I had something terrible happen. I hit forty. I’m not really sure how it happened, one day I was thirteen and in my blue room listening to music and reading, and then I blinked and I was in college, and then I blinked again and was forty. I’d wanted to be a writer through all…
Blog
Just one small thing
I have small kids that go to a daycare center. They bring home all sorts of crazy illnesses. Flu, whooping cough, Small Pox. Recently my oldest got sick, then the youngest. I thought I was in the clear and then it hit me. Hard. I shivered, was cranky, my body ached, had a running nose,…
Crushed, but thank you
When I was java developer in the way back, a cool new idea was ego-less development. The concept was you shouldn’t get attached to the code, that way feedback would be about the code and not about you or your baby code snippet. It might seem odd, but people are possessive of their code. When I…
Allowing failure: Exploration
I have small kids. A three and a five year old. A boy and a girl. The other day for some reason they wanted to help me look pretty. (trying not to read into that, lol) So they have a bottle of detangler spray (it has a purple octopus on it, so it’s in the…
Where did my new books go?
Hey how you doing? I was sitting in the office the other day and I realized that I had books on my shelf that I probably had not read in 10 years. (or longer) My office is mostly book shelves. I have a wild collection of things. Posable art dolls from a Russian artist I…
Do you recognize the five early warning signs of a bad beta reader for your fantasy novel?
5. They address all correspondence using your main characters first name (Dear Frodo) 4. They ask how to find the portal to your world. (is that through a wardrobe?) 3. They use 1337 speak or text short hand when typing responses (UR s0 kewl) 2. They want you to call them for the feedback using…
Having a Conversation
I don’t consider myself an extrovert. Anyone who knows me is laughing hysterically at this point. But seriously, I think we should switch up the terms or measure twice. Once in a crowd and then one-on-one. Get me in a crowd of strangers, odds are high I will not say anything. I will disengage…
on the Fare Side Contest – update
Hey! How you doing? I am having a holy sh*t morning. To put it in context, I wake up when my kids do. I stay up far too late writing. (or Facebook garage saleing – you know whatevs) So the first kid comes in and cuddles in and lets me go back to sleep. But…
Haboobs – the next big idea
One of the things my non-writer friends ask was “where do you get your ideas?” The world was flooding with ideas. Example: In an onsite work meeting, there was a sudden crazy downpour. The building’s severe weather alarm went off because of the tornados and hail near by (but not near enough to see if…