tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87835680863715694242012-02-16T16:57:51.189-08:00The Uninspiring Misadventures of a Working Mom/Struggling Novelist!The Write Way…http://www.blogger.com/profile/04457219378635181740noreply@blogger.comBlogger361100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783568086371569424.post-22019296201029724122012-01-05T21:19:00.000-08:002012-01-05T21:25:38.892-08:00

Okay, proud Auntie is doing her double D (due diligence). My 11 year-old nephew is a writer. (He must take after me.) Here is the memoir he wrote for English:On Christmas, 2011, I woke up at 7:15 by myself: a miracle for me, who never wakes up before 8:30. As I came down the stairs, I heard snoring. Loud snoring. I knew my mother was asleep so I started to tiptoe. As I looked on the table, I saw

The Write Way…http://www.blogger.com/profile/04457219378635181740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783568086371569424.post-53201102997068472032011-11-07T22:07:00.000-08:002011-11-07T22:09:56.036-08:00

My grandmother taught me about love. Not with words. Grandma needed no words. She taught me instead with smiles and tisks, with crisp ten dollar bills and a stick of Wrigley’s Spearmint gum in every birthday card, with lip-stick stained kisses. Peck, peck. And with hugs. Squeeze tight, then release. Love needed no pretention. Not with Grandma. Not when there was chocolate and Thanksgiving

The Write Way…http://www.blogger.com/profile/04457219378635181740noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783568086371569424.post-66491989329064167512011-04-09T22:02:00.000-07:002011-04-09T22:03:41.266-07:00

An attendee at a writing conference once asked me if I thought it was absolutely necessary that she procure a freelance editor for her novel.I asked, “Are you serious about publishing your novel?” The truth of the matter is, the publishing world is a needle in a haystack game. Agents and editors receive thousands of manuscripts monthly, from writers, just like you, who are hoping to break in. In

The Write Way…http://www.blogger.com/profile/04457219378635181740noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783568086371569424.post-91840950411687750682011-01-25T23:07:00.000-08:002011-01-25T23:40:17.587-08:00

First off, I can’t think of any other company name we use as a verb, except for maybe Xerox, which is sooooo last year. According to Wikipedia, "google" was awarded the most useful verb in 2002 by the American Dialect Society. It even gained prestigious entrance to the Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary in 2006. But I digress. Or maybe not. Shoot, I haven’t really started, have I?Oh, sweet

The Write Way…http://www.blogger.com/profile/04457219378635181740noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783568086371569424.post-65376924344551470602010-10-17T21:24:00.000-07:002010-10-17T21:26:13.072-07:00

My sister hosted a slumber party for her 10-year-old son and five of his friends this weekend. Crazy, I know. But aside from the stench of D.B. (aka Dirty Boy--parents, they need deodorant well before adolescence strikes--trust me) and a tiny debacle involving the opening and subsequent strewing of every single storage box in her garage, it all went pretty well.One of the boys, a first time

The Write Way…http://www.blogger.com/profile/04457219378635181740noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783568086371569424.post-13736893142494240572010-10-09T17:14:00.000-07:002010-10-09T17:16:09.713-07:00

The audio version of my short story, "Papa Was a Gypsy" is now available at Pseudopod! You can get it from the Podcast at:http://pseudopod.org/2010/10/09/pseudopod-207-papa-was-a-gypsyWarning: Not for the faint of heart!

The Write Way…http://www.blogger.com/profile/04457219378635181740noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783568086371569424.post-6531610348428417132010-10-07T13:04:00.000-07:002010-10-07T13:07:17.617-07:00

Hey writers and readers...I'm posting this shameless plug because I recently uploaded the first 10 chapters of my novel, "Everywhere That Mary Went" on Authonomy.com--a place for writers to post their work in the hopes of getting enough "backing" to make it to the Editor's Desk, where it can be reviewed and critiqued by a an editor at Harpers Collins. Here's the link.... http://www.authonomy.com

The Write Way…http://www.blogger.com/profile/04457219378635181740noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783568086371569424.post-71405632032377740972010-10-01T20:02:00.000-07:002010-10-01T20:06:56.200-07:00

It’s not a simple snip-snip-snip with the sharpened sheers from the sewing room. It’s a hard blow with a pick axe. It’s Anne Boleyn beneath the guillotine. It’s Jason with his machete flashing. And the threads they are a-flyin’.The Child started high school--dear God, has it only been a month?--and with high school comes the social world such as we have never seen. Poor naïve little me. I

The Write Way…http://www.blogger.com/profile/04457219378635181740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783568086371569424.post-14747013245242763762010-09-22T22:08:00.000-07:002010-09-22T22:09:01.487-07:00

I’ve had this problem with journals for eons. Write. Repeat. Write. Repeat. Weeks pass. Write. Repeat. The weeks become months. Write (kinda-sorta). Fail to repeat. Then the months become years. Uh oh! Then the years become decades. Oops!And maybe someday, as I clean out the garage or find the bin of pretty-covered half-filled tomes hidden high in the computer room closet, I will

The Write Way…http://www.blogger.com/profile/04457219378635181740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783568086371569424.post-16161700758031656012010-08-13T19:05:00.000-07:002010-08-13T19:08:11.907-07:00

The Child borrowed my computer last night. When I woke up a Word document was open. Its title: Thoughts..."I think that the human race is beginning to lose its ability of appreciation. They say a picture's worth a thousand words and yet people have such little to say about pictures. How much is there that we do not notice? The boy in the corner. The bee on the flower. There are so many

The Write Way…http://www.blogger.com/profile/04457219378635181740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783568086371569424.post-70038265660339963202010-07-29T22:00:00.000-07:002010-07-29T22:01:36.169-07:00

1.Kate had miscarried. Jacob knew it long before they’d reached the hospital, when he’d woken in the night to find the pink sheets swollen, sticky, red with Katie’s blood. For a fleeting moment, lost in half-sleep, he’d thought, Good. Let her bleed the damn thing out. But then his eyes snapped open wide; he’d turned, touched her shoulder. She wouldn’t wake.2.Like any good American girl

The Write Way…http://www.blogger.com/profile/04457219378635181740noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783568086371569424.post-36725051555314005712010-07-20T14:51:00.001-07:002010-07-20T14:52:13.054-07:00

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."- Mark Twain

The Write Way…http://www.blogger.com/profile/04457219378635181740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783568086371569424.post-90794450971886273292010-07-15T12:21:00.000-07:002010-07-15T12:24:27.684-07:00

Every chance I have to write, if there’s a chance at all, there’s something. Grrrrr. Something...distracting. Yesterday, a couple on a first date sat across from me at the coffee shop I lovingly refer to as The Office. Twenty-somethings. Cute. Trembling hands and nervous hair-twirls. Ridiculous tidbits of conversation filled with countless misplaced 'likes'. "Like, I never knew that

The Write Way…http://www.blogger.com/profile/04457219378635181740noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783568086371569424.post-6846583927531475292010-07-08T23:19:00.000-07:002010-07-08T23:22:13.392-07:00

Frogs and crickets. Sweet summer hay. Somewhere on the hillside, a baby cries. A neighbor’s air conditioning echoes back a weak reply. It’s frickin’ hot. And as I sit outside with a glass of tepid wine, wondering how the hell the world survived before the advent of electricity, I watch the cats go crazy, chasing moth-shadows--flick, flick, flicker--their paws and claws on red alert. I should

The Write Way…http://www.blogger.com/profile/04457219378635181740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783568086371569424.post-46995289342860219862009-12-27T23:37:00.000-08:002009-12-27T23:40:18.924-08:00

So I just had to share this little funny:The Husband is downstairs on his computer. The Child is upstairs on his computer. Both have little headsets so they can talk to their online buddies. Both are "gaming". Or so I thought...From my private perch outside (yes, it’s cold, and yes, I’m crazy, but aren’t all writers a little bit crazy?) I can hear two separate threads of conversation. And yet

The Write Way…http://www.blogger.com/profile/04457219378635181740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783568086371569424.post-7465073004711401062009-11-29T23:02:00.000-08:002009-11-29T23:07:38.287-08:00

Say what you will about mothers, but one fact of motherhood will always stand supreme: Mothers are allowed to brag. Here’s the latest:The Child, now thirteen, has discovered the joy of writing! I mean, he’s always had the knack. His teachers have been all up on that for years now. But he’s never really had the drive. Not to say, he doesn’t have drive, but music heretofore has always been his

The Write Way…http://www.blogger.com/profile/04457219378635181740noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783568086371569424.post-33761057599896995962009-09-01T11:51:00.000-07:002009-09-01T11:53:13.706-07:00

Ever wonder how our brains can retain gazillions of song lyrics, yet we have trouble trying to remember what we had for dinner last Friday? Just saying...

The Write Way…http://www.blogger.com/profile/04457219378635181740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783568086371569424.post-77633767213764734882009-08-18T20:44:00.000-07:002009-08-18T21:27:09.591-07:00

All my life, I’ve searched for a way to explain myself. Who I was. What I was. Implanted to earth as a baby and raised by human parents, I was obviously some sort of alien. Right? I mean why else was I so different? Why else was it so hard for me to understand what made other people tick?As a child, I remember analyzing the way my mother spoke. From her inflection and tone all the way down

The Write Way…http://www.blogger.com/profile/04457219378635181740noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783568086371569424.post-53060026005790013832009-07-06T22:36:00.000-07:002009-07-06T22:38:50.233-07:00

I have the hum-drums today. The Child is spending three weeks with family in California, as he does nearly every year, and every year, leading up to the event, I am slightly excited (oh, think of all the free time) and every year, the moment I have to leave him, the horrible anxiety begins to settle in.Not that he won’t be taken care of or anything--he is in the greatest of hands--but the house

The Write Way…http://www.blogger.com/profile/04457219378635181740noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783568086371569424.post-77526924445352787152009-06-30T22:29:00.000-07:002009-06-30T22:44:51.095-07:00

Wow, can I relate to this blog post from Marina, of whose blog I am a long-time lurker and avid fan! Mother, writer, chronic should-er--I finally gave it up. Now I don’t believe in spotless houses or perfectly behaved children (ha! except where my previous blog post is concerned--ho, hum) or setting writing goals that will only lead to my ultimate failure. My motto: one chore per day, one extra

The Write Way…http://www.blogger.com/profile/04457219378635181740noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783568086371569424.post-45717557325710772422009-06-10T21:58:00.001-07:002009-06-10T22:09:29.832-07:00

Shame on me and my garsh-darned novel (almost done, by the way--way to go, Shannon!) for keeping my blog so painfully devoid of text for the last (count ‘em) SIX long months! While I’ve been plugging away in ‘Fantasy (Genre) Land’, making plans to attend the big Willamette Writers Conference in August, and suffering complete and total Facebook social anxiety disorder melt-down, I have also been

The Write Way…http://www.blogger.com/profile/04457219378635181740noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783568086371569424.post-5286340205214989342008-12-31T21:49:00.000-08:002008-12-31T21:53:32.146-08:00

"If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead, either write things worth reading or do things worth writing."--Benjamin Franklin Here's to a new year of doing both!

The Write Way…http://www.blogger.com/profile/04457219378635181740noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783568086371569424.post-49624972420663016082008-11-20T23:35:00.001-08:002008-11-20T23:35:44.910-08:00

The Write Way…http://www.blogger.com/profile/04457219378635181740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783568086371569424.post-29759867075898436722008-11-06T16:37:00.000-08:002008-11-06T16:51:14.723-08:00

I love Halloween. Aside from Christmas, the Child’s birthday, and Thanksgiving, it is by far the most anticipated day of the year for my little family. The Child, though now twelve, is still remarkably into it. So into it in fact, I played a smaller role than usual in the beloved creation process. We never do the store-bought thing, but spend the beginning parts of October, stitching and gluing (

The Write Way…http://www.blogger.com/profile/04457219378635181740noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783568086371569424.post-49194227061630215662008-09-30T19:15:00.000-07:002008-09-30T21:26:56.090-07:00

I feel I need to preface this post by saying that The Child is truly an exceptional kid. Bright, curious and kind. A straight A student who loves classical music, plays the upright bass, taught himself to play the piano by ear, and despite being neck deep in the muddy waters of adolescence, gives myself and The Husband very little lip.One of his very few shortcomings (and yes, forgive me, Child,

The Write Way…http://www.blogger.com/profile/04457219378635181740noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783568086371569424.post-16470127534028517682008-09-26T13:52:00.000-07:002008-09-29T12:19:57.425-07:00

When one has no time to write (because one is driving The Husband and The Screaming Child to various appointments--work (both to and from), school (both to and from), music lessons, art classes, concerts, play-dates--or perhaps because one is working herself or cleaning up coffee spills from light-beige carpets or cooking lavish dinners for The Exceptionally Picky Eaters or washing piles and

The Write Way…http://www.blogger.com/profile/04457219378635181740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783568086371569424.post-40146202002830970972008-09-02T08:20:00.000-07:002008-09-02T08:22:38.384-07:00

Just thought I'd spread the word that my story, 'Papa Was A Gypsy', is up and available for consumption at www.ideomancer.com. You can read it directly from their website or download the .pdf magazine.Please note that this story is in the Horror genre and contains adult themes--not for the weak of heart.

The Write Way…http://www.blogger.com/profile/04457219378635181740noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783568086371569424.post-58184995557512163792008-08-13T21:12:00.000-07:002008-08-13T21:17:18.101-07:00

My friend Jennifer posts her beautiful poems on her blog, so when I found this old timer in a box of nonsense left from high-school, I decided I should try it too...Mother (circa 1993)We’ve traded four years for nine months, Mother.You’re in me.You cannot escape me and I am not a snake to shed you.But I feel you, Mother.You are grief and hope and love.You are dancing where the words play,the

The Write Way…http://www.blogger.com/profile/04457219378635181740noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783568086371569424.post-91806979347469200802008-07-26T14:09:00.000-07:002008-07-26T14:10:13.714-07:00

Let’s call it “dead brain syndrome” or “hormonal A.D.D.” or “random thought connection”—all pseudonyms, of course. Its true identity is writer’s block and it stands like a burly bald guy in a black on white “security” T-shirt, arms crossed outside the throbbing door of the Word Club, telling us in no uncertain terms that we’re not on the list.So what do we do? We search for a way inside,

The Write Way…http://www.blogger.com/profile/04457219378635181740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783568086371569424.post-48124014298570025262008-06-24T19:20:00.001-07:002008-06-24T19:20:46.920-07:00

"I write for the same reason I breathe - because if I didn't, I would die."--Isaac Asimov.

The Write Way…http://www.blogger.com/profile/04457219378635181740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783568086371569424.post-5755591044487076682008-06-22T01:25:00.001-07:002008-09-29T12:17:55.509-07:00

My mother’s birthday fast approaches (in exactly three short minutes as I write this, maybe hours past before I post).This kind of thing would normally stay far removed from public eyes-- this ranting, self-deprecating far too-intimate piece of Shannon-trivia-- but no one is likely reading save my sister, and besides, there’s just something about this day that gets under my skin.Why, you ask?My

The Write Way…http://www.blogger.com/profile/04457219378635181740noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783568086371569424.post-66482270740241159722008-06-12T22:15:00.000-07:002008-09-29T12:17:00.238-07:00

A writer organizes. Thoughts. Plots. Paragraphs. Sentences. Whether outlined in nice neat chunks or scribbled on napkins and the backs of McDonald’s french fry wrappers, a writer needs a plan. Nothing else can throw your sanity out the window as fast as planlessness.I started my first book when I was nine. Always a Fantasy fan, I named my novel “The Enchanted Isle”--a blatant mix of “The Princess

The Write Way…http://www.blogger.com/profile/04457219378635181740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783568086371569424.post-37926345811874107762008-06-10T22:59:00.001-07:002008-09-29T12:14:38.268-07:00

Every once in awhile this weird malaise sort of sets in upon me. It might be hormonal, not sure, I never tracked its regularity, but I feel awfully tired of trying to fight it. On days like this I usually sing the banana song (see below), try to find that “happy place” that’s buried somewhere, think of sunshine and beaches and all things soft and relaxing, but it doesn’t always do the trick. Like

The Write Way…http://www.blogger.com/profile/04457219378635181740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783568086371569424.post-53513310730157023942008-06-03T11:38:00.001-07:002008-06-10T22:55:53.847-07:00

Sometimes, I narrate my daily activities. (She ran a brush through her long blonde hair, smiling into the mirror. / She pressed the gas and zoomed down the street, desperate to reach the school by 3:00. / She typed away on a blog she was sure no one would ever read. / In the evening hours, she paid her bills online, sipped a glass of Merlot, and prayed for sleep that was likely hours away.) It is

The Write Way…http://www.blogger.com/profile/04457219378635181740noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783568086371569424.post-13242985265862054002008-04-11T14:09:00.000-07:002009-12-27T23:52:04.299-08:00

Ideomancer to publish one of my short stories in an upcoming issue. Hurrah! Keep your eye out: www.ideomancer.com

The Write Way…http://www.blogger.com/profile/04457219378635181740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8783568086371569424.post-86266610822934063282007-10-19T07:59:00.001-07:002007-10-19T07:59:48.230-07:00

I never imagined writing a novel synopsis would be so difficult. I mean, I managed book reports in school, right? On novels OTHER people wrote? Distilling my very own 130,000 masterpiece into a few pages should be a piece of cake. Sure. Yeppo. No problemo.Unfortunately, seventeen-bazillion drafts later and the tune I’m whistling still aint Dixie. No Lady-Luck. No cigar. (Find me a cliché

The Write Way…http://www.blogger.com/profile/04457219378635181740noreply@blogger.com0