Thanks to a muchly appreciated last-minute rescue, the domain is saved! So I don’t have to move this or my freelance writing site or anything else. Yay! While the site was down, I had a free Kindle giveaway of Restless Spirits that went swimmingly. It stayed at Number 1 Free Read more…
A current shortage of funds means I might be losing this domain. There’s a good chance that this site and all of its subdomains will be suspended tomorrow. If I can’t renew the domain before the 12 day grace period is up, I’ll have to forfeit it because I definitely Read more…
Out of all of my books, the one by far that has gone through the biggest identity crisis is Restless Spirits. It started out as a paranormal fantasy novel, although it’s kind of chick lit, written as it is from the first person POV of a twenty-something woman trying to sort out her afterlife. The cover had a dreamy looking barefoot girl in a white dress beckoning to the reader. It did a pretty decent job of getting the romance across, but not much else — not the touches of humor, and certainly not the more frightening dark fantasy aspects that verge on horror. (more…)
On Sunday night, Audra McDonald won her record-breaking sixth Tony award. In her acceptance speech, she thanked her parents for “disobeying the doctor’s orders and not medicating their hyperactive daughter” and directing her energies into theater instead. This has sparked some debate on the Internet (really, is there anything that doesn’t spark some debate on the Internet? Ever?) about the role of medication in treating ADHD. It also prompted a post on Psychology Today that made the following claim:
In America today, we are medicating creative kids who prefer to daydream in class instead of completing boring worksheets. We are teaching them that focusing on the blackboard is more important than dreaming big dreams that might inspire new inventions. As a society we need to find different ways to help creative though disorganized children besides dampening their creative minds with Aderall, Ritalin, Strattera and worse.
This is a topic that hits very close to home. I have ADD — my official diagnosis is “ADHD without hyperactivity, inattentive type,” which basically means I was one of those kids who preferred to daydream in class instead of “completing boring worksheets.” Today, I’m a grown-up creative professional — and I still prefer to daydream at my desk instead of completing boring freelance writing assignments. But I also gotta eat and pay bills, so I do what I have to do to help make that happen, because daydreaming all day is not a luxury I can afford. My preference for letting my mind wander does not negate the work that has to get done. (more…)
Those Fiverr gigs I mentioned last week have been keeping me busy — hence the slowdown in posting here. Unfortunately, it also resulted in a slowdown (or more like a full stoppage) on my novel WIP, but I have plans to get back into that tonight. I know I don’t Read more…
When I was in my 20s, I thought maybe once I reached 30 some kind of magical adult switch would get flipped and then I’d have it all together. When I reached 30 and that didn’t happen, I thought maybe it would happen at 35. At 36, still having trouble Read more…
Note: This post is a bit long, but if you consider yourself at all to be a fan of my books, please read to the end. Thanks. I’d been kicking around the idea of doing a Kickstarter to fund the finishing and production of Intruder. At the rate I’m currently going Read more…
Let me get this out of the way first: I have a problem with referring to my readers as “fans.” Maybe this is a confidence problem, and I need to get over it and learn to embrace the word. After all, I don’t have any problem whatsoever with proudly referring Read more…
In lieu of traditional resolutions this year, I’ve decided to put together a list of 101 things to accomplish in 1001 days. This is not an official 101 in 1001, partly because I’m not strictly adhering to the official rules, and partly because I don’t plan to track them publicly through the community website (although I will post updates and progress reports here). If you’d like more info on the official 101 Things in 1001 Days Challenge, you can click here.
My version is mostly made up of things that need to get done that I keep putting off, although I didn’t completely neglect fun and personal growth. There are also a few goals that are about obtaining things rather than accomplishing tasks, but these are things that we need and/or will help accomplish some of the tasks on the list. Also, several things on the list won’t be doable unless/until our income picks back up, but with two and three-quarter years to get it done, I’m going to be optimistic.
So without further ado… (more…)
I’m not going to beat around the bush: 2013 was not a good year. Without going into too much detail, let’s just say it had very little to offer in the way of high points and was filled with a lot of very low lows. Low-lights include losing one of my uncles and one of our cats, substantial freelance income loss and a whole lot of stress and frustration.
There was also a lot of blaming myself and beating myself up, feeling completely helpless and useless, and wondering why God was punishing us. What can I say? It’s hard to think healthy and helpful thoughts when you’re standing knee-deep in the doo. (more…)