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 […]
writing journey
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 Story Behind The Story: “This Happened to Jessica”
Years and years ago, the idea behind It Began With a Lie flickered into life. The premise of a book, returning to a childhood home that may also be haunted, ended up, well, haunting me for decades. I shared the story around how I finally got myself to sit down and write It Began With […]
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 Story Behind the Story: “It Began With a Lie”
When I started It Began With a Lie, the timing was anything but convenient. It was March of 2015. If you’ve been following my Writing Journey series, you’ll notice that was roughly midpoint between when I sat in ICU alone with my mother, convinced it was her last day on earth, and when she actually […]
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), […]
The Writing Journey: Breakdown #1
It was the year 2012. Looking back on it now, I can see exactly what happened. It was the perfect storm: I continuously ignored the whispers from my soul to get my books out into the world, and my anxiety and worry spun out of control. I’m a six on the Enneagram scale. If you’re […]