“Smooth seas never made a skilled mariner.”  I went on the internet to find out who gets credit for that saying, but I couldn’t find a definitive answer.  One article said it was Franklin D. Roosevelt, while another said it was an English proverb, so who knows?  But hats off to FDR, the English-proverb-maker, or whoever else really said it, because it’s a good one. One of my favorites, actually.   When my father was diagnosed with cancer, my sister convinced him to come to her house and stay in her spare bedroom.  She, my brother-in-law, and I would take shifts caring for him. When someone is terminally ill, it’s not…

The other day, a friend asked me what I planned on writing about this week.  I said, “I don’t know yet.”  I had no clue.  Being unable to think of something to write about happens to me a lot, but then I’ll talk to someone or see something and voila! – I’ve got my topic.  Unfortunately, this week’s topic is inspired by a friend who is going through a rough patch.  Someone told him, “This too, shall pass.”  And it will.  It always does.  It may not seem like it right now, but things really will get better. Over the years, I’ve had some people come into my life and I…

A few weeks ago I wrote about editing.  Between then and now, I’ve finished the edit and have sent it to the publisher.  She is doing another read-through and then is giving it to some beta readers.  If you know what beta readers are, forgive me for telling you something you already know, but if you don’t know, beta readers are like a test group of readers in an author’s target audience.  My book is a Young Adult Contemporary novel, so my target audience is 12 years to 18 years old, although a lot of adults also read YA.  The beta readers she has selected are middle school students.  So…

Shortly after I finished my book, I was speaking on the phone with Erika, the lady who was going to edit the book for me.  She said she was excited and that she couldn’t wait to read it.  I told her not to get too excited because I didn’t even really know if it was any good.  I mentioned that I’d been reading a novel by Pearl S. Buck and (because Pearl S. Buck was a brilliant writer) I was having a lot of self-doubt over the slop I’d written.  She told me that I shouldn’t compare my writing to anyone else’s.  Although I knew she was right, I still…

“Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re gonna get.”  Ah, the famous line that probably everyone in the world has heard.  It’s so famous, you still hear people say it almost 25 years later.  Of course, such wise words could only originate from the equivalent of a sage…someone’s mother.  In this case, it was Forrest Gump’s mother. When I got up this morning and took my dog out, I was pleasantly surprised to discover how cool it was outside.  I even ended up putting on a long-sleeved shirt.  Fall officially arrived on September 22nd, but when it’s 80+ degrees out and summer refuses to move…

I think I’ve been subconsciously putting this one off.  I was going to write about this last week, then decided on something else.  Same thing the week before.  And the week before that.  It’s a topic that is highly debatable and what I have to say about it is likely to piss some people off.  No, politics isn’t the topic, but if you want to argue politics, I suggest you close this window right now and jump on over to Facebook…at the moment, there’s plenty of people to fight with there.  This one is about heroin addiction/addicts.   The reason I chose to write about heroin addiction (here and in my…

Have you ever been listening to a song and one part in the lyrics jumps out and grabs you?  A part that you just connect with?  There are a few songs that have one or two parts that I totally connect with.  Breathe, by Anna Nalick is one of those songs, and it actually has two parts that I dig, but this post is about only one of them. She’s talking about songwriting when she says, “…I feel like I’m naked in front of a crowd ’cause these words are my diary screaming out loud, and I know that you’ll use them however you want to.”  I don’t write songs, and I…

Here’s how I feel about editing my book: UGH.  When I write something, I end up editing it several times to get it just the way I want it.  I actually edit my blog several times before it’s published and I’m quite sure it’s full of mistakes that I’ve missed.  Sometimes, after I’ve published it and it’s too late, I see something and think, “Oh, I wish I would have said it this way or that way.” Editing something short, like a blog, isn’t too bad; the UGH comes in when it’s time to edit something that is in the neighborhood of 60,000 words, because that means you have to…

All week long, I’ve been struggling to come up with a topic to write about.  This is only my third blog and I’m having trouble already?  Pathetic, I know.  I had initially said that I’d blog about writing, book stuff, and everyday stuff.  Although I always try to do what I say I’m going to do, sometimes I can’t.  Well, I could, I guess, but right now I don’t want to.  When I come across something that interests or inspires me, I gotta go with it.  Today, I was inspired by a post I saw on Facebook.  So instead of writing about something everyday/ordinary, I’m going to write about something extraordinary.…

Fear.  It’s something we’ve all experienced, although some of us experience it more often than others.  I’m certainly no stranger to being scared.  In fact, here’s just a few of the things that frighten me:  Driving on icy roads or in an area that I’m not familiar with.  Scary movies.  Snakes.  Heights.  And sometimes, people, in general.  Actually, I could go on forever, so let’s just say that I’m pretty much scared of everything.  Maybe that’s why the cowardly lion was my favorite character in The Wizard of Oz. The good thing is that we can usually avoid a lot of things that we’re afraid of.  I stay off of the…