Tag Archives: 2014
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
Partial Poem For The Day
If thou art worn and hard beset with sorrows that thou wouldst forget, If thou would read a lesson that would keep thy heart from fainting and thy soul from sleep Go to the Woods and Hills! No tears Dim … Continue reading
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
Never Fails
Text conversation with my writing mentor as I attempted to send her crucial re-written novel pages before her plane took off, pages I was anxious for her input on so that I could meet a writing deadline ASAP, pages she … Continue reading
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
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
I-5 Pretty
In a previous post I regaled our drive from Los Angeles to parts further Northeast known as Tracy, Stockton and Sacramento. Namely, that interminable length from the end of the grapevine to whatever that KABOOM exit is that has Corral in … Continue reading
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
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
Article At ‘Through The Tollbooth’!!!
My writing mentor, Kathryn Fitzmaurice, was interviewed by Catherine Linka (I’ve heard Catherine speak at SCBWI events–she is positively famous in our SCBWI Los Angeles circles) over at Through The Tollbooth. The interview is about Kathryn’s mentoring experience–er, of me! … 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
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
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
Speaking of Passivity
It went like this: Google. Amazon. Facebook. Facebook IM. Back to Amazon. Weather (from Bing–weather.com is too hideous). Figuring out how to make Bing stop showing up whenever I clicked on a new tab. The Holy Checking of Email. And then … Continue reading
Staying The Course
Saturday morning I rose when our son (impossible to wake on a school day) woke at 5:30a.m. to begin a weekend of attending birthday parties, completing school projects, and constant verbalized hankering for Minecraft (it was Survivalcraft, until we realized the … Continue reading
Double Rainbow (Rainy Day Edition)
Not long ago a man left a nasty little comment in my comments section calling my blog piece sophomoric and trite and something else I can’t remember and why this person was so unevolved as to blog-roam and drop his … Continue reading
Notes From The Retreat #2: Critiques
Yes, I am going to go here. Out of the 10 copies of the first 25 pages of my novel returned to me, scribbled on by the writers in my core group at the SCBWI retreat, I kept 4. Those 4 … Continue reading
PB Rippey Writes 
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