Category: Blog

5-yr-old: “Can we go to a toy store?”

Me, trying to redirect: “We were thinking of going to a restaurant for dinner.”

5-yr-old: “A… toy restaurant?”

If I had watched Tomorrowland when it came out, I absolutely would’ve gotten myself a red NASA hat. I guess, by coming to it late, I’m saved from having a hat I can’t wear.

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I wish this went without saying but it really, really doesn’t — not only does Tomorrowland center on a little girl robot & teenage girl chosen one, it does not sexualize them AT ALL. Think about that — girl robot & girl teenager who are allowed to simply BE AWESOME. Continue reading “Thoughts from Watching Tomorrowland”

That feeling when you’ve almost worked through all of the novel critiques you’ve received, and then one of them says, “Do a global search for ‘that’ and delete as many as possible.” And it turns out there are more than 1000 of them in your manuscript.

Spaceship log: the main engine is 100% powered down and ready for extraction. All life support has been transferred to power from the auxiliary engine. Extraction and upgrades to the main engine to commence in one half cycle.‬

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Spaceship log: supplemental green energy and ultraviolet force fields have been deployed to shield essential systems during the impending engine upgrades.‬ Continue reading “Spaceship Logs Concerning Engine Extraction”

It’s frustrating that “uselessly wasting time before going to bed” and “gearing up to do a bunch of sudden, surprising writing” can look so much alike while they’re happening.

Any moment now, I could redeem all the time I’ve been wasting by just writing a quick passage. Any moment.

So, if I go to bed, I’m admitting I was just wasting time. If I double down though… I could get some real writing done! Or waste even more time… Hmm…

Also, apparently, I’ve reached the time of night where my writing involves a lot of ellipses… so… there’s that to consider…

I’m working on the sequel to In a Dog’s World… and I really need to just sit down and reread the first one rather than having to stop every few minutes to look up which characters were what breed of dog and lived in what dorm and who was who’s roommate…

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Working through the critiques I got on my latest novella — apparently, “like a hot knife through butter” is too cliche. Thus, “a hot knife through blue raspberry jello.” That should be less cliche. Nailed it. Fixed. On to the next thing.

My main character in World of Warcraft hit level 90 and summoned herself a new demon!‬

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Restart World of Warcraft, stay up until 5am… yeah… that seems about right.

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I’m going to be entirely off the grid — no internet, no electricity — for much of this weekend. I think I’ll bring a notebook and try to figure out outlines for a furry ghostbuster novel and a cats with magical mutant powers novel.‬

The four-year-old, speaking of a creek we found: “I want to talk to the water privately.‬
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I told him I was going to stay here, but he could whisper to it. So he is.‬

Me: “What did you tell it?”‬

‪Four: “A secret!”‬ Continue reading “Talking to Creeks, Buying Praying Mantises, and Moving Boxes”

–arrange toys around my computer
–scroll through twitter
–google galaxies
–tweet about googling galaxies
–describe a planet as being like a honeydew melon bobbing on the ocean

That’s a good amount of work, right? Continue reading “My writing progress so far tonight:”

Another one for the list of things I should have never had to say: “No cars on the piano!” To be filed with, “Don’t kick your grandmother,” and “Don’t stand on the piano!” The younger child has a thing for trying to destroy the piano.

And before I finished posting, he managed to elicit, “No cars on the windows!”