A cobble by itself is just a small stone, but when many of them lay together they create a path . My life is made up of many discrete parts. I have to find ways to fit them all into place so that I can continue to journey where I desire to go. This blog records some of the cobbles that create my path.

The Pounding has Begun

The house is filled with the sounds of pounding. Kiki and Link are deconstructing the shelves in the pantry which is destined to become part of my office. The shelves were made of chip board and 2x4s, so at first we were a bit daunted. Once I gave them permission to destroy the chip board [...]

In Which My Thoughts Wander from Parenting, to Accomplishment, and End at The Weather

My pause when staring at the empty blog post box is not for lack of thoughts. I have too many of them, but they are all fragments and pieces which are not gelling of their own accord. I like it when ideas click together instead of me having to pull meaning from them. Tonight I’m [...]

Blog posts I’m not going to write today, but may at a future point write

1. Details of my realization that the week after shipping week is often family member melt-down week. I was the star on Monday. Tuesday featured Gleek and Patch. Today approached normal, but I’m still playing catch-up with accounting, house cleaning, and homework. 2. A great big thank you post to all the people who helped [...]

Stringing Together Some Disconnected Thoughts

5:37 pm. I should really be cooking dinner right now instead of staring at the “new post” box and pondering what to blog. The trouble is that I didn’t blog yesterday or the day before and so I have an accumulation of half-formed blog thoughts. None of them are clicking together in attractive ways. So [...]

Finding places to query

The process looks something like this: See a book on my child’s desk at Parent Teacher conferences. Realize that the book cover and title seems very like the type of book I’ve written. Carefully scribble down title and author when teacher thinks I am writing notes about the conference. When at home, look up the [...]

Making River Song’s Journal

The new iteration of Doctor Who is by turns silly, clunky, brilliant, heart-breaking, and delightful. I watch every episode. I like the essential hopefulness and joyfulness of it. There are piece of the stories which stay with me even after I walk away from the screen, like the story between the Doctor and River Song. [...]

Querying Through the Fog

I’ve been sending out Queries on Stepping Stones for several months now. I haven’t sent all that many. Sorting through online information about literary agents to find one who might be interested is both time consuming and emotionally exhausting. Once I do find one, I then have to adjust and personalize my query letter for [...]

I Fear the Day When Internet Drama Lands in My Lap

Most days I come to my office and quietly browse through my regular rounds of internet stops. I check email. I post to twitter or Google+. Often I write a blog entry. I’ve built a nice little space on the internet which I inhabit and from which I can venture and sample the other things [...]

The Final Essays

I had four essays left to revise. These were the ones I skipped over when I was doing my beginning-to-end revision of the whole book. I skipped them because they were hard and my brain just couldn’t figure out the right way to wrap the words around what I meant. In one case I wasn’t [...]

Moving Onward after a Quick Turn-Around Rejection

“I’m afraid this isn’t a match for me, but thank you for the look. I appreciate it.” Said the answering email a mere four hours after I’d sent of the query with a quiet prayer to accompany it. I’d sent it off knowing I was unlikely to hear anything back for months. I was glad [...]