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.

Summer Blogging

Blogging in the summer is hard. I’m not sure why exactly. I used to think it was because I was always busy in the summer. But so far this summer I’ve not been run-around-in-a-panic, million-things-to-do busy. True, I’ve been editing-multiple-hours-per-day busy, but that is different. Somehow the more laid back, kids-at-home-all-day vibe of summer is [...]

New Projects and Old Fatigue

Last night three ideas, which I have had kicking around in my head for years, stood up and told that they belong together. Obviously. Sure enough they fit together quite beautifully. So now I have the setting, characters, and themes for a book. I can’t start writing it yet, because the book has the barest [...]

Musing upon Someday

Yesterday I was in the middle of the second hour of my writing time (with one more hour before I would let myself call it quits for the day), when I laughed out loud at what I was reading. My current writing project is a final tweak-things-into-place revision of Stepping Stones before I submit the [...]

Facing My Manuscript Yet Again

Once again I discover why the “Don’t argue with a critique” rule is so important. I got two critiques back on my book in the past week. One of them prompted a strong “you just don’t get what I am trying to do!” response in me. I also felt a bit discouraged about the project [...]

New Things I am Learning

1. How to research and query agents. I’m starting by asking my friends about their agents, once I’ve dried up that source of information I’ll resort to the internet. 2. How to set up our online store for a pre-order. This is one of those things which I expected to learn once, but instead I [...]

Snippets from the Weekend

Our friend Mike got baptized yesterday morning. It was one of many decisions he has made to change his life from drifting and unhappy, into focused and goal-oriented. Mike has taken control of his life and is choosing who he wants to be. The fact that he picked our church brings us joy, but even [...]

When Critiques Wound

I tell the following story in support of Amy Sundberg’s post “You’re Not a Weenie if a Critique Makes You Cry” because I have cried at critiques, and what I did afterward is the reason it didn’t make me a weenie. I was invited to join a writer’s group during the summer of 2007. I [...]

Introducing Myself

I’m still working on figuring out how best to introduce myself to new people here. The focus of who I am shifts depending upon the social circumstances of the introduction. So far I’ve been introduced as a fiction writer, a blogger, Howard’s wife, the manager of Schlock Mercenary, one of Mary’s alpha readers, and as [...]

Facing Blogging Fears or Joining Amy Sundberg’s Backbone Project

One of the hard parts about making a living in the publishing industry is our complete dependence upon the goodwill of people we’ve never met in person. Most of the time our interactions with fans bring us joy. Other times are hard. Whether the words arrive as an email or a blog comment, my stomach [...]

What Works in Blogging

In one of my online writing forums I have been following a discussion about what works and does not work in blogging. I found it fascinating that as the discussion developed everyone assumed “working” to mean “attracting traffic.” It is a valid discussion to have. In fact it is a critical discussion for a fiction [...]