A few days ago I was visiting a local park and snapped the photo above. I’ve seen the park’s old archway lots of times, but for…
Having just sent the final round of edits off to the formatter I can confidently say that my new book, Rune’s Folly, the first in the…
“Step away, please,” Einar said. The woman continued to lean across the barrier. Its taut metal wire dug into her voluminous black skirt as she tapped…
This piece of flash fiction is a bit longer than usual at 1,300 words, but what can I say? The Everwood just called for something a…
It’s been eight months since my last post. That post in March was about my goals for the year and those same goals are why I…
I realized a few days ago that I never wrote my annual goals post for 2017. I usually do it around January 1st but that day…
Writing
A post in which I answer the question, “Garen, are you doing any writing lately?”
January 20, 2017I’m always super grateful when people ask me how my writing is going. And that’s not just a hollow platitude. I seriously do appreciate it. Here’s…
She is screeching. Again. We’re in a quiet bookstore on a weekday afternoon. There’s no other family in sight, even in the children’s section. The place…
It’s been 10(!) weeks since I last posted on Scriven by Garen. It’s been 2.5 months of conferences, colds, graduations, vacations, deadlines, weddings, and a multitude…
So I’ve been wanting to write a poem for a while now. It’s one form of the written word that I haven’t attempted since probably junior…
Dear Bean, There are certain things I know to be true. Among them are standard measurements of time. There are 24 hours in a day. There…
It’s only been two weeks since I said I was taking a break from Scriven by Garen but I can’t stay away for long. Plus it’s…
This is it. Number 52 of 52 in my year-long quest to write a post every week for Scriven by Garen. I did it, and to…
It has been a crazy week and a crazy week deserves a crazy story. A few months ago, I asked people for words I could use…
Some monks are making me agitated! Okay, not actual monks, but a story about them that I can’t seem to get out of my head. Ironically,…
It’s the time of the year for goal-making, and it’s the time of the year for reflection. Back in March I made a list of ten…
My Christmas gift to you: some flash fiction with a dark, yuletide theme. Krampus is a creature that’s gotten a lot of buzz lately and for…
I had to give it a try. This coloring books for adults phenomenon. I mean it’s become so popular they even had a ginormous stack of…
Writing
Sequel second-guessing, review wrangling, and other alliterative authorial adversities.
December 11, 2015There’s a yellow notebook upstairs sitting on my nightstand. It has a bunch of scribbles in it, the beginnings of an outline for the follow-up to…
For the last few weeks I have felt generally happy and energetic. This is my baseline. My norm. But for the last four and a half…
On Thanksgiving Eve the Hubs and I sat down and watched Inside Out for the first time, and while Up still wins for most sob-induing moments…
This has been a weird week. I’ve got a serious case of back-from-vacation blues and a minor case of food poisoning. There was a major windstorm…
These are the first words I’ve written in days. There is something called NaNoWriMo happening right now. I think I’m supposed to be writing a novel…
As promised, this week’s blog post is brief. The end of week one of NaNoWriMo is drawing near and I am behind schedule. I had hoped…
Each year a growing number of writerly weirdos decides to attempt 50,000 words in 30 days. That’s about 1,666 words a day. In 2013, the last time…
On October 21st the Hubs and I celebrated our ninth wedding anniversary. The date happened to fall on a Wednesday this year so we spent the…
It’s been exactly one month since On the Verge went live on Amazon. Sales started off well (thanks, friends and family!), and then steadily tapered off,…
I’ve been feeling under the weather all week. Being sick always makes me extra cranky because I hate slowing down. I’ve got things to do and…
Several weeks ago I wrote about The Phantom Tollbooth (you can read that here), and how Norton Juster’s kid lit masterpiece sparked a lifelong love of…
It’s been a week since my novel debuted on Amazon, and I’ve spent the last seven days hustling, doing my best to get the word out…
It’s been a long road. Almost two years have passed since I began On the Verge, and yesterday it became available on Amazon for the first…
Dear Bun, Four short years ago you were cozily lodged against my ribs. You would kick like mad, long pushes and short jabs, and I think…
I am so in love with On the Verge’s cover. Every time I look at it I’m filled with warm fuzzies. The credit goes to my…
I’m in the midst of a last mad dash to clean up and polish everything I possibly can before I call it a day on this…
I’m in the final stretch of editing my novel. I am very happy to be typing that sentence, but at the same time I am starting…
Life Lessons
10 Things You Hate About Me: Why Being Friends with an Introvert is Hard
August 14, 2015Like so many things in life, introversion and extroversion are not absolutes. They exist on a spectrum, a sliding scale. Most people fall more towards one…
It’s been over two months since I last posted an update about the novel. Exciting things are happening, and I feel the need to share. First…
Parenthood
My Daughter Wants to be a Mommy When She Grows Up. What’s a Feminist to Do?
July 31, 2015Bun has reached an age where people like to engage her in conversation by asking her questions. They ask her name, how old she is, and…
I’m serious. Where’s my coffee? This week’s post marks the halfway point of the year commitment I made to Scriven by Garen. I have been writing…
I’ve been feeling a bit low these past couple of days. It’s a funk I get into every now and then when things aren’t going how…
Growing up, going to school, I was content. There are many reasons that contributed to this overall feeling of happiness, but one of them is surely…
This past week I finished up the major set of edits to my book that a potential agent suggested I make. I’ve followed up with him…
Back in March I set some goals for myself for the rest of the year (you can read them here). One of those was to run…
I’m inspired this week by a great post on Linked In which I found via Susan Cain’s Facebook page (if you are an introvert or the…
I almost didn’t write a post this week. My manuscript needs my attention now, and it’s hard to find time to write. When I do scrounge…
I got my first grey hair when I was twenty-four. I remember it well because I was getting my hair done for my wedding and they…
This is going to be a short post. The reason: I have a lot of work to do. Why do I have a lot of work…
A week ago I got really angry. Seven days later and every time I think about it I start to get angry all over again. So…
I read an NPR Books article yesterday on Nancy Reisman’s novel Trompe L’Oeil. I was initially drawn to the review because the book’s title is an art…
I was reflecting on my bookshelf the other night, a little Zen moment in the midst of an over-tired preschooler and a colicky newborn (stereo-screaming =…
For this week’s post I decided to try my hand again at flash fiction. This time around I tailored my writing for a flash fiction contest…
Creativity
Staycation Inspiration: Filling the Creative Tank with Sights from My Book
April 23, 2015This post was going to be about my travel wish list, and then I had this reality check moment where I realized such a post was…
I’ve never been a very good employee. Oh sure, I am conscientious, and I get my work done on time and to the best of my…
Think outside the box. It’s a platitude that’s meant to stir the creative mind. Don’t give in to convention, step outside the everyday, be true to…
It has been awhile since I’ve written any fiction so I thought I would do something a little different with my blog this week and make…
It’s already been a month since Bean was born. March is usually a slow moving time for me, the last long slog toward spring, but this…
Perhaps the most surprising thing I’ve learned about this writing a novel thing is that the actual creative act of stringing nearly 90,000 words together into…
It was very late at night or, really, very early in the morning a few weeks ago, and I was on my way to bed after…
Some days on this writing journey of mine (okay, most days) I feel like a bit of a faker. There are certain professions when the transition…
As of this morning I’m less than three weeks out from my due date with my second child. His or her imminent arrival fills me with…
A few well-meaning people, when I told them I was writing a novel, replied in what is decidedly one of my least favorite ways: “I would…
“I’ve discovered that rejections are not altogether a bad thing. They teach a writer to rely on his judgment and to say in heart of hearts,…
In a now famous commencement speech delivered in 2012 to the graduating class of Philadelphia’s University of the Arts my favorite author Neil Gaiman eloquently elaborated on the…