My “This Is 40”

I turned 40 recently. And I was worried about it for a while… until I wasn’t. Because I realized, part of the way there, around 39-and-a-half (yes I still count my age in parts) that everyone’s #thisis40 is different, and that the measures of success, or “making it,” are different for everyone. At just-turned-39 I […]

Wrapped

If you’re a Spotify person, or even if you’re not, you’ve probably seen the “Spotify Wrapped” posts popping up around social media today. I don’t usually like companies/programs to know a whole lot about my life, but with Spotify… the relationship is almost intimate. Like, Spotify knows me, and sometimes it’s almost eerie how spot […]

Name That Bond

Went on a James Bond-themed tour of Nassau, Bahamas today, and this blog isn’t normally a travel blog, but what the heck… here’s a few fun moments from the day of chasing Bond… Bonus points to anyone who can name the Bond movie(s) from these scenes!!! That’s all I’ve got for now – can anyone […]

Finish Strong and Carry On

The end is where we start from. -T.S. Eliot I’ve been out and about reading my fellow Nano Poblano team’s last posts of the month, and for many of us the sentiment is the same: we made it through a month of daily writing to build the writing habit, stretch the writing muscles, in order […]

Getting To The Page

It’s the second to last day of Nano Poblano, the month-long post-a-day writing challenge, and I’m still here. In this penultimate post, I find myself reflecting on how the month has gone. I don’t feel that any of my posts this month have been particularly revolutionary. Most of them have been written in an hour […]

Board Game Inspiration

This is the third Friday in a row I’ve had the opportunity to play board games with a group, different groups each time, and I am loving it! To think, over the last couple of years around this time of year, getting together with groups of people indoors — especially different groups of people — […]

Atmospheric River

The wind is howling outside. I don’t mean metaphorically: the air is moving sideways and upside down and inside out, twisting its way so noisily through the cracks in this over-100-year-old house I wonder if I will get to see Oz. Freaky Friday indeed. Last year in November we had a series of “atmospheric rivers” […]

Motorcycle Rides and Magic Necklaces

I put on my magic necklace in hopes it will impart on me some power of writing, of creativity, of resilience. (It’s day two of a month of writing and I’m already floundering, how about you?) Some magic is in there still, in the delicate heart with dinosaur wings hanging from a thin sparkling thread. […]

New Rhythms

With the start of a new chapter, my hope is to establish some new rhythms. New rhythms of daily life. Rhythms that move me away from burnout and toward balance. Rhythms that facilitate making the most of my time and prioritize creating/writing, not only for my job, but also — first and foremost, actually — […]

Dead Reckoning

“So how’s the writing going?” An innocent question asked out of genuine care and interest pierces my heart. As any writer probably knows, any writer who hasn’t been writing, because… because. This simple question shines an unwelcome light into the darkest recesses of my cringing soul, through the secret back entrance that was foolishly left […]