IT'S A CONTEST! In celebration of Valentine's Day, I am hosting a contest, starting today, from February 9 - February 14. Five lucky winners will receive a FREE autographed copy of Moonlight and Oranges! THE RULES: There are three ways to enter to win a copy of Moonlight and Oranges - don't forget, you're welcome to enter all three! 1. Share the Love on Twitter: In honor…
I was seven and a half when my little sister came into the world. She had beautiful big eyes, which we both get from our dad and she was mostly definitely a feisty one. I remember teaching her how to snuggle, because her reaction to hugs was to push me away as hard as she could. Before she learned to talk, we all thought she was practicing…
In which I jump into a hypothetical time machine... I'm honored to announce that today I'm featured on Tess Hardwick's blog, answering the question "What advice would you give your 20-year-old self?" for her 20 Thursday blog series. I talk about college, boys, my word skills that I've used for good and for evil, and my need to that I'm loved over and over again (I seem…
It's harder to answer this question than it seems: What did I used to love doing? It's funny how things we love, things that brought us life or joy or a feeling of passionate purpose become things that we use the past tense to talk about. Did. Used to. Remember when we... Sometimes it's hard to remember because we've created a new default way of having fun. …
Every writer gets them. No one can escape them. No one, ever, has been brilliant and perfect enough of a writer with universal tastes that everyone agrees with to evade the reality of bad reviews, angry comments, or rude messages. Rest assured, this is not a rant about a horrible review I just received. I'm actually quite OK with people publicly declaring if they don't like something I wrote. (In fact, if everyone agreed that…
I don't care how brilliant or inspired my writing is on any given day, it loses steam if I'm doing everything on my own. There's something indescribable about sitting right next t to someone while I work that transforms me, my work, and my time into something of increased worth. Whether it's cleaning house side by side, brainstorming creative ideas together, or just voicing fears out loud to…
I have a long-standing relationship with Greek myths and retelling them. Moonlight and Oranges is one of many projects I've created to interweave myth and story and character. I explained my "mythical obsession" on the Owl Tell You About It blog this week.
A friend of mine made a recent facebook post that said: This might just be me, but the longer I live, the more it seems that insecurity stemming from a lack of real love is responsible for most of the world's problems. Wow. We all know if we watch the news that there is a constant state of flux for global problems all around us. When…
Happy New Year! To kick off the birthdays of Time and myself (we're just one day apart), here is a guest post in which I reveal my experience forming a successful critique group. I give instructions on how to replicate this with a small cluster of writing friends. It can be quite tricky, but it's incredibly rewarding! My guest post lives on L.M. Stull's blog. She…
Sometimes the worst memories are also the best. As a child, my family and I grew up very tight-knit and close. I spent every single December 25th with my parents and siblings from the day I was born till the year I turned twenty. That year, my mother decided she wanted to go to Guatemala for her birthday, December 24th, and she went with my dad and…