In the U.S., today is Independence Day. I took the day off from work not because I wanted to celebrate the country (I’m actually quite alarmed at what is happening here) but because it is always a day where I reflect on my own Independence Day, which happened in a November more than twenty years…
Category: Books
Career advice
Today as I struggle to get The Dreamer prepped for publication, I wonder, as I sometimes do, if it was particularly wise to structure my entire life and career around something I decided to do when I was five years old.
Who’s the hero?
An acquaintance refers to her husband on social media as “MC” and she’ll recount how “MC and I went to the movies.” I can’t help but read that as “Main Character” and I keep wanting to take her aside and say, “Don’t be a sidekick in your own life! You be the MC!” Fortunately I…
The trials of being a writer
“Follow up with Miranda,” the note on my schedule says. Miranda is the main character in a novel I’m writing and I’m staring at this note, trying to figure out why I’m following up with her. Did I mean “Revise Chapter 9” or something? So I open the mansucript, and I start exploring what kind…
On finding good ideas
Let me tell you a story about good ideas. When I first started teaching developmental editing, I taught a beginning class for a year or two and it became very popular. The sponsoring organization asked me to teach an intermediate class. So I did that. Finally that asked if I could teach another class, again…
On Tuesdays
Every Tuesday, we go to the farmers market and I give Jessica four dollars to buy a chocolate-pecan cookie from the French baker (literally a baker who is French). And every Tuesday there just happens to be a second cookie that is broken or otherwise not quite good enough to sell to customers that makes…