Many, many (many) years ago, I was a soccer player. Mind you, I wasn’t amazing—I knew I’d never play professionally (no matter how many times my Dad made me run around the block with a tire strapped to my waist. Seriously.) But I was good enough to play for my college. My non-athlete friends always looked at me like I was a mad-woman when I came back from practice dripping…
I had a really hard time choosing a major in college. I went from Business Administration to Retailing, to Fashion, and finally landed in Art History – a perfect place for people like me who love art, but lack all artistic ability. Art History was a really fun major, and I enjoyed my classes tremendously. We’d scrutinize paintings, paying attention to style, technique, and symbolism, and listen to stories our…
When I sat down to brainstorm ideas for this article, it was hard not to think of all the B.C.’s invoiced. Before COVID-19, yes, but on a personal level– Before Children. When I was writing The Frozen Crown, I was working a full time job as well as remodeling an 1850’s farmhouse. (And I mean– remodeling— it needed a lot of work!) At the time I thought I was juggling…
“It’s a black fly in your chardonnay. It’s a death row pardon two minutes too late.” Alanis Morissette was kind enough to give us many definitions of irony in 1995, and to those I would like to add, “It’s a jackhammer in your basement when you’re trying to write a blog post about writing through distractions.” We’re getting our house earthquake-retrofitted — a project that was initially supposed to take…
Boy do I LOVE run-on sentences. I discovered this recently while working on the audio version book of The Trying Game: Get Through Fertility Treatment and Get Pregnant Without Losing Your Mind. Now, many authors don’t get to read their own books (especially novels) but when the head of Penguin/Random House first called me, she wanted me to read the intro to my book. But then she read my book, and discovered…
Would you think me a bad parent if I told you my four year old has seen Frozen 2 three times? (Does that make it Frozen 6?) Well, I only saw it once. And at first the new anthem didn’t catch my gut the way “Let It Go,” did; I heard that anthem waaay before I became a mom and I knew it could be belted out ferociously even then. (Another…
Hey, let me tell you what I’m trying to do at this very moment: prep for my author marketing meeting, watch videos for learning how to write a TV treatment, upload all the business cards of people I met at a professional conference this weekend, write an article about a conference I attended two weeks ago, photoshop my author photos, upload guest author interviews and write this piece. Oh, and…
You’re going to get some really great advice from my fellow Debs this week. Anyone who writes a book while living a normal human life has already won the productivity game. I wish I had some good answers to the question of how to be a less distracted writer, but I don’t, because there’s no one solution that fits every writer out there, or even most writers. Lives are just…
I read once that air traffic controllers must be able to concentrate in a room where multiple conversations are going on simultaneously. For example, in a large airport tower, the room could be filled with the sounds of controllers speaking with several pilots about all manner of clearance, changing frequency, taxiways, takeoff, etc. Controllers must be able to make quick decisions and not be distracted by the conversations of their…
