Nearly two years after I left my profession to write full time, I finally got around to cleaning out my closet. My new boss—me—is a lot laxer on the dress code. So, I should have done it months ago. The experience reminded me of a couple of life lessons I clearly have...
“The bluest skies you’ve ever seen in Seattle." That lyric, from Bobby Sherman’s theme song to Here Come the Brides, has been stuck in my head since I was five years old. It is so true and so not true. And I am grateful that it is both. Last night, my husband and I...
The concept of re-inventing oneself seems consummately American to me. As the grandchild and great-grandchild of immigrants, this idea, that I am not now all that I can be, was not merely passed down through generations of storytellers but branded on my heart and...
Years ago, I knew a talented young woman full of joy and promise. She was an artist. As I had primarily studied the sciences, I didn’t always understand her. We both had creative, flexible minds but her thought path was like a fast-growing vine covering a skyscraper....
It was 1989 and, looking back, my parachute was crimson. The ink on my Bachelor of Science degree in Biology had been dry a year and my teaching certificate had just arrived in the mail (the extra-postage-required, this-could-take-a-month kind of mail). I thought it...
This was not the plan. I had a plan. If you know me personally, you know it was a solid plan. Spreadsheets were made. Gantt charts catalogued the aggressive but manageable timelines of key activities and their dependencies in an intentional array of colors. Resources...
Does this ever happen to you? It happens to me. Every. Single. Time. I'm working on my latest story or making a colorful graph depicting my predicted end date based on my ambitious daily word goals (also a work of fiction, by the way). In the corner of the screen, I...
What follows is an abbreviated version of a text exchange that transpired this morning—after the reality that my kid is all grown up and moving across the country in three months hit me right in the forehead, and I spent a sleepless night thinking about all the things...
At a conference last year, an author spoke about revising her manuscripts with a look of rapture usually reserved for the sacred or the sensual. My first thought? Are you kidding me?! What about revising and editing could possibly evoke this level of euphoria?...
A wise friend made a point with me last week. My friend sent me a photograph of a snow shovel ( a tool with which I am all too familiar). The caption said, ‘This is a great tool. Unless you’re holding the red end. Then you’re going to be frustrated.’ I love it when...