Can you imagine me as a biologist? Nope, didn’t think so. Neither can I. But somehow in the beginning of my sophomore year of college, I got distracted and lost, and even though my lifelong dream had been to pursue writing, I had concocted some strange plan to go into medicine. I’d hightailed it from the journalism building to the biology labs one quarter, and after one particularly grueling lab,…
Consider this my 12-Step Group intro: Hi. I’m Deb Elise, and I have a sick penchant for running marathons. All together now: Hi, Deb Elise. I know for many people, running isn’t strange at all. There are people who love running, gazelle-like people built for speed who float out the door and glide along for miles without a care in the world. I am not one of these people. I…
I once spent a whole afternoon shopping for the perfect pair of shoes to wear to a fancy dress party. Exhausted, I got on the metro to ride home. I was sitting in a daze and was surprised when my stop came. I jumped up, got off the train and left my shoes behind. Sadly, I had to wear a pair of shoes I already owned to the ball that…
I used to say my muse was my little green notebook. But that’s not quite accurate. My notebooks are more like partners. I actually have a series of retired notebooks, the way old British aristocracy would have a series of beloved hunting dogs, generation after generation, who had served them well and faithfully over the years. First there was the blue one; then the green; now the white flowered; soon…
With a five-year-old boy in the house, I think a lot about superheroes. In the last twenty years, it seems like we have been severely lacking in national heroes. So it was with great relief that many of us welcomed Obama and celebrated the landing of Sully on the Hudson River. At last—real life heroes! Not someone we could only read about book, assassinated before they’d had a chance to…
One reason I love the writing life is that I can bend it around my family, instead of the other way around. This means that when something goes awry in my family schedule, my writing routine goes out the window. Last week, my youngest was sick for three days. I was supposed to be up to my eyes in revisions for my second novel. This was a time for digging…
This week’s theme is candy, but since I spent last week’s post waxing rhapsodic about twinkies and chocolate and cheetos, I thought I might branch out a bit. Last night, I was stuffing invitations for our school gala, sitting around the dining room table at a neighbor’s home with half a dozen women, the usual corps of volunteers. A few were friends, a few others I met there. My job…
Teaching runs in my family. After several decades in corrections, my father returned to grad school to earn his Master’s degree and now teaches theme-based writing to college freshman. My mother, in addition to teaching me many important things about life in general, spent several years as a CCD instructor. (Despite years of attending CCD classes on Saturday mornings, I still don’t know what “CCD” stands for.) My brother currently…
Last week, I got a Houdini action figure for my birthday. He came complete with handcuffs, leg irons, rope, a straightjacket, and a chair to which to bind him. I’ve been having entirely too much fun tying him up in various poses on my desk. Escapology fascinates me to no end – in fact, a character in the book I’m working on now is a young aspiring magician and escape…
If you walk into my house you can usually tell if I’m deeply involved in working on a book. Once I’m sucked in, everything around me goes to hell. The dishes sit undone in the sink. Laundry piles up. Toys left on the floor tend to stay there. Taped to the walls are huge sheets of newsprint covered in story boards, chapter outlines and various other novel-related brainstorming. Coffee and…
