One Cobble at a Time

Something So Small Shouldn’t Require Courage

Strange that the simple click of a button takes fifteen minutes to accomplish. I’d already gone through all the steps to select a flight, debating about convenience and cost, arguing with myself about whether I should go at all. It is a luxury to be able to go. I know this. The writing retreat will [...]

Mixed Reviews on a Class About Blogging

The room was not empty. I was quite grateful for this, as that had been my first fear. LDS Storymakers is primarily a conference for the writers of fiction and I did not know if a presentation on blogging would draw an audience, particularly since I made as clear as possible in the panel description [...]

LDS Storymakers Presentations

This morning I’m headed down to the Marriott Hotel in Provo to teach at the LDS Storymakers conference. If you’re planning to be there too, I hope you’ll find me and say hello. My first presentation will be one that I gave last February at LTUE. Structuring Life to Make Room for Creativity. If you [...]

My Cobble Stones Books

I just dropped the files off at the printer. Cobble Stones 2012 is temporarily out of my hands. In a few weeks I’ll need to put it in the store, open ordering, and begin the promotional push. I’ll also be re-introducing Cobble Stones 2011, which really didn’t get a proper launch of its own. Instead [...]

Snapshots of the Tayler Household Today

I sat on the couch next to Kiki, her legs draped across my lap as she told me about her friends. Kiki loves them and worries for them, but is not sure how to help them as they struggle. I listened to Kiki and tried to give her good advice, but mostly just to listen [...]

Structuring Life to Make Room for Creativity

This blog post is a write-up from my presentation notes. I’ve given this presentation at LTUE. I’ll be giving it again at LDS Storymakers in May. As I wrote this from my notes, I noticed a major difference in the flow of a presentation and of a blog post. Speaking to a group is more [...]

The Value of Ordinary Stories

I’ve been sending out queries for Stepping Stones, my memoir/essay book where I tell the stories having to do with my transformation into a working mother, the onset of anxiety as an issue in my life, and parenting four children while managing these other things. In response to those queries I’ve been getting a lot [...]

An Evening of Discussing Blogging at the Orem Library

Funny how I can attend a great event where people had good questions, where my co-panelist was excellent, where I sometimes had exactly the right words to say, and yet on the drive home the critic crawls out of the back of my brain to attempt to convince me that I did a horrible job [...]

Thoughts on Writing and Being Careful

I read a piece on how to write courageous memoir and came away understanding why my book of essays is never likely to sell. Memoir needs to pull no punches. To succeed at memoir, one has to be willing to offend relatives and friends. All those things which are politely not said need to be [...]

Adventures in Social Media

I want to fund a picture book, The Strength of Wild Horses, and the obvious choice for that is to run a Kickstarter drive. However those who are wise in the ways of Kickstarter have advised me that the project has a better chance to fund if I do some community building first. This makes [...]