The Joys of Writing

I have been spending more time reading other budding writers and realize that there are some exceptional stories out there. Many times in the last four years I have lamented that I cannot get in front of readers and have wondered how awful stories have managed to get out there and in some cases end up huge successes despite glaring errors.

Found on Big Questions Online

But then I see these brilliant stories from budding writers and I am humbled. I want to focus on fine-tuning my craft, not complaining about stories I deem less worthy getting better reviews, or more exposure, or whatever stupid crap I come up with to assuage my silly ego. I started this venture in writing years ago before the concept of being a famous author meant making lots of money. I have lost sight of that. Not that I want to become ridiculously wealthy from writing (I mean, don't get me wrong, I would not complain if that happened.) but I have been wasting writing time focusing on all the wrong things. I lament how if I didn't have to work I could get so much more writing done. But there was a time when I went to school full-time, worked full time and was raising two toddlers and still made time. It is as lousy an excuse as ever. I was spoiled for two years able to work from home and publish three full-length novels. I need to get back to focusing on the good, building my craft, fine tuning my stories, and stop whining about not having enough time!

And with that, I am back to writing! What brilliant story have you read recently? Share in the comments below.

Until next time,

Keep Reading!

Poetry Time: Summer of 98

I found an old journal that I started using to collect all of my poetry. We all go through phases, right? Especially with wonderful high school and college teachers encouraging us to express ourselves with poetry. I started the book  in Ms. Dunker's creative writing class. I compiled poetry from over the years, scratched out on scraps of paper, and kept putting any poetry I wrote in the journal. I thought that one day I would publish a collection of my poetry. That may or may not happen.

In the mean time, I will share some of these little gems with you folks and the thoughts and feelings they still inspire in me as I read them.

This one is called "Summer of 98"

A special friendship I thought I'd find,

lustful emotions instead did bind.

I hoped for a relationship of serenity,
instead a hatred of mock insanity.

What has happened to our souls?
A lackluster fire of empty coals.

Your fantasy was so kind to you,
but my reality rang just a bit too true.

What did you expect? A pure God-dess?
Only fools would expect no less.

A silken angel of dawn tread times
made wholly immortal through a poet's rhymes.

My soul-sealed friendship was yours to take,
but you were expectant of a much better make.

A friendship stance I wanted from you;
but, lover's stance, you held aloft so cruel.

I was no goddess of lustful desire
so the friendship asked was place on the pyre,
my illusions lost deep in the fire.


No matter how far removed I am from the incident that inspired this poem, I can quote it and it still evokes such strong emotions. This experience was a major catalyst in my life. It was the time I went from the belief in a "one true love" to the need for one to love me. I became a little more jaded because of this incident and went from being a hopeless romantic to a practical person. I had spent most of my life (to that point) absolutely in love with this young man and had kept loving him even as he changed drastically (and not completely for the better).  I had never asked anything more of him than friendship, but his expectation after four years apart was romantic and then when he discovered that I was not the physical expectation he had, he wanted nothing to do with me (even though I had traveled all the way across the country to see him!)


And because of that, I married my best friend. A man who gives as good as he takes, who appreciates my practicality and admires my strengths rather than obsessing about the fact that I am taller than he is. A man who would rather snuggle with me watching British comedy, than complain about me not being "the perfect size". A man who supports my goals and dreams, while keeping me grounded.

Thank you, my first love, for teaching me so much so that I can be happy now.

I hope you are happy too.

What do you think of this poem? Tell me in the comments below.

Until next time,

Keep Reading!

Tannion: That Day- Pre-book review

I am about halfway through Tannion: That Day and I am enjoying it thoroughly. I loved this story the first time I looked at it when Wayne was looking for a publisher. I loved it then, and I am so glad to see it in print now, even though I did not end up publishing it for him.

Tannion reminds me of a grown up version of comic books. It is the story of an ordinary man who develops extraordinary abilities and this leads him to go through the moral dilemma of how to use these abilities. 

One of the things that I really love about Tannion is that he reminds me a lot of my oldest son. Not a bad guy, but not a good guy either. Very much marginalized throughout his life, he gets a bit heady with all of his power.  The semi-scientific process he sets up to experiment with his abilities without any consideration of the consequences, but taking it in as he goes along all remind me so much of my son.  It is an interesting perspective that we never really get with comic book characters. They are either inherently good and become heroes (yes, even Iron Man is inherently good, despite his attempts to come across as a wealthy playboy who is self absorbed.) or inherently evil and become super villains.  

Tannion is just a regular guy. We see him do good, we see him do evil. We don't know which way he is going to go. At this point in the story (and maybe this is some fear because of how much he reminds me of my son) I am afraid that at best he might become an antihero. But still there is hope. I understand that this is planned to be a series, and I am eager to keep reading the series and to watch this character develop in the complexity that is our true world, not clearly good or clearly evil, but clearly entertaining! Learn more about the Tannion series on Wayne Elsner's site

Look forward to my full review coming out soon.

Who is your favorite super hero or super villain? Let us know in the comments below! 

Until next time, 

Keep Reading!

Thoughts on Snow and Life

I woke up this morning super sad. Once again the snow that we were promised has not come. It was warm enough to go shopping without a coat! The whole reason I moved to Utah was for the snow! We had snow for Christmas, and for that I am grateful, but one week of that beautiful white stuff was not enough.

Snow- By James Angell

As I was going about my day, I learned that a really great friend of mine, Tim Bergfield, died Friday. My husband was shocked as Tim is not much older than us. He died from natural causes, not some freak accident. He was healthy, lively and a work horse... and now he is dead. Life, like snow, seems so fleeting and the promise as ephemeral.

My colleagues laugh at me when I get disappointed at not having snow. When we get a few flickers of white fluttering from the sky they groan and complain while I get slightly giddy.  Snow is like life, when you are only focusing on how it sucks to drive in, you have to salt and shovel the driveway, and worrying about the ice that will form after then snow is a drag. But the wonder and beauty is right there before us, the way snow has the ability to take a dull and dreary world and make it light and pure and beautiful, even if only for a brief moment... that is worth the difficulty.

The giggles and snowballs, the snowmen and snow angels, sledding, hot chocolate and fires in the fireplace; everything is made better, purer, more indelible in our memory all because of the brief joy of snow.

Tim was like snow. I worked with him at Movie Gallery and he was always cheerful and energetic when we managers would get together. While the other managers complained about new standards, he was invigorated to meet the challenge. After we both left Movie Gallery, Tim and I would still hang out. He was eager for new career opportunities. Where most people would have been frustrated at changing horses mid-stream, he welcomed the new job he had and the education he needed to get to go with it.

He always made things purer, focusing on the good. He loved and lived with all his heart. He made the mundane more memorable because he was there. You will be sorely missed Tim.

Tim Bergfield- By Stephanie Mitchell Phillips

To Blog or Not To Blog

I am staring at this lovely blank screen, debating what to write.... this feels familiar. It is amazing how in some very important ways blogging is very different from writing books. With books, one page leads into the next and the next and so on and so forth and next thing I know four hours and 50 pages have passed.

I will have tv or music playing in the background and have no clue what I missed (Seriously, made the mistake of starting Downton Abbey this weekend while writing. Realized I was on season one episode six and didn't even know who any of the characters were, and only got briefly excited when I recognized Rose Leslie's voice and immediately thought 'You know nothin' Jon Snow!')

But blogging is different. Blogging is short story-telling.... actually, shorter... man. And although I have seen so many bloggers pull things together in a neat and orderly fashion doing  Flash Fiction Friday, Teaser Tuesdays and the like, I just can't seem to pull that together. One, I have already discovered that I cannot do a book review a week, or offer teasers once a week, or get guest posts from authors once a week, or any of the other fun blog ideas I have come up with and wanted to implement.  Part of it is that I don't have all the time to get those things set up, but I think the bigger problem is that this doesn't match my style of writing.

I generally have an idea of my story's main points, but let the story flow and go. I am not such a structured writer as to have every point planned and just stitch it together with words. Doing that with the blog doesn't seem to work for me either.

So I will continue to randomly write my weird and special thoughts as they come. Hopefully most will be entertaining. If there are any random ideas you would like to see me write about, feel free to share in the comments below.

Until next time,

Keep Reading

New Year's Resolution Fail

And January isn't even over yet. I missed my blog post Sunday due to... well, to me forgetting to be perfectly honest. Between my personal New Year's resolutions, our family resolutions, my other writing resolutions and life it has been quite the balancing act around here.  I think as far as resolutions go, I might have bitten off more than I can chew. There are only 24 hours in a day, and my body has already informed me that I am too old not to be getting my 8 hours.

I have failed all of my New Year's resolutions at least once already (and family cleaning up the kitchen after dinner fails a couple times every week!) And yet, I keep working on them. I pick myself up and start again. I push to do better each week. I plan and adapt to make it work. This is the difference between "New Year's resolutions" and goals. If more people treated New Year's resolutions as goals one makes at the new year, instead of declarations of things one wants to change in their life, less people would fail at their New Year's resolutions.

Which brings  me to one of my favorite quotes

Background image from Advancedlifeskills.com

 Sometimes those deadlines are fluid. Sometimes life gets in the way. I was supposed to be taking the stairs at work every day... My second day back to work after surgery, I realized I couldn't do it straight out (it is 5 flights of stairs.) Did I throw that goal out and say Fahgeddaboutit? Nope, I looked at what little steps I needed to do to build up the stamina to do it. I am still working on it.

Which leads me to a new favorite quote:

The difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to failure.
John C. Maxwell

My first book in the Hell School series was supposed to come out this month. I realized somewhere around the time that I was scheduling surgery that probably wasn't going to happen. I didn't  throw my hands up and complain that it was too hard to be an author, mother and work a full-time job. (Ok, I might have told myself that a couple times, but EVENTUALLY I suck it up!) I re-scheduled my release date and made plans on how I can achieve that goal. 

Even if all you are doing is taking two steps forward and one step back, after 10 steps, you are still four steps further along than if you had done nothing. (I have to remind myself that when doing laundry!)

Until next time,

 keep reading!

The Maze Runner: Thoughts Pre-book review

So this is a thing I am going to start doing, as my new years resolution is to post three times a week, and post more reviews. I was hoping that the reading I did while out for surgery, combined with other posts would keep me going for awhile, alas here I am with a new post and no book review!
 Unfortunately, my time is being very thinly stretched between writing, book promotion, family, my full-time job and life in general (What was I thinking!) and I realize even between reading with the kids and reading on my lunch breaks there is no way that I will be able to read one book a week! Especially as some of the books I have been reading just haven't "grabbed me" as I had hoped. Something about age, but it is harder to make oneself read all night unless the book is just super compelling.

So, we are going to do check-ins on the books I am reading for review before the actual review is posted. This week is The Maze Runner. My boys got the box set for Christmas after seeing the trailer at The Mocking Jay. They seemed really excited. Despite starting the book on New Years day, we are only on chapter 11... less than 1/3 of the way into the book....

I am not drawn in, and apparently neither are my boys. Usually as soon as dinner and chores are done they are hounding me to read. They typically push me to keep reading past the bedtime hour, and guiltily I will give them "just one more chapter."

We haven't gotten there with this book. At first I thought "It's just a slow start. World building and all that," but we are on page 72 here.... and we know what is happening because of the trailer. There is no anticipation. We kind of feel like we already know.

Throw us some suspense, please, or this is going to be a VERY long read!!!
Have any of you read The Maze Runner by James Dashner? What are your thoughts? Does it pick up? Let me know in the comments below.