Just Because
Wish Me Luck
January represents many things to me, only one of which is a restart button of sorts. But during the cold winter months, I have real trouble restarting. So why choose January as a time to restart anything? I’m asking myself that these days as I surface from a cold. The virus didn’t effect me too…
Read MoreNo Words for the New Year
This post was supposed to be my “New Words for the New Year 8” post, but a cold has me on my bum, and I’m not feeling up to writing anything regarding what my outlook for 2023 will be. That might change in a few days, so if you’re interested in what I might be…
Read MoreEducation These Days
It’s been a week, friends. A week and then some. And none of the things that have made it “a week” are bad or big or obnoxious, in and of themselves. But all put together? Those little things—computer not working properly (touchpad, touchscreen, keyboard, you know, all the things I use on a daily basis),…
Read MoreFrom a Little Spark . . .
I usually don’t go this long without posting, but lately, life has been a bit full, shall we say. Full of parental concerns, full of pet concerns, full of writing and editing projects not directly associated with this blog. With minimal hair and teeth pulling, I finished my synopsis and query letter and sent the…
Read MoreAnother Year Older
My birthday has come and gone, and here I am, another year older. But am I wiser? That’s a question I like to ask myself. I’m not sure I have an answer though. Of course for me, the answers never come quickly—my mind doesn’t work that way. Even when I taught every day—a subject I…
Read MoreAt Least a Little While
Here we are, at Wednesday of this week, and so far, I feel like it should be Friday. Actually, it should have been Friday at the end of Monday, but it wasn’t. What a shame. None of the events of the week have been onerous, per se, but because the kids head back to school…
Read MoreFinding Myself Again
On Wednesday, October 22, 2008, I decided to take over what had been, at that time, my husband’s blog. Tim is a fabulous and gifted writer, but he’s not a consistent writer. And in those days, my plan was to “update a blog once a week so that [our] little ‘buckets of sunshine’ [could] be…
Read MoreMissing Out
Literary journals uphold standards by following a style guide. Literary Mama uses The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) as its guide, though we do have our own in-house style guide for a few items. One of the standards we follow is to italicize book titles. That choice might seem inconsequential to you, but to someone…
Read MoreLife Lessons at Trader Joe’s
Grocery stores and the people inside don’t know how special they are to me. Honestly. My experiences at grocery stores are legendary! Okay, well, not legendary, but one encounter led to a moment of human connection and another to a novel. And those are just the moments I wrote about. But as my family will…
Read MoreMy Speedster
A few days ago, a letter addressed to me arrived in the mail. It said: A vehicle registered in your name was photographed violating the traffic law or ordinance listed below, or the registered owner of the vehicle has submitted an Affidavit naming you as the operator of the vehicle at the time of the…
Read More