Category: Blog

This will not make sense if you’re not familiar with the movie Sneakers, but…

Every time a website asks me to identify all the squares with crosswalks and then click “verify,” I think: “My ability to identify crosswalks is my passport. Verify me.”

The very first story I ever had published, when I picked up the physical anthology & flipped through, I noticed one of my characters “tipped his hat.”

Implying he was wearing a hat. Which made no sense for the character & setting. But it’s what I wrote. So there the words were.

Continue reading “Being Precious About Words”

Thirteen-year-old, planning to bake a cake: “Do you want cake?”

Seven-year-old: “Meow!”

Thirteen: “Oh, you don’t want cake…”

Seven, exasperated: “Do you not understand cat-language?!?”

Best part of being a writer: getting cover art

Worst part: writing back of book blurbs

“Kitten claw everything
Hear her deep in mattress”

—texts I apparently sent to my spouse, early this morning, still mostly asleep & hoping he’d come take the kitten away to entertain her in ways that didn’t involve chewing on my hand

Friend: I’m looking for a new clock

Me: Here’s a link to a dragon clock on Amazon!

Friend: It needs to be silent… Continue reading “Dragon Clocks and Lamps”

One of the nice things about working on a sequel to The Snake’s Song is that it gives me a reason to listen to the playlist I listened to while writing it again. It’s a good playlist, and it helps get me back into the characters and world.

How to write:‬

‪—get kitten‬
‪—dangle feathers‬

‪Look, if you measure in word count, sure, this strategy may not be the MOST effective. But if you measure in HAPPY KITTENS, it’s much better.‬ Continue reading “Happy Kitten –> Happy Writing”

My life has been a bowl of chaos ice cream during this pandemic, and then my dog died, so we got a new kitten… Basically, we put some chaos whipped cream, chocolate sauce, cherries, and sprinkles on top of the chaos ice cream to make a chaos sundae.

Me: Here! See my new kitten!

*tilts camera down*

Kitten: plays charmingly on my lap Continue reading “Zoom meetings with a kitten…”