Category: Life

Spring 2024 Author Update: Writing, Publishing, and More!

It’s been way too long since I last posted anything here. Since late December, to be exact. Even longer since I posted any kind of an author update. Sorry about that.

Trust me, though, it’s not because I’ve been sitting on my butt eating chips and watching Netflix (okay, I’ve done a bit of that) or trying to become a TikTok sensation (Gods no, I don’t even have an account). Truth is, I’ve been deep in the trenches of personal creativity and professional commitment these last two months. Between the endless whirlwind of teaching that never seems to slow down and my attempts at–you know–writing, there’s been little time for much else. But it’s been good, and I have things to share. Spring 2024 Author Update

Getting Back into Gear with My Creative Writing

While December is my “rest and recover” month following my fall trimester of teaching, January is the month when I get back into my creative writing by diving headfirst into the Codex Writers‘ annual winter Flash Fiction Challenge. Holy wow, did it kick my ass back into gear. Four new pieces of flash fiction later, and I’m feeling like I’ve been through a literary boot camp. I won’t lie; I’m not exactly throwing a parade for the stories I churned out, but damn, it felt good to shake off the cobwebs and get those creative juices flowing again. After a three-month hiatus from writing, finding my way back to my keyboard always feels like trying to start a car in the dead of winter—frustrating, but oh-so-satisfying when it finally roars to life.

2023 Continues to Bear Authorial Fruit Spring 2024 Author Update

I have jaw-dropping news—at least, it made my jaw drop. My short story, “A Wielder Does Not Know Regret,” was chosen for the Metaphorosis Magazine Best of 2023 Anthology. Can you believe it?! My first professionally published story, picked to be in a “Best of” anthology! I’ve always had a soft spot for this story, even though it’s a bit out there. Getting this nod has been a huge confidence booster for me, squashing those nagging doubts that I’m a hack and reaffirming my identity as a competent author. I bought three copies of the anthology, because this definitely feels like a milestone moment in my writing career. One copy, I gave to my parents (which my mom loved and my dad… well, I think my creative writing adventures confuse and irritate my dad, to be honest). Another, I donated to my school’s library. The third copy is mine. Just for me. To put on my bookshelf and look at and think, “Hell, yeah, I did that!”

Then, just when I thought things couldn’t get any more amazing, my flash story “Between the Mountain and the Sea” landed a spot in the Metastellar Best of 2023 Anthology! The publication date for that anthology hasn’t been released yet, but still. Two of my stories making it into “Best of” anthologies in the same year? It feels kind of surreal.

First Story Sale of 2024

2024 is off to a great start. My story, “A Pharaoh’s Curse to End the War,” found a home in issue 19 of Unnerving Magazine! After what felt like an eternity of revisions and rejections, I was giving serious consideration to shelving this one. It’s a campy horror story about zombies on a plane (sort of) and these days most magazines have negative interest in zombie stories. But just when I was ready to give up on it, Unnerving’s editor Eddie Generous decided to give my splattery tale a chance. The story dropped on March 13th, 2024, and with a killer graphic to boot. I’m delighted. Horror is what drew me to writing in the first place, so this feels like a major goal accomplished. You should go read it. It’s free!! Spring 2024 Author Update

Current Writing Projects

As for what I’m up to now? Well, I’m elbow-deep in revisions for another horror story that’s been stubbornly resisting publication as a flash piece. I’ve got a hunch it needs more room to breathe, so I’m ditching the flash format and expanding it into something meatier. Whether I’m actually improving it or just muddling it further, only time will tell. Meanwhile, I’m also working on a sequel to “The Portal in Andrea’s Dryer,” featuring more ridiculous adventures with my favorite quartet of gal-pals. Think precognition, parental anxiety, and some dubious dairy products. It’s shaping up to be a fun piece. You should go read the first one.

So, that’s the scoop from my corner of the universe. What have you all been up to? Any personal victories, minor or major, that you’re itching to share? Let’s celebrate our triumphs and face our challenges together, shall we?

Until next time, keep chasing those dreams, no matter how elusive they may seem. Cheers to writing, to creating, and to living this beautifully chaotic life.

March 15, 2024
Author Update: Joining the SFWA and Balancing Life as Writer and Teacher

Sharing a quick update (just kidding, this is definitely TL;DR) on what I’ve been up to this past month or so with regard to writing, teaching, fitness, and other stuff.(SFWA Writing Teaching Boskone)

I Joined the SFWA! (SFWA Writing Teaching Boskone)

I decided to apply for an associates level membership in the SFWA a couple of weeks ago. It’s a little pricey for me ($100) but ever since I discovered that the SFWA existed and saw the credential in the bios of a few SF authors I was reading in SF&F and Asimovs and Analog, etc. way back in the early aughts, I’ve wanted to be able to list it next to my own name. So silly, I know. Completely childish. “So and so is in the SFWA! Some day I’m gonna be in that organization, too!”

Whatever. Childish or not, it was a perceived goalpost of success that I wanted to reach. So, a few weeks ago, when I realized I’d finally sold enough work to qualify, I went for it. I mean, why not? My $100 supports an organization that I think is doing good work, so if nothing else I can feel good about that. They got back to me pretty quickly, too. I’m in!

I do feel a little thrill of satisfaction now that I can go into all my bios and social media profiles and add “Member SFWA” to them. If I never get another story published again, at least I can say that in 2023, I was successful enough at writing to earn myself an associates membership in the SFWA.

(SFWA Writing Teaching Boskone)

Teaching Continues to Challenge… (SFWA Writing Teaching Boskone)

Teaching is taking up way too much of my life this year. On top of my two regular science courses, I inherited a couple of trimester elective science classes from a teacher who was let go last year (for reasons I won’t dwell on other than to say it was a poorly handled situation on all sides). The teacher in question left a TON of materials in a highly disorganized state. So while there’s a ton of resources for me to utilize for these two courses, I am essentially rebuilding both courses from the ground up.

It’s incredibly time consuming and draining, and it’s all I can do to stay a few days ahead of my students. I’ve had nothing left in the tank when I get home for anything other than shoveling food into my face (thank Thor for a supportive spouse who cooks meals), collapsing onto the couch to zone out for an hour or so while I periodically check my watch and wonder, “Is is late enough that I can go to bed without feeling guilty about it yet? 7:48pm? Nope, not yet. Let’s try to make it until 8:30pm.”

But… though I’m still mired in developing a T2 course while I’m also teaching it (a sucky situation), my fall coaching duties have ended and my winter afternoon responsibilities are much lighter. A couple of afternoons each week I run the scoreboard for JV basketball games. Piece of cake. That’s given me back several more hours in my day, and those few extra hours make all the difference! I have energy again! I can think about creative writing again! Heck, I might even have time to start working out again!(SFWA Writing Teaching Boskone)

Getting Back into a Fitness Routine (SFWA Writing Teaching Boskone)

Fitness… ugh. I am currently in an unfit, detrained state. Two years ago, I tore my shoulder labrum. Hurt like a son of a bitch when it happened. Took me a year to get it officially diagnosed. Turns out labrum tears don’t heal and surgeries to repair them have a 50% success rate. Not being a young person with ambitions of a college or pro- sports career, I opted NOT to undergo the highly invasive surgery. Instead, I opted for a couple of dry needling sessions to release the muscles that had semi-permanently tensed up around the injury. Hot damn, did that work! I was astonished. And then I got the bill. Oof.

Now, a year later my shoulder is starting to hurt again. My PT told me the effects of dry needling would wear off over time and that I’d probably need another session, but I’m struggling to justify dropping the fat wad of cash to get it done again. I suppose when it gets bad enough that I get trapped trying to take a sweatshirt off (which it what precipitated me finally getting my shoulder checked in the first place), I’ll suck it up and pay the money to make myself functional again. Until then, I’ll just stick to lower body stuff as I start working out again, which I finally have time to do!(SFWA Writing Teaching Boskone)

Looking Forward to Boskone in February (SFWA Writing Teaching Boskone)

Okay, last thing. I’ve started thinking about and getting excited for Boskone. I love this con a lot. There’s a whole bunch of nostalgia tied up in it for me. It was the very first convention I ever attended, back when I was a starry-eyed grad student dreaming of authorial fame and fortune. I don’t dream of authorial fame and fortune anymore (which actually feels kind of good. These days, I’m writing and submitting my stories just for the fun of it). Anyway, Boskone was my first con, and for that reason it holds a special place in my heart. I even buy new “con” clothes each year. Well, article of clothing, singular; let’s not be ridiculous. Still, Boskone is a special event for me, so I like to “dress up” for it. My spouse ribs me about this, but whatever.

This year, my plan is to commute via train in and out of the city on Friday night to try and save some money, but I reserved a hotel room for Saturday night because I had such a fun time hanging with con friends last year that I don’t want to have to cut my Saturday night short again this year to catch a train home. Of course, I’m making those plans assuming the same folks are attending again this year and that they will want to get together to socialize and catch up again. Fingers crossed that turns out to be true. (SFWA Writing Teaching Boskone)

So, that’s my update. What’s everyone else up to these days? Will I be seeing you at Boskone this year? Let me know in the comments.

Thanks for stopping by and as always, happy writing to you!

December 17, 2023
Fall 2023 Writing Update: More Publishing Success and Some Winter Fun

It’s been a minute since I last posted, so I figured it was time for a quick fall 2023 writing update. This has been a whirlwind year of publishing progress and milestone moments.

My Clarion West Fundraising Efforts

My fundraising efforts for Clarion West were partly successful. Though I didn’t meet my $1,000 target, I did raise over $500 for them – a feat for which I’m pretty damned proud. The whole experience was fantastic. I learned a lot, had fun, did a ton of writing, and helped out a very worthy cause. I definitely plan to do it again next summer.

Published Stories and My SFWA Mentorship

Excitingly, my flash fiction piece, “The Colony Ship’s Companion,” found its way into Radon Journal, and “The Portal in Andrea’s Dryer” graced the pages of Uncharted Magazine. That brings my total number of stories published in pro- or semi-pro magazines up to four (all four of which came in 2023).

My summer mentorship through SFWA under Julia Rios‘ guidance wrapped up in early September. The experience was phenomenal. Truly transformative. Julia helped me SO much as I worked to flesh out the middle-grade steampunk novel I’ve been noodling about with since 2017.

The Cycle of Balancing Teaching and Creative Writing Continues

There are definitely some seasonal cycles at work in my life. For example, fall is a four month season of teaching, coaching, and family commitments. As such, September requires I pause in my creative writing endeavors. The months between August and December require head-down determination and a focus exclusively on lesson planning, grading, and (this year) volleyball. Interestingly, seeing two of my stories in print during my no-room-for-writing fall season has acted as a creative beacon for me. It reminded me that the exact same thing happened last year. I had to put my personal interests down for several months. Yet despite that fallow period, I ended up with four new short stories written and published. As a result, I’m feeling slightly less burnt out than I usually do at this time each year. Perhaps a few months away from writing every autumn is a good thing.

Upcoming Writing Events and Engagements

As November wraps up and December approaches, my excitement to get back to my creative endeavors is growing. The Codex Writers’ “Weekend Warrior” flash fiction challenge will be starting up in about a month. It was through that challenge last year that I generated all four of my published stories for 2023.

I’m also looking forward to taking part in Boskone – a highlight in the science fiction and fantasy convention scene. That convention is such a shot in the arm for me as a writer. It always recharges my creative energy. I’ve attended as a fan, and as a volunteer, but this year I’m hoping to step into the role of a program participant. With some actual publications under my belt, I think I can do it without feeling like a complete and utter fraud.

What Have You Been Up To?

Now that you’re caught up with what I’ve been up to, I’d love to hear how all of you have been faring. What’s your Fall 2023 Writing Update? Have you found time for writing amidst life’s demands? If so, what have you been working on? Share your accomplishments and triumphs in the comments section so we can celebrate our collective journeys together.

Until next time, keep writing, keep dreaming.

November 19, 2023
Author Update: Milestone Moments (Part 1)

In the months since I last posted an update, I’ve experienced a few milestone moments and thought I’d share. Some have been related to general life stuff, but some are exciting and relate to writing. Both merit some words. This is part one of my milestone moments update. I’ll get you caught up on the exciting writing-related stuff in part 2.

General Life Milestone: This is the Year I Get Readers

According to my eyes, I’m officially becoming Sophia Petrillo from the Golden Girls. Or, my 8th grade math teacher, who–come to think of it–looked a lot like Sophia Petrillo.

First, Let’s Back Up a Bit, to 1992

Since middle school I’ve been nearsighted with astigmatism. I actually remember the day I found out I needed glasses. It happened during 8th grade math. It was it’s own milestone moment. The school nurse was doing the hearing and vision tests, calling kids out of their classes in small batches. You know, I’m sure. You probably remember it yourself.

So, I was in math class with totally normal vision, following along with what the teacher was writing on the chalkboard. The nurse called me down to get tested. I ran through the vision test and she told me I needed glasses.

Uh, no I don’t, I thought. My eyes are fine. You don’t know what you’re talking about, Lady.

But when I got back to math class, I could no longer read what the teacher was writing on the chalkboard without squinting. I was horrified and furious. Clearly, the school nurse had cursed me because my eyes were fine until she told me they weren’t. That’s how I remember it, anyway, and we all know how trustworthy memories are. Take it with a grain of salt. Anyway…

Jump to 2020

Me looking happy in my glasses, mask free.

I switched from wearing glasses to wearing contacts when we all masked up. As a teacher, the mask combined with teaching/talking equaled breath-fog clouding up my glasses all day. So, contacts.

Had my eyes dilated when I was fitted for contacts

They worked great, until…

Fall of 2022

I found myself squinting to read the text on my computer screen. The font seemed ridiculously tiny and out of focus. Leaning in closer to the screen almost helped, but it was still a struggle to read the screen. By the end of the day my eyes were literally tired. I’d never experienced that sensation before. Tired eyes. Huh. Who knew it was actually a thing and not just a turn of phrase.

Hoping the issue would resolve itself, I switched back to glasses to “wait out” the strange phenomenon. At first, everything was fine again. All I needed to do was take my glasses off and then I could read the screen no problem… Well, the text still seemed smaller than I remembered it being. But if I zoomed everything in to 125%, I could read stuff no problem with my glasses off.

Winter of 2022

At some point in December, however, I came to the startling realization that I’d fallen into the habit of not only taking my glasses off but also leaning in ridiculously close to whatever screen I was trying to read.

Have you ever seen an “old” person with their glasses hanging off the tip of their nose, their chin dipped to their chest, phone screen three inches away from their face as they tried to read the tiny print with their “old” eyes? If you have, I bet you’ve had the same thought I did. I am never going to let myself do that. Joke’s on me. I’d been doing it for months and not noticing.

Odin help me, I thought. Do I need reading glasses?

Turns out, yes.I do. Because I’m old. Which is fine. What’s not fine is how flipping expensive it will be to get bifocals. (Which have been rebranded, apparently? They’re called “transition” lenses now. Because that sounds less “old” than bifocals, I guess.)

My question is this: Why does insurance in this country cover the cost of finding out you need glasses to see clearly, but then you’re on your own if you want to actually buy said glasses? Who decided that clear vision is nonessential for good health? If I buy a new pair of glasses (frames and lenses) from my optometrist’s office, it will cost me almost $1000 dollars! If I use an online service or go to a Target or Walmart place, I can likely cut that down to $500, but still. What the heck! I cannot afford to pay $500+ dollars to see clearly.

And so, for the past several months, I’ve been living with my glasses dangling off the tip of my nose while I hold my phone three inches from my face to read my text messages and AP News articles.

Spring of 2023

My beloved partner-in-crime recently suggested I swing by Walgreens and pick up a set of readers from the spinny rack next to the pharmacy counter.

“Great idea,” I said sarcastically. “How about I pick up a couple of dangly neck straps, too, so I can look just like my 8th grade math teacher.”

A pair of readers hung around her neck on a bejeweled strap while she wore a pair of distance glasses. Each time she turned back to the chalkboard to write something, she’d switch between them. When she turned back to the room, she switched again. Just like her, I’m sure I’ll be switching back and forth between sets all day, so like her I’ll need not one but two dangly glasses straps. And just like 14-year-old me thought my math teacher looked ridiculous with her two pairs of glasses, I’m sure my 14-year-old students will think I look utterly ridiculous, too. What goes around, comes around.

Actually, there’s an oddly comforting symmetry to this year’s milestone moment. A cycle of some kind is completing itself. It feels karmic and proper, if inconvenient. I’m getting old. My eyesight is failing me. I can’t afford a proper pair of bifocals, so…

This is the year I get readers.

Which is good. I need them. I’ve been spending a lot of time at my computer this year, writing. And, if this year is any indication, I’ll be spending a lot more time at my computer moving forward, too. Exciting things are finally starting to happen. I’ll tell you more about them in my next post.

Thanks for stopping by, and as always, happy writing!

May 21, 2023
The Biggest Pitfall for Aspiring Authors

It’s the first Wednesday of the month, and you know what that means. It’s #IWSG Day! The question this month is…

What pitfalls have you encountered on your journey to publication that you can share with others?

Well, uh… hmm. I don’t actually know of many pitfalls from direct personal experience. To date, I only have two minimal publishing credits to my name. This post, therefore, will focus on the one that I feel is the biggest and most fatal pitfall facing all of us creative folks: the pitfall of giving up.

But first, allow me to drop a plug for the Insecure Writers Support Group. The IWSG, founded by the esteemed Alex J. Cavanaugh, is an online space where writers (insecure and otherwise) can come together to share stories, successes, struggles, and all the rest of it. The website is chock-o-block full of great stuff. There’s a Twitter Pitch (just happened in July), contests, books, swag, conferences, and more. Be sure to jump over there and check them out!

The awesome co-hosts for the August 1 posting of the IWSG are Erika Beebe, Sandra Hoover, Susan Gourley, and Lee Lowery!

Okay, back to this month’s topic: pitfalls to void.

A Lesson from Stephen King!

Back in my early 20’s, right around the time I got married, I bought a copy of Stephen King’s semi-autobiographical craft book On Writing. In it, King shared his youthful adventures in writing an submitting short stories with blind optimism to the magazines he loved to read: Analog, Asimov’s, Amazing Stories, etc. He started submitting in his early teens. As you can imagine, he got a lot of rejection letters.

King did something great, though, in turning the submission/rejection thing into a game. Upon receiving his first rejection letter–a form letter–, he drove a nail into the wall of his bedroom and impaled the letter upon it. How quickly could King accumulate enough rejection letters to overwhelm that nail? Understand, please, that King didn’t compromise the quality of the stories he wrote and submitted in an attempt to grow the stack with artificial speed. That would have been cheating. His primary goal was always to write the best story he could and get it published. He merely created a synergistic secondary goal that he could work towards when he wasn’t making progress toward his primary goal.

The important lesson I took from reading his book was that it’s possible to find ways of turning failures into successes. There are ways to immunize ourselves against the discouraging sting that comes with rejection. A sting that all too often ends up crippling creative individuals and ending their careers before they begin.

Playing the Game

Upon finishing his book, I decided it might be fun to try my hand at King’s game. I’d been writing stories all my life and harbored secret fantasies of becoming a successful author. But that required sticking my vulnerable neck out and submitting the stuff I wrote. The “Rejection Game,” as I called it, gave me permission to expose myself to the volley of rejections I knew would ensue.

Over the course of the next year, I researched and submitted to close to fifty magazines. This was in the very early days of the internet, so most venues still required print submissions sent via snail mail with self-address-stamped return envelopes for letters of acceptance/rejection. Of those fifty submissions, I received 48 rejection letters. Two magazines took a story from me. Tiny publications that paid out in single contributor copies, but still, two out of fifty. I was pleased.

Confession: I miss getting rejection letters in the mail. Even a form letter felt a tiny bit nifty when presented in a physical envelope that arrives in your mailbox. A digital email just doesn’t carry the same special weight.

Watch Out for That Pitfall. It’s a Doozy.

If only I’d kept at it! Remember, this was happening the year after I got married. And changed my job. And got pregnant with my first child. Guess who stopped writing and submitting stories? Yeah, me.

Thirteen years would pass before I sent out another story on submission. What can I say? Life got busy. I got distracted. Not an excuse, just my reality. I didn’t give up intentionally. Many folks probably wade into the pitfall of giving up slowly, day by day. So many things can fill up our lives that we can feel as though we’re drowning in quicksand. I was certainly feeling that way last October when I wrote my post, “Life, Will You Just Chill Out Already?”

Lots of people never figure out how to strike a balance between their writing goals and life obligations, or maybe they fail to immunize themselves against the sting of having their creative work turned down over and over again. That didn’t happen to me, but I’ve witnessed it happen to other writers. Without some way to turn each “no” into a positive, the weight of all those “thanks, but no thanks” can accumulate until it’s crushing your soul. And Odin knows, it’s the easiest thing in the world to set that weight aside and do something else.

Mr. Reynolds, an incredible writer and mentor in our program

On my way out the door of my MFA program at Lesley University, I was reminded of the lesson I’d gleaned a decade and a half ago from Mr. King’s book. If you want to succeed, you must keep writing, keep submitting, keep querying. Young Adult author Jason Reynolds told me and a small classroom of other impending graduates that the difference between those that make it in the publishing industry and those that don’t is persistence. The authors who find success are the ones who don’t give up. They kept playing their very own “Rejection Game” until something stuck. Talent helps, but even the most talented writer in the world can fall into the pitfall of giving up.

Lessons from Vigo Mortensen

Have you ever seen the movie G.I. Jane with Demi Moore and Viggo Mortensen? I love that movie. Whatever. Don’t judge me. I’m not judging all the fans who love 300. It’s all love here!

Anyway, there’s a scene in that film where the cadets are doing push-up’s and leg lifts and other generally awful forms of exhausting exercises in the ocean. They’re right in the middle of the breaker zone, icy waves crashing down over them again and again. It’s been hours. They’re soaked, sand-blasted, shaking with fatigue and the early stages of hypothermia. And the Master Chief (Viggo) is walking up and down the line shouting all kinds of philosophical musings at them. This is the moment when he delivers a few lines that resonated to my core.

“Pain is your friend, your ally. It will tell you when you are seriously injured. It will keep you awake, and angry, and remind you to finish the job and get the hell home. But you know the best thing about pain? It lets you know you’re not dead yet.”

Viggo’s basically telling his cadets to embrace their pain and frustration and exhaustion because it means they haven’t given up. Stephen King and Jason Reynolds were preaching less intense variants of the same philosophy.

As creative folks, rejection hurts. Of course it does, but that sting you feel means you’re still playing the game, you haven’t quit, you’re not dead yet. So there you have it. Giving up is the first and biggest pitfall you can fall into on your way to getting published.

Don’t give up.

Find a way to turn the rejections into positives. Make the pain be your friend. Keep writing, or painting, or sculpting, or composing, or whatever it is that you make. In this world that is becoming more and more obsessed with consumption, we need folks who engage in glorious acts of creation.

What’s your strategy for staying resilient and skirting the pitfall of quitting? Help the rest of us out by sharing in the comments!

Thanks for stopping by, and as always, happy writing to you.

August 1, 2018
Refilling the Creative Well – A Must for All Artists

If you hadn’t yet realized, I’m a big fan of Julie Cameron’s book (and 12-week, self-guided course) The Artist’s Way. I took it as an interdisciplinary course my first semester in Lesley University’s MFA in Creative Writing program. It changed the way I thought about myself, about my creativity, and about the creative life in general. And one of the biggest lessons I learned in taking the class was this: creative individuals need to nurture their creative spirit by “refilling the creative well.”

The Act of Creation is Tiring

It is a common misconception among non-creatives and casual creatives that artists don’t “work” at what they do. From an outsider’s perspective, creation looks like play, and to some degree it is, but it is anything but casual play. It is active, and focused, and intentional, and draining.

That last point is essential to understand. Tapping into your creative mind is tiring, though many of us don’t notice that we’re fatiguing until we’re lying face down like a stick of butter that’s been left out on the counter in August. Letting ourselves reach that point is damaging and dangerous and difficult to recover from, so how we avoid it?

Try scheduling activities into your life that will nurture your creative spirit. Not use it, mind you. These are moments in which, as an artist, you receive rather than produce. Julie Cameron calls them “artist dates.” She advocates one per week. I agree, though I fall far from accomplishing that once-a-week schedule myself.

An artist date is anything that lets you to take in and enjoy the external world. Go out to eat at a nice restaurant. Go for a walk in the woods. Visit the beach. See an art installation at a local museum. Attend a concert. These should be private moments when you can be alone. For me, that’s difficult because my beloved is a visual artist. We tend to bundle our artist dates, which is fine but not ideal. Doing anything with anyone else necessarily involves moments of compromise, small or large. Artist dates are supposed to be 100% about you, so my co-dates aren’t ideal, but they’re certainly better than nothing.

Investing in Yourself as an Artist

The purpose of giving yourself an Artist Date is to “refill your creative well.”

Whether you’re a composer, a painter, a poet, or a novelist the act of creation uses energy. Literally. It also uses neurotransmitters. If you’re continually working on your art, you’re activating and reactivating the same neural networks in your brain again and again. The cells of those neural networks talk to each other via chemicals that are manufactured at night while you sleep. Over time, you can deplete your store of neurotransmitter by using them faster than you can make them.

That’s the fatigue that sets it. The lethargy, the creative block, the depression, the doubt. You’ve been working so hard creating beautiful art that you’ve exhausted the parts of your brain involved in the process. Athletes know this as “overtraining.” They avoid it by building “off days” into their training programs. Creative folks would be wise to follow suit.

I’m a writer, but I love the visual arts. Photographs, sculpture, painting. When I feel like my creative energies are waning, I hit up the Boston Museum of Fine Art or look for a local photography exhibit to attend. It gives me a chance to witness, take in, and be emotionally touched by what others have created without activating the pathways I use when I’m writing. Ideas enter from the outside world, not from the inside world. They get in there, bounce around in my subconscious, and mingle with my own ideas like colors swirling on the surface of a bubble.

The creative well begins to fill once more. When I’m ready to sit back down and start producing again, all kinds of new and exciting things might emerge from having experienced the products of other artists’ creative acts.

Art Festivals are Your Friend

When is the last time you attended a local art festival? Summer is upon us, folks. It’s the high season for art associations to exhibit their members’ works. I can’t recommend them enough as a place to go to be recharged and reinvigorated as a creative spirit.

This past weekend, my beloved and I walked into downtown Salem and got to see some fabulous art at the Salem Artist Festival. We also listened to talented musicians perform and sparkling dancers dance. The square crackled with creative energy and positivity. I soaked it up like a sponge and found myself breathing deeper and smiling more widely on the walk home. Life was, is, good. My creative well is brimming. Check out the photos I took along the way, and if you’re local try to get down there this weekend and check it out. You won’t be disappointed.

On my walk into town

Sometimes Salem reminds me of Copenhagen

Themes of mortality displayed in a gallery I passed by.

Arrived at the Old Town Hall, site of the art show

A great turnout at the artist reception and show

This wall was all oceanic, including the epic paper sea dragon!

Best artistic representation of cows I’ve ever seen

Look at the marvelous synergy between these two pieces

Hauntingly beautiful

Cycles of the feminine creative spirit captured in a repurposed clock

Mixed media painting of a paper mill. Note the paper mixed into the paint.

Outdoor dancing in the square

These women were amazing performers!

Festivities continued into the evening with live music.

Lovely evening shot of the harbor on my walk home.

When’s the last time you did anything to refill your creative well? What did you do? How did you feel afterward?

Thanks for stopping by, and happy writing to you!

June 4, 2018
Surviving the Creative Wilderness—Attitude is Everything

How Not to Die in The Woods

I own a book called “Tom Brown’s Field Guide to Wilderness Survival.” It’s a great book. It doesn’t teach you how to read a map or use a compass. It doesn’t explain what gear is essential for an extended wilderness trek. It does explain how to keep yourself alive in the wilderness if you have absolutely nothing with you but the clothes on your back. And for creative folks navigating this life, isn’t that a great analogy for how we must exist? We’ve got nothing but the clothes on our back. Metaphorically only, I hope.

Tom Brown’s book is divided into four parts, arranged in order of importance from the perspective of not dying. Parts two, three, four, and five are (in this order): Shelter, Water, Fire, Food. If you stop and think about it, that order makes perfect sense. You could die of exposure in the first few hours without shelter from the elements. You could die in three days without water, give or take. You can go for a long time without food, but most of it will kill you if you don’t cook it first, so fire comes before food.

The first part of the book, and therefore the most important in terms of not dying when lost in the woods, is Attitude. It’s all about psychology. About the inner voice that gets louder and louder as things get tougher and tougher, whispering, stating, screaming that the situation is hopeless and we’re stupid, that we deserve to die out here. Tom Brown argues that most people who get lost in the wilderness and die do so because they give in to a creeping attitude of defeat.

Why, you might ask, am I writing about a wilderness survival guide? Because I’m a creative writer. I’m a creative person. I spend a lot of time wandering around in the wilderness of my psyche. And, like all creative artists, I find myself, from time to time, lost in those woods. Tom Brown is right. Whether the forest is real or psychological, attitude is the first and most important determiner of whether we’re going to make it out alive or not.

The Creative Life is a Hostile Wilderness

Between January 8^th and May 7^th, I wrote and revised 51,000+ words of a YA fantasy novel for my MFA thesis project at Lesley University. My goal was to finish an entire first draft of the novel by April. That, I’m sad to say, did not happen.

The writing process for grad school is interesting, especially during the thesis semester. Most students enter their final semester with a first draft of their thesis already written. They’ll spend four months revising it before submitting it. They’re traveling a well-worn path by that point.

I didn’t do that. I started from scratch. I took the road less traveled.

Let me tell you, the less-traveled path is not easy-going. It’s grown in and full of brambles and twisting roots to trip on. It’s hot and buggy, and most of it is uphill on a treacherous slope. There are many places where the trail just peters out and vanishes. And there’s quicksand. No one tells you about the quicksand!

My most excellent mentor!

For this final semester, I found myself wandering, slightly lost in the forest, losing the path and then stumbling upon it again. And as someone who does not plot well, I rarely knew in which direction I was traveling. But, I did manage to write 51,000+ words of a story that, with the help of my incredible mentor—Chris Lynch—was of graduate-level quality. I’d bushwhacked my way through some pretty dense, unforgiving territory.

I formatted everything according to spec, typed up the synopsis for the rest of the story as I imagined it, the path I thought lay before me, and I sent it off. I was out of the woods!

Losing the Way

And then I stopped writing.

Which wasn’t supposed to happen.

See, in my head, I’d have the rest of the novel written by June 1^st. It was going to be excellent. But, my brain was experiencing a level of fatigue I wasn’t prepared for. I just… couldn’t do it. Couldn’t even write a blog post. I looked around, and realized that I wasn’t out of the woods quite yet, as I’d thought.

A week went by. Okay, I thought, Time to get back to it.

Nope.

Two weeks. Surely, now. Two weeks must be enough time to recover from the mad dash I’d just been through, but no. In fact, something new had snuck into my brain to replace my mental exhaustion. As I stood looking around and what now seemed frighteningly unfamiliar territory, something snaked its coils around my chest and started to squeeze.

Fear.

Each time I thought about sitting down to work out the details of the next chapter of my story, my pulse quickened, and not with excitement. I started shying away from the story out of fear, though fear of what I didn’t know. Heck, I didn’t even know what was happening at the time, only that it had suddenly become very important that I not work on my writing. My writing was stalking me like some unseen creature in the underbrush.

As the days continued to slip by, a horrible pressing guilt settled on my shoulders. I should be writing, I chided myself, but I’m not. I’m failing. This is me, failing. I’m awful. I’m a loser. A joke. I’m never going to succeed at this because I’m supposed to be writing and I can’t even muster the simple will power needed to do touch my fingertips to a keyboard. It became a nasty feedback loop. Each day I didn’t sit down and write made it that much harder for me to get back to the chair, sit down, and write. I started hating myself. I stopped trying to get my bearings. I sat down on the cold, wet ground and started to let the ruinous forest of my blackest doubts leech from me my will to continue.

Odin help me, I was lost! Lost in a hostile forest, with the shadows of fear, doubt, and self-hate blinding me so that I couldn’t see a path forward, couldn’t even remember how I’d gotten there. I was becoming more and more certain that my journey was at an end. It was awful, and it felt inevitable.

The thing is, getting lost is a hazard of living a creative life. In some ways, getting lost really is inevitable, because the creative path is not well-travelled. I’d argue that if you’re doing things right as an artist, you’re blazing a new trail through the deepest, darkest woods of your own psyche. There are no paths here, children. Only shadows, and stones, and giant trees that might eat you if you get too close, and creatures too beautiful and terrible to look at directly. And, wait, haven’t I gotten snagged in this same bramble patch before? Oh, Thor! I’m going in circles! I’m lost, and it’s cold, and the sun’s getting low, the night creatures are coming, and I’ll never find my way out of this forest. Why did I think this was a good idea? I’m an idiot. I’m going to die in these woods, and no one will mourn my demise.

Countless talented artists wander into the creative forest with good intentions and never make it out again. They get lost, hit that moment of doubt and despair, give up, and die. Metaphorically.

For me, May has certainly felt like a slow death in a wild and inhospitable landscape.

Finding My Way Back

But then I received my feedback letter from my thesis reader—Jason Reynolds.

That’s him, the self-professed hater of fantasy stories. And the guy who got me moving again!

Quick back story. At the residency program back in January, Jason sat in a classroom with a bunch of us from the Writing for Young People concentration, and went off on a (gentle) tirade about how irritating he found the fantasy genre. Details are not important here. Suffice it to say, the man is not a fan. As he spoke, I sat with a polite smile cemented to my face and did my best not to freak out. You see, by that point, I already knew I was going to be writing a YA fantasy story for my thesis, and I’d already requested him as my thesis reader. A guy who hates fantasy is going to put final eyes on my fantasy thesis. Fantastic.

Anyway, four months later, I’m slipping into creative hypothermia, curling up in the fetal position, and making peace with my end, when I open his feedback letter and read it.

I was expecting lukewarm but professional feedback on my prose, my character development, my pacing, scene structure, etc. You can hate a story, after all, and still give constructive feedback on the writing, right? Lukewarm but professional feedback was not what I got.

For almost three weeks at that point, I’d been lost in the shadowy part of my self-made forest, under thick canopy, feeling the slow creep of horror setting in as I realized that the trees were endless and I was a hopeless, pathetic fool. Jason’s feedback was like discovering a high-powered flashlight in my back pocket, switching it on, and finding out that I’d been following a path the whole time without realizing it.

I can see again. Maybe I don’t have to die out here all alone in the cold, unforgiving forest of my mind. The book I’m writing is my destination once again. Chris Lynch had been my shelter. A few close writing-friends I’ve connected with through the program had been my water, my spouse is my fire, and all the fine books I’d been reading this semester have been my food.

So, with the help of Jason Reynold’s incredibly generous and encouraging words, I’m standing up, brushing the duff off my backside, and moving forward again. Sun’s up. The canopy is starting to thin out again, and I’m pretty sure this trail is not leading to pit trap filled with poison-tipped spikes. If it is, I know I can find a way to disarm it. I’ve shifted my attitude. I’m getting out of this alive.

Have you ever gotten lost in the darker parts of your creative forest? How long did you wander before finding your way out?

May 29, 2018
From the Heart of the Bombogenesis

Before I dive into what “living through a Bombogenic event” felt like, allow me to begin by saying that as of this morning I failed at one of my three New Year Resolutions. If you’re curious about which one that might be, keep reading and see if you can figure it out, or click the link to the post where I laid them out.

I’m not proud of my failure in resolve and will power this morning, but I do at least have an excuse that (to me) feels less like an excuse and more like an explanation. I and my family spent the day dealing with a Really Freaking Big Snow Storm. Not blizzard of ’78 big. I’m not making a boast that ridiculous. I get to call it Really Freaking Big because of how it pitched my life sideways and what that felt like.

How Do You Stay Warm in a House with No Insulation?

Our house was built in the 1950’s on land that was part of a government veterans program post WW2 in which veterans were sold land for $1.00/acre. The program was a “Hey, thanks for doing that dangerous, deadly, horribly traumatizing thing for not just your own country’s citizens but for everyone pretty much everywhere” gift from US taxpayers. That was awesome, but in the 1950’s, insulation just wasn’t… good.

Imagine insulating a house by laying a piece of cotton felt between the studs and joists and then gluing a piece of aluminum foil to it. That’s about what we’ve got. The result is, heat bleeds out of our house at a prodigious rate.

We usually deal with this inconvenience by keeping our thermostat set to 55˚F, except for first thing in the morning when we indulge in a toasty 63˚F while everyone’s getting ready for school and work. Not so, when the Bombogenesis struck.

The temperature over the past two weeks has been abysmally cold. This morning, I heard a news reporter crow like a rooster that Boston was officially colder than Bismarck, North Dakota. Also, at what point did “who’s colder” become a thing to compete over? Anyway, we’re talking a two week period where temps regularly dipped or flat out stayed in the single digits. If you’re someone who lives where that’s a regular occurrence and you’re scoffing, I’d ask you to pause for a moment. Weather that cold is not a typical thing on the eastern coast of Massachusetts. Many homes (mine included) weren’t architecturally designed for such conditions. Freezing and bursting pipes is a genuine threat. The easiest way to avoid that happening is to crank the heat in your home.

Our heat-leaking home has had its thermostat set to 65˚F night and day for the past seven days.

What To Do With All That Snow And Nowhere To Put It?

Yesterday, ten inches of snow fell on us. It may have been more or less than that, but the wind was blowing so hard that there are bare spots in some places and giant snow drifts in other places. Point is, a LOT of snow.

I and the kids got a snow day, which we were all pretty stoked about.

All of Thursday, we listened to the wind roar through the trees around our house and slam itself against our northern face. We stood at our picture window and watched it drive sheets of snow almost parallel to the ground, so thick there were moments when we lost sight of the neighbor’s house across the street.

We stayed inside and sipped cocoa. I did some writing. The kids spent way too much time playing video games. My beloved got down into the studio and did some photographating. We cooked dinner and ate as a family and counted our blessings for being fortunate enough to have a warm home and plenty of food and electricity.

But today was (and I’ll get to the “was” thing in a moment) supposed to be my first day of my fourth and (almost) final nine-day-long, on-campus residency for Lesley University’s Low Residency Masters in Creative Writing program. Which meant we needed to get the cars dug out so I had a way to get to the train station this morning, because even if I wanted to walk the mile and a quarter to the train station, the sidewalks wouldn’t be dug out. No way I was going to walk the narrow, snow-plowed streets. I’d get creamed.

The photo really doesn’t do it justice. We also had to shovel our way down our front steps to even get to the cars.

So, after dinner, we ALL suited up and headed outside, shovels in hand and began the two-hour-long torture session of shoveling during the Bombogenesis. Odin, let me tell you, snowflakes sting like [insert preferred curse word here] when they’re pelting your face at 50 mph… in the dark… in single digit temperatures. I don’t usually post photos online of the areas in or around my house, but I think it will help give context to the volume of snow that we had to move and where we had to put it.

By the time we were done, I was done. Toast. Not physically sore, no. More like numb and flacid, as if my muscles had been replaced by jelly. I was moving slow, and it was an effort.

When the 5am alarm sounded this morning, my beloved (cut from a stronger cloth than I) rose to do our morning workout routine. I did not. I slept until 7am, when I was woken by the sound of the porch door being wrestled/slammed shut and someone stamping snow of their boots on the porch. Then the kitchen door opening and closing.

I went downstairs and learned that, during the night, plows had come by and undone most of what we’d shoveled the night before. And by undone, I mean they put back the 3′ high by 5′ wide mound of wet, grimy street snow that had blocked our driveway entrance. Instead of waking me and asking/demanding I help dig back out, my better half simply suited up and took care of things so that I could sleep in. Because today was my first day of residency, and it was going to be a long day for me. I know, I am blessed!!

But the Bombogenesis wasn’t finished with us yet.

No Insulation Plus A Ton of Snow Equals Ice Dams

As I grabbed my cup of coffee, sipped it, and strolled past our bathroom on the way to waking up my oldest child to let them know that their school had been cancelled for a second day, I glanced out the bathroom window and beheld an icicle as thick around as a grown man’s thigh streaming down glass like a frozen mountain stream.

Oh. My. God.

No one ever went out yesterday with the roof rake! Not once did it occur to me that with the heat up so high, all day long, the snow landing on the roof was melting, dripping into the metal gutter that was the same temperature as the air (9˚F) and freezing. We probably had an ice dam the size of Fort Peck sitting on our back roof.

I chugged my coffeed, and together I and my beloved suited back up and went back outside to deal with all the digging out we didn’t do last night. Luckily what at first appeared to be the mother of all ice dams ended up being a gigantic cornice of wind-compressed snow. We easily knocked off and then raked off the rest of the roof. Thankfully, it didn’t have a lot of snow on it because the wind was so fierce during the Bombogenesis. We shovelled a path to the basement door and cleared that out, then dug our way over to our dryer vent and cleared that out, then dug a path out to the middle of the yard so that our medium sized mutt could have a place to do his business without freezing his wiener off in snow up to his shoulders.

I may have slept in this morning, but I still got my workout in. Thanks mother nature.

Okay, potential ice dam crisis averted. I still had just over two hours before I had to catch a train into Cambridge for my first seminar of my Residency. How I was going to muster the physical energy needed to pick up a pen and write with it, I wasn’t sure, but I was ready. In fact, I was excited.

At Least I Had Residency To Look Forward To

Pretty much since December 1st, I’ve been counting down the days until my (almost) final residency. I’ve made some incredible friends through this program. They are spread out all over the country: Texas, Las Vegas, Seattle, Georgia, West Virginia, New York City. I get to see them face-to-face just twice a year for nine days during residency. For that reason alone, I’ve been looking forward to today. But, the program is so much more than that. The instructors, the seminars, the intensity of the learning process, the raw energy of being surrounded by other writers equally passionate about creative writing as I am? It’s intoxicating. It’s exhilarating. It’s nerdy writing camp for grown-up’s and it’s awesome!!

About a half hour before my train was scheduled to depart, I got an email from the director of my program stating that, because so many of the residency students and professors’ flights had been cancelled or delayed, today’s residency program had been cancelled. We’ll be jumping into Saturday classes on time tomorrow.

Well, Sugar Honey Iced Tea. That certainly does suck eggs. Glad I thought to check my email on last time before I took off.

Guess I’ll have to wait one extra day to see my friends again and experience the joy that is living, breathing, and eating all things devoted to the art and craft of creative writing. I still can’t wait.

In the meantime, since I feel I just need a few hours to recover myself, physically from lifting and throwing 15 to 25 lb loads of snow over and over again for a total of four of the past twenty-four hours, I thought I’d set up camp on my couch and blog about what it was like at my house during the Bombogenesis.

And by the way, please don’t be fooled by that term or by the giddy meteorologists dancing around up on top of big piles of snow singing the word at you. This Bombogenesis was just a typical New England Nor’easter with lower than typical temperatures. New Englanders are used to crazy and sometimes difficult to deal with weather. We deal with it.

Did the Beast of Bombogenesis impact you? Tell me about it in the comments.

January 5, 2018
IWSG January Post – Making the Writing Happen
This month’s IWSG post asks the question:

What steps have you taken to put a schedule in place for your writing and publishing?

How apropos.

Before I continue, I must give a shout out to this month’s most excellent hosts: Tyrean Martinson, The Cynical Sailor, Megan Morgan, Rachna Chhabria, and Jennifer Lane. Thank you all for hosting this month’s IWSG blog hop.

2018 is right around the corner, and in my household, it is a big deal. I and my beloved don’t usually enjoy marching to the beat of a predictable, trite, or clichéd drum, and the whole tradition of making new year resolutions certainly fits that description. That said, new year resolutions are, in fact, something we do, and we get jazzed about it, too.

I’m all about the power of positive thinking and positive visualization. Think forward, not backward, I say. What do I want my future to look like, I ask, and then I act to manifest that future. The first step in that process happens in my own mind.

The act of ticking over a new year on the first of January is, as I well know, an imaginary contrivance of human perception. Not to mention, it’s dependent upon which calendar you follow. Sumerian? Aztec? Norse? Celtic? Nubian? Heck, I could invent my very own calendar system and start the year on November 12th. Why not?

Okay, so the start of a new year is a fictitious concept, but it’s one that I enjoy celebrating, almost worshiping. It provides me with a stimulus, a prompt, a chance to pause and contemplate my accomplishments (and failures) of the past spin around Solaris, and look forward to imagine what the next spin might be like.

What am I proud of doing? What are my regrets? How can I transform those regrets into positives moving forward? What challenges can I throw at myself that will test me and improve me either physically, intellectually, or spiritually? That’s what celebrating the new year and making resolutions is all about in my house.

It’s serendipitous that this month’s IWSG prompt deals with finding ways to fit writing into my life because it’s already one of my resolutions for the new year.

2017 was an unacceptably sedentary year for me in which I got a lot of writing done, but not enough and it always felt shoved in last minute. Most of my writing happened in the late afternoons, at the end of a long day of teaching, or worse, after dinner when all I wanted to do was go to bed. It always felt forced. I was Sisyphus, standing at the bottom of the hill, hands against the boulder. Not good.

Here’s my plan for 2018:
1. Wake up at 5 am every day except Sunday, so that I have time to:
2. Work out for 20 to 30 minutes with my beloved, then:
3. Write for one hour.
That’s right, the big new year’s resolution for me is to become–wait for it–a morning person! My writing time will become part of an established routine. I’m not stipulating what I’ll be writing. It could be rough drafts, editing work, blogging, journaling, anything as long as it is writing.

The great thing about my plan is that I’m not alone in it. My beloved and I are engaging in this resolution together. We’re going to support each other, motivate each other, hold each other accountable. In other words, misery loves company, and I’m going to have some. Technically I already do, because I wrote this post on December 27th, but it won’t go up until January 3rd. By the time you read this, I’ll have three early mornings under my belt. Feel free to ask me how it’s going a month from now; most failed resolutions die in the third week of implementation. (Not me, not me, not me, not me <– see that? Positive thinking, baby!)

2018, here I come! If all goes as I’m visualizing it, 2019 will see me healthier and much, much farther along in my writing career.

If you’ve got a plan for getting more writing time worked into your schedule, or if you’ve already successfully done it, I’d love to hear about it in the comments!

Happy 2018, everyone, and happy writing.
January 3, 2018
Great Gift Ideas for Writers

As if I haven’t already read about 50 blog posts on this very topic, here I am throwing up a blog post about great gift ideas for writers. Why? Because it is after Christmas, and now the pressure is off and the sales begin.

If people I know are anything like me, they flew out the door on the 24th for a frenzied, unpleasant, angst-ridden gift-buying binge and hated every moment of it. (Oddly, I got all my shopping done this year with a full week to spare. Who am I?!) The last thing most people I know are going to want to do is to head back out and “hit the sales.” I know that thinking about doing that sort of thing makes me start to sweat and not in a good way. However, it’s the season to be thinking about gifts and buying stuff, so while it’s fresh in my forebrain, why not use this blog post to generate a list that I can direct people back to later on in the year at other appropriate gift-giving moments?

Do remember that “great” is a relative term here. This is MY list of gifts that, as a writer, I would love to get any time of the year on any occasion for any reason! The list is not arranged in order of preference either. I’m creating it as things come to me.

Quick disclaimer: I am not sponsored by or getting paid by anyone for recommending or for using any of the products I put on this list. These are entirely my own thoughts and ideas.

1) Fountain Pens (for old-school writers)

The Pilots are the four on the left of this picture.

You had to have seen that coming. I continue my obsession with fountain pens. Most writers like quality writing implements, but not nearly enough of us own a fountain pen. I own many, and I write with them all the time. I’m also not rich or really anywhere even close to that descriptor, so I can’t recommend an expensive pen, although I’m hoping to treat myself to a gorgeous retractable fountain pen as a grad school graduation gift this summer.

Anyway, I recommend the Pilot Metropolitan fountain pen as a gift for the writer in your life. These pens have metal casings and a nice weight in the hand. The caps post well. They come in a variety of attractive covers. The disposable ink cartridges are inexpensive and easy to find, and if you’re cheap like me or are equally nerdy about inks like me, the disposable cartridges can be rinsed out and then refilled with other inks using either a plastic pipette or a glass eye dropper.

2) Notebooks (for all writers)

I find a certain pure joy in the sight of a crisp, blank notebook.

This is another obvious choice for a writer friend. I caved and bought myself two new (super cheap) notebooks for myself at Five-Below this year, because I have a teensy obsession with notebooks (see previous post here). I also found a few with pre-generated writing prompts. I got several identical copies of these and am going to be giving them to members of my long-distance writing group. The idea is that we can partake in a story-swap. I’m envisioning it a little like a book club, where once a month we all take the first prompt in our notebooks and write a piece of flash fiction off of it, then send it to each other. It’ll keep us all writing, keep our creativity-muscles in good shape, and keep us connected. Win-win-win, and whatnot.

3) Faux Old-Fashioned Typewriter Keyboard (for whimsical writers)

Come on! A wireless, digital keyboard for a tablet that pays homage to its own humble beginnings?! Fabulous.

Part of me knows this is sort of a stupid gift, but that doesn’t change the fact that I grin like an idiot every time I look at this adorable if impractical device. My dad owned an ancient, high-backed Underwood typewriter when I was a kid. He showed me how to use it and then left me to play school, and secretary (sad, I know), and then to start typing stories on that old machine. Therefore, this high-tech-low-tech gift pushed my nostalgia button hard. In practice, it would probably end up annoying the heck out of me due to how small the keyboard is, and it doesn’t look all that easy to transport without snagging the keys and popping them off on stuff. But, seriously, just look at it! Isn’t it cute?

4) Gift Card to a Hip, Local, Coffee Shop (for… hip writers?)

Odin, hear my prayer, please no more gift cards to Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks or Panera Bread. Okay, Panera Bread, maybe, but not the other two. Ask your writer friend where they like to go to write and, assuming their answer is a coffee shop of some kind, hit up that spot and get them a gift card for MORE THAN ten dollars. Come on people; make it worth it, please.

4) Books (for humans)

Duh! This is the absolute no-brainer. And, by the way, books are just about the best gift idea for anyone, anywhere, at any time, for any occasion. Giving someone a great book kills so many birds with a single stone. Reading will improve the receiver’s brain, give them an awesome extended experience, and give them something great to talk about to other people. Books as gifts support the creative person or persons who wrote the book, designed the cover, etc. Also, buying books sends a message to the marketplace that books are a product worth creating, and maybe that will have a trickle-down effect for all of us. Maybe? That last bit could be a naive thought on my part.

Now, please, don’t just take a shot in the dark. And don’t buy them a book that YOU would like to read and so you figure they would, too. Take the time to find out what books they want. If they have a Goodreads account, check out their “Want to Read” list. If that isn’t a possibility, how about you just flat out ask them? You might be thinking, “But then they’ll know what I’m getting them for a present,” allow me to speak on their behalf for a moment: They don’t care. They will love the gift even if it’s not a total surprise because it’s something they WANT.

5) A Contigo® Travel Mug (for environmentally conscious writers)

This ties back to the gift card to your writer friend’s favorite haunt. Give your writer a way to nourish their caffeine habit in an environmentally friendly way.

Specifically, I adore Contingo® travel mugs.

This is the model I have, but in green.

Testimonial – This past year I made myself a cup of tea to sip out of my Contigo® mug on my drive to work at 7:00 am. It was scalding hot, so I set it in a console cup holder to cool and completely (I mean completely) forgot about it. That afternoon, at 4:45 pm, I rediscovered it when I got into my car to go home. The tea in the travel mug had cooled just enough so that I could sip it without burning myself. Now that is an impressive mug!

I learned a lesson that day, too. I now make my tea, then add four ice cubes as I’m heading out the door so that I can enjoy my hot beverage on my actual drive.

6) A Coffee Bean Grinder (for coffee drinking writers)

If writer friend likes coffee, this is a great gift idea. Freshly ground beans make for significantly better tasting coffee than preground beans do. Also, it opens up the possibility of them trying out (or being gifted) unique gourmet bean blends. I own both a hand grinder and an electric grinder. Confession, I use the electric one more than I use the manual one, but only because it’s quicker and more convenient. The manual grinder does a better job of grinding the beans evenly.

Regardless, whenever I find myself in the rare and luxurious position of being alone in my home with a few hours of isolation available in which I can read or write, one of the first things I do is brew up a rich, quality cup of high-end coffee.

7) Noise Canceling Headphones (for writers with children)

Bose makes a $300 pair; I saw them in the Apple store and just about choked at the price. But you know what? I tried them on and, by Freya, those suckers were incredible!

Just look at her, being all productive and creative with her noise-canceling headphones on!

As a writer who struggles to close out the world when I’m writing, this gift would be fantastic! There is literally a hole in the wall above my writing desk through which the dulcet tones of my playing/bickering/crying/screaming children echo to me as I attempt to immerse myself in another world. Noise canceling headphones would be a much-appreciated gift. But beware, not all “noise canceling” headphones do a good job of actually canceling out noise. If you’re going to commit to this gift idea, pay for ones that work!

8) Magazine Subscriptions (for writers of short fiction)

In what genre does your friend write? You should know this, but if you don’t, find out. Also, ask your aspirational writing friend, “In which magazines do you dream of getting published?” The pinnacle, prestige publications. Buy them a subscription to any and all of them.

The first step toward them achieving their dream is to read from those magazines often. However, yearly subscriptions can be pricey. I have a bucket list of amazing magazines in which I dream of one-day publishing, and I’d be delighted if someone bought me not just an issue but a whole year’s subscription of any of them. That would be incredible.

9) A Wicked Good Bag (for on-the-go writers)

Aren’t they sleek and lovely?

I have owned both backpacks and messenger bags. I personally prefer messenger bags. Not sure why. Just do.

My current bag came from Barnes and Noble. A pretty good bag considering the price, and I’ve loved owning it for three years now. It’s just… starting to look its age, I guess. The heavily stained, frayed-at-the-edges canvas exterior has lost some of its attractiveness. It’s still quite functional, though. I would be so hesitant to spend money on a new one. I mean, who cares if it’s starting to look like something I found half-buried beside an abandoned set of train tracks, right?

This bag just begs for adventure!

Anyway, a woman who coaches in the same Science League that I coach in was sporting just about the best bag I have ever seen in my entire life. It’s by a company called Peak Design

Pause: Leather satchels that look like they’re meant to be perched across the back of some gorgeous adventuring archaeologist are my ultimate fantasy bags. My fantasy bags would not hold up to real life practicalities, however. The Peak Designs bag would, though, and you have to admit that they are also gorgeous in a completely different way than the Indiana Jones bags.

10) A Writer’s Retreat or Convention (for all writers)

“The Writers’ Retreat” by Grant Snider, an illustrator and cartoonist who draws the online strip “Incidental Comics.”

The gift of a retreat would be a huge gift, a truly grand gesture. It would be (in my opinion) the penultimate gift you could ever possibly give to a writer. It’s like buying someone a cruise. Heck, I know of several writers retreats that ARE cruises. So… just sayin’.

What’s great is that there are retreats suited for all types of writers. What’s sad is that while most of us will yearn and pine and dream of attending a writers retreat, most of us will never follow through and go.  There are logistical issues to attending a retreat. Circumstances must be taken into account. Childcare? Time off from work? Travel considerations? Before offering up this diamond ring of a gift to the writer in your life, make sure it’s something they both really want to do and could logistically do. If you’re not sure about how to “shop” for the perfect retreat, check out this excellent post: Making the Most of Your Writing Retreat by Janalyn Voigt over at LiveWriteBreathe.

If my beloved surprised me with a week-long writer’s retreat, I would probably get as excited as the day I… well, never you mind. Let’s just say I’d get very, very excited.

So there you go. A few ideas of fantastic gifts you could get that special writer in your life and have it be very genuinely appreciated.

Your Turn:

Think long and hard. What would you love to get as a gift in the context of you being a writer? Share in the comments. Ideas are more than welcome.

Happy writing to you!

December 25, 2017