I attended Catholic school for three years. Honestly, I liked it. I liked most of the nuns (not all to be sure), and I ran around the playground with the boys. I fought back if anyone bothered me. I made good grades. In 2nd grade, a boy kept poking me with a pen. I told …
Today I finished chemo. One surgery remains. The toxins will leave my body, my hair will grow back, and I'll get to call myself a survivor. But aren't we all survivors if we make it to another day? I don't know, but I find survivor a strange thing to call myself. Many people are kind …
I'm so proud and excited of the children's books my publisher has written and I've illustrated. See! They books are here at Plum Tree Books. Plum Tree also published cards with my art! If you know anyone (or school, organization, and such) that might like unique children's books, please help us spread the word. And …
One agent suggested my novel was young adult. This surprised me because I wasn't trying to write a young adult novel. The main character is a teenager though. But I never thought I was writing for teens. Writing for teens...that's a minefield. Well, it can be. Adults are allowed to read anything without much of …
Because of facebook, I now know that a certain individual from my hometown is having serious health problems. He and I are not facebook friends, but we've known each other since we were five. Well, he was five and I was four. Anyway. On facebook a mutual friend posted about his illness and asked people …
I got through high school and college without a boyfriend. I had a few dates, but no one you could call a boyfriend. (By boyfriend I mean someone who would actually refer to me as his girlfriend.) So after dating (and I use the term loosely) guys who seemed incapable of anything resembling a actual …
I don't remember when I started to care about women. (And I'm not going to say women's issues because it's not a self-contained status sort of thing. We're half the population----nothing special interest about that.) In grad school I complained about a professor who told the class his favorite bar was called "The Silent Woman" …
Continue reading Women Are Awesome. How about if We Stop Murdering Them?
This may be the end. Well, of the whole National Blog Post Month is over for me. Whew. I tried this a couple of years ago and it may be a couple more years hence before I do it again. Maybe! You never know. In the meantime, I'll be hanging out at the roller rink …
I may bend those gender lines successfully. I may not. Story number seven for Story-a-Day jumps from the mind of the girl to the mind of the guy. The stories before that I spent a lot of time in the male character's head. Writers should be able to put themselves into any character, right? Put …
When my son was five, he made friends with a boy who was nine. We were neighbors. The boy lived in a one-bedroom apartment with his dad. The boy spent a lot of time with us. One day he showed up at noon and didn't go home until eight. Not once in those hours did …
