well. For today, I decided to share something I wrote yesterday in my […]

The Day After

Most of you are not going to remember this commercial, because most of you (I think) are too young. I watched too much TV growing up, and have the kind of memory that allows me to remember things like this. I’d almost think it’s a Guy Thing, remembering stupid stuff that is absolutely no use […]

A (Blurry) Glimpse Into My Notebook

I do most of my writing on my computer. I love it. I love the click of the keys, and the way they feel beneath my fingers (I can’t type on my wife’s keyboard; the keys are stiffer and sound ‘clackier’. Blech). I love watching words appear on screen as if by magic. But every […]

Beautiful

Today I abdicate to Offbeat Mama. Not because I don’t have anything prepared, but because this particular shiny caught my eye and had to be shared. A link appeared on The Magpie’s Facebook page Wednesday night, a gift from her high school English teacher of the last two years (an amazing teacher who did much […]

A Pep Talk

Be brave. Take risks. Tell the story you want to tell. If it means ruffling a few feathers, ruffle them. Don’t apologize for your work, and don’t hold back in your query. Don’t hide the uncomfortable or controversial beneath twisted layers of plot and names and places. I read a query letter this weekend that […]

Carts and Horses

What are people thinking lately? If you’re not familiar with Query Letter Hell, it’s a section of the Absolute Write forum where you can post your query or synopsis and get it shredded, along with your ego, by anyone with an Absolute Write account. It’s like Matt’s QQQE, though folks at QLH are less likely […]

Monday Musing: The Potty Post

I’ve been looking for an excuse to use this forever. If you’re a fan of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, you know they were quite fond of repetition. Repetition, in fact, is a staple of good comedy. The sequence above occurred three times in about a ten-minute span of an episode called ‘The Buzz Aldrin Show’. […]

Meet The New Boss…

…same as the old boss. Last year, YA author Peggy Eddleman started something new. NaNoWriMo about to take off, but Peggy wasn’t ready to write; she was in the middle of revising. So she threw an idea out there:  “We could REVISE 50,000 words in November. Or, we could make a different, personalized goal that […]