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Writing Teen Romance

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Free your Mind

I LOVE this quote I found it on a Yogi teabag. And how true it is. During particularly challenging days at my non-writing job, I can just feel my creative brain cells shriveling. When I log off of work, I usually try to take some time to decompress. Oftentimes, I need a change of venue, to free my mind. I’ll grab my laptop and head to another place in the house, or to Starbucks, or to the library. Just somewhere else so my brain can escape to the DreamWorld where my characters exist. Oh how I

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Writing Teen Romance

Some authorly wisdom on writing to trends

I hope all you beautiful people had the happiest of holidays. Mine was spent with family and friends, eating tons of amazing food and totally spoiling my kids with gifts and attention. Now it’s the new year and I’m feeling a renewed sense of writing energy. One of the authors in my writing group has her debut YA coming out in the spring, another author/illustrator in my group has one of her illustrations featured in the SCBWI bulletin, and I’m working on a fun side project with another member of

Things I Love

Graphic Organizing by this neurotic writer

I’m a visual learner. I need colorful graphs, charts, diagrams, and mind maps. I’m weird because I like taking notes – it’s an excuse to break out pens in a variety of pretty colors. And highlighters are my best friend when trying to remember something. When I started my first novel, I just sat down at my laptop and wrote with reckless abandon. And then I hit a roadblock about ten chapters into the story. That’s when I realized I needed a road map to see how I was going to get from the beginning

Running

Rambling About: I Remember Running by Darcy Wakefield

I Remember Running: The Year I Got Everything I Ever Wanted - and ALS by Darcy Wakefield My rating: 5 of 5 stars Let me start of by saying - ALS SUCKS. SUCK - SUCK - SUCK - SUCKS! (Yes, I'm yelling! It's that bad!) Almost three years ago, my mother-in-law lost an incredibly short battle with ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig's disease). I was with her during her final days and hours and let me just say again - ALS SUCKS!! So... I've had I Remember Running, and another memoir about ALS on my

Writing Teen Romance

Not So Accidental Blog Tourist Hop

I was tagged by the amazingly talented (and hilarious) Colleen Bennett, who also happens to be my Wonder Twin. That’s her, over there –> (Hey Colz, I hope you don’t mind I swiped this picture off your blog!! ) By the way – you should definitely check out Colleen’s blog where she shares her witty, yet poignant thoughts on MG writerly things. You won’t be disappointed!! So…let’s get this party started. Here’s the Q&A that Colleen passed my way: 1. What are you currently working on? I’m working on

Writing Teen Romance

From the quote desk

Trust the wisdom of heart. – Chinese Proverb For those of you that know me personally, you’ll get the double entendre of this post title. For those of you not in the know, you’ll just have to subscribe to my blog to find out. All kidding aside, I’m an author by night, but by day I work in healthcare IT. Things in my work world have been wacky for several months. Then yesterday this news came out: Siemens sells hospital IT business to Cerner for $1.3 billion. Yup! I work for one of the

Things I Love

How to combat #TDF withdrawal

Today is a sad day. It’s the first day since July 5th I don’t have four hours of the Tour de France to watch. It’s the first day I won’t be checking Tour Tracker to get behind the scenes info on the race and perhaps the worst part is - no more daily Backstage Pass videos from the guys at Orica Green Edge. What’s the perfect cure for post-TDF depression? Chocolate. And lucky for all of us TDF junkies, today is National Milk Chocolate Day. Not that I (or my fellow cycling enthusiasts) need a

Things I Love

Quotable on writing

I write to give myself strength. I write to be the characters that I am not. I write to explore all the things I'm afraid of. ― Joss Whedon “I write, therefore I am…” Cheesy, but true. And if you look very closely at the photo above, you’ll see rough drafted scenes from my latest novel.

Things I Love

July 14 is not just ANY day…

Today the French commemorate the storming of the Bastille and the start of the French Revolution with La Fête Nationale, or what those of us in America call Bastille Day. My first visit to Paris missed La Fête Nationale by a week, which I’m still kind of bummed about because from what I hear, it’s quite the party that starts off in the morning with a military parade on the Champs-Elysées and the evening is capped off with a massive fireworks display. Sadly, I’m not spending July 14th in Paris,