I rejoice in the holiday season, not only because I love all the lights and decorations, but because with all the negativity in the world, I’m happy to celebrate anything. It seems like these days every time you turn around, there is another act of hatred being perpetrated somewhere, so for me it is especially significant to celebrate the time … Read More
Distractions and Silliness
I’m currently in the middle of working on the first book in the Homeless Myths series (The Star Warriors and the Secret of the Red Key), which means unless I am in the zone, I am more distracted than usual. Most writers I know when settling in to write become fascinated by everything under the sun, except what they are … Read More
In Memory of Dad
We interrupt this regularly scheduled blog post … oh … wait — I don’t blog on a regular basis, so that is wrong from the start. It just came to me as I try to wrap my head around something that is not only a sensitive issue, but something very emotional for me, because of dad. As I sit here … Read More
My Signature Stamp
Today I’m going to take a break from shouting out about The Journal of Angela Ashby … not because I’m done telling you about the book, but because I got something in the mail today and wanted to share. This may make me a bit of a dork, but I am super excited to share the stamps I received this … Read More
Jar Full of Smiles: Friendship Therapy
Therapy is defined as: a treatment intended to relieve or heal a disorder. So … what does therapy have to do with friendship? We all hit points in life when we are feeling down or have a situation that is driving us crazy with worry, or even have a happiness that is so consuming us if we don’t share we … Read More
The Lernean Hydra
One question authors are frequently asked is, “Where do you get your ideas?” Truthfully, story ideas usually come to us in a variety of ways, whether it be from a news item, an article we read, the blinding lightning bolt where the idea simply occurs, dreams, life … anything really. No matter how I get the original idea, I usually … Read More
Be The Cat
I have changed the name of my blog. It really didn’t have a name before, it was simply my author blog. The place for me to talk about my books, issues my characters encounter between the pages, writing in general, etc. And that hasn’t changed. The reason for the change came about due to a few factors. First, the blog … Read More
The Ban on Best Friends
At the beginning of January, US News ran an article written by Dr. Barbara Greenberg, PhD talking about whether schools should ban kids from having best friends. After the first thought of What idiocy is this??? I was ready to become a keyboard warrior and shoot from the hip about how ridiculous the concept of banning best friends truly is. … Read More
Jar Full of Smiles: Listening Friends
Out of the jar on a happy blue piece of paper. a little reminder that there are various ways of listening. There is an adage about listening which has a great deal of truth to it. “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” We listen to skim the surface of … Read More
Jar Full of Smiles
A thoughtful friend gave me a gift for Christmas that really resonated with me. A jar full of bright strips of paper with sentiments written on them. What a great way to give someone a gift that keeps giving. The idea being that you pull out one slip a day, read it, and have a reason to smile. But it … Read More
Beyond Normal Revisited
Four years ago today, while going through chemotherapy for Leukemia and Lymphoma, I was having a pretty rough day, so I blogged about it on my cancer site. The post was titled, Life Beyond Normal, because at that point, my normal had been stripped away, turned completely upside down, shaken, and forever changed. I had to learn what my limits … Read More
Belief
As I am working on the first book in my Homeless Myths series, The Star Warriors and the Secret of the Red Key, the topic of belief systems is present all the time. With Myths in the series name, those things are running through my head. Why do we believe the things we do. What do these kids believe? How … Read More