Be Back Soon

Just wanted to say bye-bye for a few days. My daughter is having surgery on Thursday in Portland, so we're heading out tomorrow so she c...

A Story A Week: Delicious

Delicious was named after her old Grammy, her Grammy with doughy arms, who smelled of sweat and lilacs. She was nigh on eighty years old, bu...

Spring: A Mad, Mad Season

I fell asleep sitting up and had three separate dreams before Sophie came and hit me with a book. I have been battling crab grass. My whole ...

Editing

I think writing a short story every week is actually helping me with my editing. Really. I'm taking every section of my novel and preten...

WiP Wednesday: Did I Say Deadline?

I think I said a few weeks ago that I needed a deadline. Well, I officially have a deadline. A self-imposed deadline. I registered for the ...

Thirty-three

I'm thirty-three today, which is a middle-of-nowhere kind of number. I'm not extremely young anymore, but I'm not old yet. I...

A Story A Week: Keeping Him Sane

Martin killed the grass. I can see it, blond and brittle, from my bedroom window. Behind me, the phone rings. It’s Martin. “I forgot to put...

Pop Quiz

The other day I thought I was going to have a free hour. In other words, my husband was taking all the children AWAY and I was going to have...

Gardening

I've discovered gardening for the first time in my life. Today I pulled weeds and dug up root systems in an attempt to eradicate the cra...

WIP Wednesday: Taking Stock

I'm not an organized person. I don't sit down on a certain day every year and take inventory of my life. But, occasionally, usually ...

A Story A Week: For Love of a Pear

After Emilia picked the pear, she held it in her palm, turned it over once, and waited. She heard Seth panting up the slope behind her. She ...

Mini-post #6: Progress

I'm celebrating my twelfth story from A Story A Week today. Twelve weeks. That leaves only forty stories still to write. If this endeav...

Mini-post #5: Abandon

I've made the decision to abandon another book on my Fill in the Gaps project list . I'm so embarrassed to admit which one it is, be...

Mini-post #4: Voice

I'm pretty sure I disagree with most of the world on this. I think the "voice" of the story should be the character's voic...

Update on a Broken Appendage

Some of you may remember that I broke my toe last Monday. I was doing better. Although my foot was primarily still blue, I was walking norma...

Life

I played the Game of Life with my two older daughters today: Olivia, age eight, and Anna, age almost-four. Olivia was busy. She had to get ...

Mini-post #3: Fill in the Gaps

I posted last night on the Fill in the Gaps project blog , just to give an update on my progress. Click here to read it. Is anyone else doi...

Mini-post #2: Experiment

I am experimenting. I am re-starting my WiP (in a blank document, just for the heck of it), but I am typing it in a weird font. I chose one ...

Mini-post #1: Susan's Contest

The sensational Susan Fields is having a 100-blog-follower contest. Congratulations, Susan! If you like to buy books, you should enter, bec...

I Recommend: Goose

From time to time, I stumble upon a book about adoption that I'm not expecting to be about adoption. GOOSE by Molly Bang is a wonderfu...

Boring, Not Boring, & Sweet

Yesterday I felt boring. Clarification: Not BORED. I didn't feel BORED. I had plenty to do. I just felt boring. Have you ever had a day ...

WIP Wednesday: Revisions

How can it be Wednesday again already? I'm desperate to keep editing my WiP while baby's napping, so this won't be long. I didn...

Links and News

A few quick things to take a peek at this lovely Tuesday evening: Literary Agent Kate Testerman really did change her submission guidelines!...

A Story A Week: Punished

Sara didn’t notice the marks until she was in the shower. She winced when the hot water hit them. She flung open the shower door and crossed...

Poor Me

I was running to get the phone today and smacked my baby toe on the leg of our ottoman. Now it's all swollen and bruised and painful. I ...

¡Felíz Pascua!

It's a little past eleven at night and I just walked in the door from a wonderful pre-Easter experience. Our youth group's worship t...

Confession & More Awards

I need to give an award to myself. The I'm an Idiot Award . You know, I was so busy giving out awards yesterday and there were so many g...

Double A Thursday: Agents & Awards

What's Cooking? Beef stew, which is quickly becoming my favorite food in the world. Is that weird? I have a great piece of news to shar...