The Benefits of Being A Beginner
I am not, and have never been, an artist. I was still in braces when I took my last art class, and I’m pretty sure my mother quietly tossed the results as soon as I moved out of the house. Still,…
Category: The Writing Life
Sounds Like a Story: Music as a Writing Tool
Recently, I fell hard for a new song, “No Rest” by Dry the River. The song was released in 2011, but I just now discovered it, which is how a lot of things work and why it’s disappointing that some people…
What Keeps My Writing Alive: The Long-Distance Free Write
Belle Brett has just written a great blog post on what keeps her writing alive, and I wanted to add onto that idea. For me, it’s exchanging free writes with a friend in Virginia. Like the long-distance romance or long-distance…
Friday Feast: Day of Annihilation, Writer Style
To celebrate the return of Game of Thrones this Sunday, here’s a gif of my beloved Prince Oberyn (Pedro Pascal) annihilating assorted plates of food. There’s more where that came from. I have not yet recovered from his fate. I may…
Creative Symbiosis
Before I wrote regularly, I made art. My mother was an artist and art teacher, so I guess it was in my DNA. As a child, I drew stories — graphic novels without written words. As a young adult, I…
How the Pied Piper of Tucson Led Me to My Story
Some writers keep returning to the story they have to tell until they get it right. When I started my YA novel Half in Love with Death (Merit Press – December 2015), I’d already abandoned two novels about a young…