[Note: still having difficulty uploading photos. I'll try again in the next few days] I have a special love of crows. I love their intelligence. I love their family dynamics. I love the glossy sheen of their feathers. I love their cry. But let me be a little more specific: when I say crow -... Continue Reading →
Thirteenth
[Note: Having trouble uploading the pics for this post. I'll try to add them later] Today is my thirteenth day in Australia. It's the thirteenth of seventy-five days of summer, the thirteenth of seventy-five days to spend with my person, the thirteenth day of waking up and realizing I did it. I left the cozy... Continue Reading →
Set Those Goals!
When I was about nine or ten, I read a picture book illustrating the entirety of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "There Was a Little Girl" or as I always think of it "The Girl with the Curl in the Middle of Her Forehead." For some reason, that poem, especially the first stanza, has always stuck with me.
Why?
In which I discuss my reasons for writing.
My Life as a Fairy Tale Character
As soon as I heard that there might be a castle tour organized in conjunction with the 2017 Wrint Excuses Retreat, I knew I had no choice but to go. When else was I going to get the opportunity to travel the German countryside visiting CASTLES in the company of some of my most favorite... Continue Reading →
Tales From the Baltic: Part Three
This year's curriculum on the Writing Excuses felt custom tailored to the problems I've been experiencing in my writing lately. I've been procrastinating badly: Emma Newman talked about Fear and Writing and how procrastination is generally underpinned by fear. I spent a lot of the cruise thinking about my fears and the forms they take... Continue Reading →
Tales From the Baltic: Part Two
I crouch as low as I can without sitting on the rain-slick ground, photographing cobblestones and parquet floors. I lie flat on my back in a flagstone courtyard trying to capture the majesty of a tower. I stretch my arms above my head and stand on tiptoes: how else can a capture the sheer scale... Continue Reading →
Tales From the Baltic: Part One
We start with fear. Fear of missing the flight. Fear of being stopped at customs and being sent back to the states (Why? I don't know, but my fear can always think of a reason. Maybe it's the bag of airport trailmix I forgot to throw out. Maybe my doppleganger has been muck raking in... Continue Reading →
Automobiles, Trains, and Planes
I didn't really sleep last night. I dozed off at a couple of points - I know this because I had a dream that I was having a really good hair day - but true sleep eluded me. There were many contributing factors to my insomnolant state: the highly caffinated tea I drank late in... Continue Reading →
Retreat
The words come in fits and starts. Some days I manage a paragraph, others a page or two, but it seems the days of writing 2000 words or more a day are gone, lost in the grind of work, music, personal drama. I know they aren't gone, those magical days where the words come and... Continue Reading →