To clarify, the avoidance is all on my side.  The teachers on the Masterclass site are doing their jobs.  My husband decided to sign up for a year’s access to the online learning site, Masterclass, which features lectures from such luminaries as Ron Howard, Steve Martin, and Annie Leibowitz.  It’s not cheap but we figured […]

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A number of year’s ago, after reading Sarah Susanka’s book The Not-So-Big Life, I adopted a year-end ritual that involves asking myself some questions from the book about what I learned, achieved, and failed to do in the previous year.  I’d then set out my goals for the new year.  I now have over ten […]

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I saw yet another writer saying “there’s no such thing as writer’s block” on Twitter today.  I almost replied … but I mostly just lurk on social media and so I thought I’d write this post instead. I’m not sure how all these other writers define writer’s block.  Mostly they seem to assume that it’s […]

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                    Another year, another 10,000 words in November.  To be precise, another 10,027 words, which is 6 words more than last year’s result. (This is not at all suspicious or reflective of the fact that I grind out enough words to make the target and no more. […]

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It may just be the throes of first love, but I’m definitely enjoying my writing dates with the amazing, astounding, and inspirational Gemma Files.  We meet up at Balzac’s on Market Street, stake out two small side-by-side tables, set up our laptops and go at it, with breaks to discuss movies, plot points, and more.  […]

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Wednesday night’s Mortified Reading event for ChiSeries was a smashing success, with most of the audience wiping their eyes to keep from crying (with laughter! with laughter!) as Madeline Ashby, Don Bassingthwaite, Kari Maaren, Sandra Kasturi, Brett Savory, Elaine Chen, Stephen Michell, David Nickle, Gemma Files, Troy Harkin and I shared some of our best juvenile […]

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Last year, the good folks at the ChiSeries readings decided to banish the August doldrums by having local writers read from some of their earliest attempts at fiction.  The laughter was so loud that everyone promptly agreed that we needed another evening of writer humiliation in 2018 and it’s almost upon us. Mark your calendars […]

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Now that I’m officially sort of retired, and I’ve travelled, and I’ve caught up on X,Y and Z, it’s time to get back to writing, which I sadly neglected during my “hey, let’s work two jobs” period. In order to get back up to speed (and to procrastinate, let’s be honest), I’ve been going through all […]

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It’s been a while.  Our dance recital coincided with an ice storm but despite that we had a full audience and I only turned left instead of right once, so I considered that a success. If I come across a decent picture, I may just post it. I’m happy to be returning to the Limestone […]

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I try to do something during Nanowrimo each year.  Not write a novel, of course. That would just be silly. This year’s goal was 10,000 words and I managed it by writing enough each day I was off work to keep me up with my target word counts.  I built a spreadsheet for that because that’s […]

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