Summer—the perfect time for a good scare—is right around the corner. Maybe right now you’re thinking, “What are you talking about, Michele? Summertime is for trashy romance novel reading poolside!” Well, maybe that’s the warmup. But once the sun goes down, it’s time to light the bonfire and tell some chilling ghost stories. Think about […]
Michele Pariza Wacek
The Writing Journey: My New Office!
I have a dirty little secret to share. For years, my office was in my bedroom. While there are many things I love about my house, one thing I don’t love is that it’s only two bedrooms. Sure, they are HUGE bedrooms (our house has a very open floor plan with tons of windows and […]
The Writing Journey: What Will People Say?
If you’ve read some of my earlier Writing Journey’s, you know that my fiction writing was a bit of a dirty secret. Which meant I didn’t share the fact I wrote fiction, much less the books themselves, with a lot of people. One of the most interesting things that happened once I started publishing my […]
The Writing Journey: Adventures in Cooking
Every now and then it’s important to venture out of the writing cave and do some other creative pursuit. In this case, I thought I’d try cooking. So, before I go any further, let me explain that I’m not the cook in my household. My hubby is. Except for days he has to work late. […]
The Writing Journey: A Day In The Life
Everything that’s created comes out of silence. Your thoughts emerge from the nothingness of silence. Your words come out of this void. Your very essence emerged from emptiness. All creativity requires some stillness. Wayne Dyer Writing a novel (at least for me) is never a straight line. There are lots of false starts, going backwards, […]
The Writing Journey: 7 Things I’m Celebrating from 2018
One of the rituals I do in December is to take some time to pause and reflect on the past year before putting a plan together for the new one. Why do I do that? Because as a society, we don’t celebrate our successes nearly enough. We’re all so very busy. We cross off one […]
“This Happened To Jessica” Is Released Today! And Excerpt
Woot! Today’s the day! This Happened To Jessica is officially released, and you can grab your copy right here on Amazon. This is the second book in the “Secrets of Redemption” series (if you haven’t read the first book, It Began With a Lie, I’d definitely encourage you to start there). It’s my first series […]
The Writing Journey: Sometimes You Have to Regroup (plus, an update on “This Happened to Jessica”)
In the book “Bird by Bird” by Anne Lamont, there’s a funny scene about writers accepting criticism. I’m paraphrasing here, but she describes how she has friends who read drafts of her books and then call her to give her feedback. She talks about how great it is that they’ve taken the time to thoughtfully […]
The Writing Journey: Breakdown #2
It was September, 2014. My mother, who had been diagnosed with cancer in 2012, was in Intensive Care in the hospital. “Come now,” my father had said on the phone. So, of course, I did. And, that was the beginning of my week in ICU hell. My mother was on a breathing tube, so she […]
Writing on the Road
For years, my husband and I have taken what I call a “Summer Adventure.” Basically, that entails packing up the car and the dog (or dogs) and driving from Arizona to Wisconsin and back (along with some “side” trips) to see family. Since Mr. PW and I both grew up in Wisconsin (albeit different areas), […]