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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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Tag Archives: personal goals
O Summer!
I’ve been quiet since May, after a brief, powerful writer’s retreat. I’ve been busy this summer with what the retreat inspired: Writing. Revising. Writing. Revising a new short story, one screaming for edits of late. It’s almost ready for submission. Compiling … Continue reading
Posted in Writing
Tagged 2016, beach, fiction, Kauai, life, Los Angeles, middle grade writing, ocean, personal goals, poetry, writer, writer's angst, writing
2 Comments
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
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
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
Posted in Children's Books, Fiction, middle grade, Steps In Promotion, Writer's Angst
Tagged 2014, children's literature, Conures, fiction writing, life, personal goals, writer's angst, writing
4 Comments
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
1 Comment
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
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
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
Posted in Adult writing, books, Children's Books, Faction, Writing, Writing Progress
Tagged 2014, children's literature, Dragons Love Tacos, faction, fiction writing, Iggy Peck Architect, Los Angeles, middle grade writing, personal goals, poetry, Quackenstein Hatches a Family, writer's angst, writing
6 Comments
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
December Whinny
Sitting on the patio at Peddler’s Fork, alone out here as it’s a SoCal pre-Christmas bit of chilly, i.e., 60 degrees, way too cold for the cycling clan packing the tables indoors, brrr, but perfect for me as I’m the … Continue reading
Posted in books, Children's Books, Faction, Fiction, Poetry, Writing
Tagged 2013, children's literature, fiction, middle grade writing, Old Town Calabasas, Peddler's Fork, personal goals, writing
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Bathroom Reading (Scouring Edition)
While holiday cleansing the bathroom, on my knees scrubbing corners usually in my blind spot, I glance up and notice books also, apparently, usually in my blind spot. I have no idea when Dylan Thomas arrived. Definitely wasn’t me who … Continue reading
Posted in books, Children's Books, dog, middle grade, Poetry, Writer's Angst, Writing
Tagged 2013, children's literature, domestic bliss, Dylan Thomas, fiction writing, Freshly Pressed, Henry James, Kindergarten, life, Los Angeles, middle grade writing, Nicole Kidman, personal goals, poetry, Portrait of a Lady, Reader, Sherman Oaks, The Turn of the Screw, writing
2 Comments
Angst (Cheese & Strawberries Edition)
When you man your bookshelves for hours, reading first pages because you are maddened by your own first pages and can’t recall how to begin a story or a novel without every palabra jumping out at you with a buzzer sound … Continue reading
Rukeyser, Hawks, Super Moon
Odd and disconcerting to write poetry and yet be totally unfamiliar with Muriel Rukeyser’s The Life of Poetry until yesterday, though no alien to M.R.’s poetry and not completely in-the-dark to her biographies and interest in connecting science and poetry, scientific … Continue reading
Posted in Fiction, Me and Us, Poetry, Writer's Angst, Writing
Tagged 2013, ars poetica, fiction writing, Muriel Rukeyser, personal goals, poetry, sunsets and hawks, super moon, The Life of Poetry, writing
2 Comments
Write it Down, Sherlock
As I scrub whatevers at the kitchen sink, thinking about Hadley Richardson because I’m reading The Paris Wife, mostly thinking how wrong the book’s cover is considering its subject, I’m wondering if I’ll ever have a book cover of my own to … Continue reading
Posted in books, Children's Books, Fiction, Pets, Poetry, Writer's Angst, Writing
Tagged 2013, Arabians, CNN, fiction writing, horses, hulu, OJ Simpson, personal goals, Quatrains, Sherlock Holmes, The Paris Wife, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, writing
7 Comments
Update: NaMeSiDifStaDaiWri(expletive)Po
I forgot to go on Monday. Ummm…And here is a cat.
Posted in Avoiding My Writing, Children's Books, Fiction, middle grade, Poetry, Writer's Angst, Writing
Tagged 2013, cats, fiction writing, middle grade writing, personal goals, poetry, Starbucks
3 Comments
NaMeSiDifStarDaiWri%#*Po Week (Partial Week Edition)
Next week (because my son resumes PreK after a 2 week spring break) is National PB Sit in a Different Starbucks Daily and Write a (insert expletive) Poem Week. Well, at least monday through thursday. Actually not tuesday because that’s when I … Continue reading
Posted in Avoiding My Writing, books, Children's Books, Fiction, Poetry, Writer's Angst, WTF
Tagged 2013, April Poetry Month, children's literature, fiction writing, middle grade writing, personal goals, poetry, preschoolers, salted caramel frappucinos, Sarbucks, writer's block, writer's retreat, writing
14 Comments
Courage! (Neigh Edition)
I was late to retrieve the boy from school because I Face Sucked like a fiend AND watched the latest episode of “Once” on hulu AND in another open hulu tab caught up on the latest episode of “Revenge” WHILE checking … Continue reading
Posted in Adult writing, Avoiding My Writing, books, Children's Books, Fiction, middle grade, Pets, Steps In Promotion, Writer's Angst, Writing Progress, WTF
Tagged 2013, chaos, children's literature, Downton Abbey, Facebook, fiction writing, horses, hulu, life, Los Angeles, Masterpiece Theatre, middle grade writing, Once Upon A time, personal goals, preschoolers, Revenge, smoothies, writer, writer's angst, writing
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