Someone recently asked me what pieces of advice I would give to a person who is considering becoming a writer.  My first thought was that you do not become a writer, you either are one or you aren’t and inside, you know the answer to that already.

I put together this list of considerations that I think would help a person who is just starting out:

1) Have at least one lie or one truth or one song inside you. If you have a lie, write fiction. If you have a truth, write non-fiction. If you have a song, write poetry.

2) Have a good word processing program and an internet connection. (more…)

So when last we left our intrepid heroine, she had just learned that her family was about to re-grow by two and that her son and grandson were moving in.  Now, we also know she speaks about herself in third person, which is entirely unsettling. Josh and Aiden moved in last Saturday and all is going well for the most part. Aiden started school right on schedule and Josh has been applying for jobs and cleaning the hell out of my house. Nathan very graciously cleared out his own room for them to stay in without him being asked. What little he had (he is a minimalist) is now in the motor home and most nights, he sleeps inside because it has been down into the 30-40s at night. He crashes on the couch. (more…)

I can finally talk about the life changes that I referenced to my Facebook readers. I apologize to those dear folks for my necessary vagueness about what is going on.  As they know, I am usually very forthright about my life, but in this case, there were details that had to play out before I could go public, such as telling my younger sons about changes happening in our family. I am still struggling with these changes myself, but I have faith that they are leading in a good direction.  As of last night, key people have been informed and the plan is more solid. Due to challenges my third son, Joshua, is facing, which are his own story to tell and not mine, Eric and I will be caring for our grandson, Aiden, for an undetermined amount of time. He is nine and in the fourth grade. We both love our grandson very  much.  He is clever, fun, loving, insightful, and above all, adaptable.  My challenges in this have very little to do with Aiden or how much I adore him.  They are purely selfish and that has been my struggle. Joshua has had custody of Aiden, his only biological child, for a little over two years now and they are very, very close. (more…)

Also called “Thank the Goddess for Cameras!” (more…)

 

I love my body, my body loves me, I am a Goddess, blah, blah, blah.  I usually feel quite good about myself and as a result, I usually feel quite good period.  Period is the issue, however.  I always had normal periods my entire life – freakishly so, in fact.  I could set my clock by the prediction that I would start at 10:00 AM every twenty-eight days.  Because I had six children and breastfed five, years would often go by when I did not menstruate, which was glorious.  When I was younger, I had hellish cramps, but as I worked out some of the unpleasantness in my life, the cramps went away, rarely to return. It has been around fifteen years now since I had any significant cramps. (more…)

 

Dorothy:  Well, now which way do we go?
Scarecrow: Pardon me. That was is a very nice way.
Dorothy:  Who said that?……Don’t be silly, Toto. Scarecrows don’t talk.
Scarecrow:  It’s pleasant down that way, too.
Dorothy:  That’s funny. Wasn’t he pointing the other way?
Scarecrow:  Of course, people do go both ways!
Dorothy:  Why – you did say something. didn’t you? Are you doing that on purpose, or can’t you make up your mind?
Scarecrow:  That’s the trouble. I can’t make up my mind. I haven’t got a brain, only straw. (more…)

Our book CUSP is available on Amazon Kindle at no charge for three days!  Click here to get it!

Early yesterday evening, I was in my own version of Mecca (WalMart) and from around three aisles over, I could hear a kid just going for it.  There was all kinds of screaming and ranting and threatening and of course, it got louder the closer I got to it because it was not actually moving and I was.  As I rounded the corner – and you know how long it can take to get through three aisles of groceries in a store – I saw a mom who was probably in her mid-late twenties standing by a cart.  In the back of the cart sat a kid of around five or so and that child, whose gender I did not notice because the other one commanded so much attention – played quietly and looked unaffected.  The kid who was in the kid seat of the cart was probably three or so and was still in full Klaxon mode.   (more…)

Given the subject matter of this blog post, it would be more appropriate to show a snake shedding its skin, but snakes give me the heebie jeebies for no reasonable reason, so instead, I chose this beautiful photographic representation of the goddess Diana shooting an arrow into the wind.  How often are the changes we make like shooting an arrow into the wind, not knowing how external factors (the wind, the lay of the land, the movement of living bodies around it) might affect our efforts or how our efforts might affect others? (more…)

 

My team of girls and I used to go on graveyard crawls every year, exploring cemeteries around our area.  This was one of our most fun and YES, I do still have the bounty in my primary circle.

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Fake it ’til you can make it, right?  There was a time when I wore a tiara most places I went, including delivering the mail here in Grizzly Flats.  It was an odd time in my life, granted.  Now, no one would think twice about me wearing a crown around town because they know how I am.  Then, though…I was not very well known anywhere, least of all in my own town or even my own home. Hell, I didn’t even know myself very well.  I had just come out of a time of seclusion that lasted many years and had no idea how to interact socially or how to be a friend because it had been a very, very long time since I had done any of those things.  I had also been a very different person the last time I was anyone’s friend or had been a social person.  Since that time, I had endured two painful divorces, both to the same person, had a mental breakdown, given birth to three more children, married someone else and brought a whole roomful of baggage to his doorstep, gained around a hundred pounds, and moved all over the Western United States.  Like I said, it had been a really, really long time since I walked into my house and pulled the door closed behind me. (more…)

 

I have had this blog conversation before, but Eric (my delightful and accomplished agent) has gently nudged me to be more attentive to the blog, so here we go into a new year with a new entry and a site makeover.  I recently made the decision to no longer do professional web design and remaking this site validated that thought for me. I can feel that web design is a part of my life that has slipped away and anytime I do it now feels like A) I am moving backward and B) it’s time I could spend writing.

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I have two soaps left from the 80 or so I made for holiday gifts and I just noticed that for some reason, they remind me of breasts.  They are in the common shape of jello molds, but to me, they look like boobs.  Here. Let me show you. (more…)

Updated again, Dec 17 – Scroll to end for update

In Bloom County, one of my favorite comic strips of all time, a character named Binkley (portrayed mostly as a child) has a “closet of anxieties” with various monsters hiding inside waiting to pounce at certain inopportune times. We all know about that closet and the triggers that hide inside and that is why that particular part of the comic strip was so popular.  We can all relate to that experience.  I do not imagine that anyone alive doesn’t have some fear that drives them, usually in directions they do not wish to go.  Fear is a primal motivator and is part of our “fight or flight” survival instinct.  People who have mental disorders that cause them to feel no fear tend to be more maladapted than most people would imagine.  Just like the inability to perceive pain, one would think the inability to feel fear would turn a person into a superhero of sorts.  Instead, what should be (in theory) a tremendous strength leaves them incredibly vulnerable. (more…)

I think I have always known, at least since we moved here ten years or so ago, that I would die in my back yard.  I think Eric knows too because for the first year or so we lived here, if he called me during the day, which he usually does 6-10 times a day, he would freak out if I did not pick up the phone.  Once, when Eric worked with a company called Cable Express splicing fiber optic cable, my son Joe, who lived locally for a short time, called me up and said, “Hey, I got paid,do you want to run down to Pizza Factory and have lunch?”  I had just talked to Eric a few minutes before and he’d told me he would be “in the field” and if I called, I would not likely be able to get a hold of him.  Because of this, I did not bother to phone Eric (in the field) and let him know that I was leaving.   (more…)

Yes, I have Fall-en and I won’t get up, meaning I have gotten my “Fall” on, meaning that I have put the hot, overworked days of summer behind me and slipped into an embrace of Nature that smells like dried leaves and wood smoke and mulled cider that I don’t drink.  I was a lovely year and I dare say, it was one of the best years of my life.  I had a lot of fun and got to spend time with some wonderful people.  There were huge challenges that sometimes, I did not think I could meet, but hey, the Universe and Great Goddess had more faith in me than I had in myself and I made it through.  Now, I look forward to a Dark of the Year where I am cocooning in my house and writing my books and being the reclusive writer that I am in my deepest heart of hearts and most fondest fantasies. (more…)

First, because it is 8:30 AM and today is already showing signs of being challenging bitch, I must have Jeff Bridges dance for me.  Dance, poppet.  Dance like you mean it.

Hell.  Yes.

Anyway, yeah, Crones. (more…)

I have been invited by my publicist/agent/husband to update my blog again (I hate that word because it sounds like someone retching, but “online journal” is archaic and cumbersome) because the last entry is, in his words, “kind of a downer.”  Fair enough.  Life ain’t pretty, but it’s not all bad either, so I can balance.  I never know where these posts are going to go and what detours they will take by the time I am done.  When I write a book, I also don’t know what will happen and often I am eager to get back to the story to find out what comes next.  I have a basic outline in my head and know where the story will ultimately land, but not really the journey it will take getting there.  I have always admired these writers who are able to storyboard their entire process before they ever formally write a single word.  I am…well…not that.  I’m more of a “write it hot, edit it cold” stream-of-consciousness-type writer.  That is even more the case with blog entries.  I always get something out of doing it, but I never know what that is going to be. (more…)

 

This will be long.  Get a drink.  Go pee.  Read it in segments.  Blow it off because it is too long.  Whatever suits ya.

A lot of people do not know that when it comes to my author life, Eric (my husband) is the real brains behind the operation. I write the books and he edits and adds smart stuff to it, but mostly, his job is that he is my marketing jeanyus and all around manager/agent kind of guy.  That works out well for me because I get to spend all day, every day, writing and editing and creating and he does the dirty work that causes me to break out in hives of exasperation  Perfect arrangement. (more…)

 

It was quite a process, really.  I wrote my first short story in the fifth grade and the entire student body was scandalized because in my story, I paired up very unlikely people from my school into romantic relationships.  I had threats, people telling me I’d better stop writing right then or risk a beat down.  (!!)  The effect this experience had was not the one that was intended.   Instead of discouraging me from writing, it instead taught me that when you are a writer, you can hold a person’s strongest emotions in barrel of your pen.

I was hooked forever. (more…)