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PB learns to ride the unicycle!
UPDATE: my unicycle hangs from a hook in our garage. Sometimes I tell it: I'll be back.January 1, 2025-
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Category Archives: Faction
SCBWI-LA Writers & Illustrators Day 2017 (Links Edition)
I was asked by SCBWI-LA to write about my experience at the recent WID. The piece is up on the Kite Tales blog. 1, 2, 3: LINK. Such a luxury for me to discard certain hats (taxi-mama, chef of sorts, … Continue reading
Posted in books, Children's Books, Faction, Fiction, Poetry, Writing, Writing Progress
Tagged 2017, books, Kate Messner, life, Lisa Cron, Literature, Los Angeles, middle grade writing, Picture Books, SCBWI, SCBWI Writers & Illustrators Day, Skirball Cultural Center, Wired for Story, Writers Conferences, writing
2 Comments
Healing By Degrees (FB Edition)
“What wound did ever heal but by degrees?” —-WS, Othello I’m talking Snapchattish-brief degrees. My impatience won out. I weeded Facebook ‘friends’ after the election and the first peaceful march–in which I marched, peacefully, surrounded by like minds. After this weeding and … Continue reading
Posted in Adult writing, books, Faction, Fiction, Writing
Tagged #45, 2017, books, California, Climate Change, Cute animal pix, Earth, Facebook, Family, history, humanity, JK Rowling, life, Michelle Obama, NRDC, NY Times, Othello, Planned Parenthood, Shakespeare, Tribbles, WaPo, weeding, writing
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Hearts
Just. So. Simply. Timely. And simply nice.
Posted in Adult writing, books, Children's Books, Faction, Fiction, Poetry, Writing
Tagged 2017, animals, California, dolphin heart, Earth, Family, hearts, humanity, life, Literature, Thanks, valentine's day, writing
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Brief Reverie (w/Iron)
As I was ironing my husband’s dress shirts last night: channeled a story about 3 lifelong friends who unfriend each other on Facebook due to arguments over whether certain basic inalienable rights should be basic and inalienable at all (buying … Continue reading
Posted in Faction, Fiction, Writing
Tagged 2016, climate science, dictator, dystopian fiction, Facebook, Mother Teresa, NRDC, snowmen, women's fiction
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Psychic
Somehow I now live in a neighborhood where the man next door is perfectly okay with hanging a sign from his rented eaves. PSYCHIC SERVICES, the sign declares–bold white on not-so-bold, pretty or eye-catching puce–followed by a phone number. When … Continue reading
Posted in Adult writing, books, Faction, Fiction, Writing, WTF
Tagged 2016, chaos, fiction writing, gypsy curses, kittens, personal goals, psychics, writing
2 Comments
Sugar Cookies (‘Is Mars in Retrograde’ Edition)
My son and his dad have a game in which my son pumps his legs hard and gets one of the swings on our creaky set to as high as he can without giving me a heart attack, and my … Continue reading
Posted in books, Faction, Writing
Tagged 2015, Dogs, domestic bliss, fiction writing, gunshots, kids, Los Angeles, memoir on acid, personal goals, poetry, suburbia, writer's angst
5 Comments
Fire
We left our drought-socked stifling valley at 815am and by 2pm—Hwy 99 to orchard-heavy back roads with stop signs, to another “highway”, to back roads with stop signs and colonies of slender giants we realized were members of the Stanislaus … Continue reading
Posted in Faction, Poetry, Writing
Tagged 2015, CA, Dogs, fiction writing, forest fire, Groveland, poetry, Pyrite, Stanislaus National Forest, vacation, writer's angst, writer's retreat, writing, Yosemite
12 Comments
Breaks
What I love about Spring Break? For a week I am Fun Mama–instead of: get dressed, brush your teeth, grab your Spidey hoodie, let’s go, go, go, homework, karate, shower time!, etc. It’s nice to be all: Ooooh—let’s scooter around … Continue reading
Posted in Children's Books, Faction, Fiction, Me and Us, Writing
Tagged 2015, beach, children's literature, domestics, fiction writing, life, Los Angeles, ocean, Parenting, poetry, writing
2 Comments
Screens
Staring at my writing, I heard what I thought was our younger cat pulverizing the bedroom window’s screen, as he does when he’d like to be let inside, despite the little Hobbiton upside-down-U’s we had cut in pertinent doors, just for … Continue reading
Posted in Avoiding My Writing, Children's Books, dog, Faction, Writing, WTF
Tagged children's literature, dog, domestic bliss, fiction writing, hobbits, life, Los Angeles, middle grade writing, personal goals, poetry, writer's block, writing
2 Comments
Relief (Death’s Placards Edition)
There are fairly positive placards to be discovered–usually somewhere behind closed eyes–when Death (not waltzes in, there was no waltzing in my dad’s case) knocks down continents to claim, abscond-with, pose in a peasant blouse splotched in redwood forest mulch … Continue reading
Posted in Faction, Me and Us, Poetry, Writing, WTF
Tagged 2014, beach, Death, fiction writing, grieving, Holbein the Younger, life, Los Angeles, ocean, poetry, writing
2 Comments
Overcast In The Valley
Craving a view, I rode the escalator to the 3rd and final floor of that Macy’s and speculated on valley through tinted windows grand enough for a museum. No thunderheads. Not the merest ribbon of blue sky. No sun. Mounds … Continue reading
Posted in Faction, Fiction, Poetry, Writing
Tagged 2014, fiction writing, life, Los Angeles, poetry, writer's angst
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Mornings Become Them (Birds Edition)
615am–I get out of bed to let the dog outside and get back in bed forgetting to let the dog back in and he barks and I shoot out of bed not wanting the dog to wake the first grader … Continue reading
Posted in Adult writing, Avoiding My Writing, books, Children's Books, dog, Faction, Fiction, middle grade, Parakeet, Pets, Poetry, Writer's Angst, Writing, Writing Progress, WTF
Tagged 2014, cats, children's literature, Conures, dog, domestic bliss, fiction writing, First Graders, Freelance Writing, life, Los Angeles, poetry, writer's angst, writing
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All Schedules Thrown
And, suddenly, for a week, until summer camp started, the newly ex-Kindergartner and I were face to face over our morning pancakes, not an elementary school deadline in sight. “Let’s go to the beach!” he suggested. We did. “Museums!” We went there, … Continue reading
Posted in Avoiding My Writing, Faction, Fiction, Writing
Tagged 2014, Balboa Island, beach, children's literature, domestics, Hurricane Harbor, middle grade writing, personal goals, writing, Yelp
2 Comments
Spring Break Snoozing (Wide Awake Edition)
During this luscious week of no school for the Kindergartner, we snooze well. Except when we are awakened from chasm-sleep somewhere between 2a.m. and maybe 4:30a.m.—after the bars have closed, but before the rooster across the alley busts its lungs—after we’ve … Continue reading
Posted in Adult writing, Avoiding My Writing, books, Children's Books, dog, Faction, Fiction, Me and Us, middle grade, Pets, Poetry, Writer's Angst, Writing, Writing Progress, WTF
Tagged 2014, cats, children's literature, dog, domestic bliss, fiction writing, Kindergarten, Kindle Fire, labrador, life, Los Angeles, middle grade writing, personal goals, poetry, writing
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Spring Spirit 2014
We’d hoped to leave our valley by 10am. 430pm we were finally on the road. The little boy erupted in sneezes and coughing fits at the top of the Grapevine. When we stopped somewhere on the other side of the mountains … Continue reading
Discoveries (Balancing Edition)
The huge benefit of being thrown by a horse and not being able to exercise for over a week or lie down on the bed without screaming in pain or do anything in between carrying on as a mother except … Continue reading
Falling (Whinnying Edition)
Leapt down the vastly spaced steps to the stalls, rounded the corner, Indy saddled up and ready to go, I talked to him, rubbed his cheek as I led him to the ring, a man opened the gate for me, … Continue reading
Posted in Faction, Fiction, Me and Us, Poetry, Writing, WTF
Tagged 2014, Equitation, fiction writing, horses, Los Angeles, poetry, writing
4 Comments
The Women’s National Book Association
I was made aware of the WNBA/LA thanks to my middle grade writing mentor, Kathryn Fitzmaurice (ask me if I am lucky to have her as my mentor and you will hear amplified hell yeah’s). She gave one of this … Continue reading
Posted in books, Children's Books, Faction, Fiction, middle grade, Writing, Writing Progress, Writing Tips
Tagged 2014, children's literature, Destiny Rewritten, fiction, fiction writing, Kathryn Fitzmaurice, middle grade writing, ocean, poetry, SCBWI, SCBWI CA/North Central, Women's National Book Association/LA, writing
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Farewell February
Because it’s my birthday month, because it’s not only a pink month, or red for hearts, or purple for amethyst (birthstone), because I had a milestone birthday and went all crazy in the head and panicky in the days (who … Continue reading
Posted in books, Children's Books, Faction, Fiction, Writing
Tagged 2014, birthdays, blessings, chardonnay, fiction writing, life, Los Angeles, personal goals, poetry, Valentine, writing
2 Comments
PB Rippey Writes 
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