Summer-ish Links

This is the time of year when I say things like, “Husband, why won’t you build me an outdoor fire pit surrounded by swings?” And he says, “Dammit Woman, I’m a computer geek, not a carpenter!” And then I point out all the carpenter-type husbands in our neighborhood who would build gigantic swing sets for their wives, because nothing says “I’m an excellent wife” quite like pointing out the skills of other husbands. And then he says, “Yeah, but they can’t fix a computer, can they? It’s all part of the battle of life.” (I’m just kidding, he doesn’t say…

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Waffles. Books. Matcha. PEEPS.

Happy Easter weekend, to those of you who celebrate. We have dear friends staying with us, which will shake up our Easter traditions in the best possible way. I'm trying to come up with a good hashtag term for it. I see your Friendsgiving and raise you a Friendeaster! Friendster? Freaster? Please stop me. What are we doing on this Weekend? I'm so glad you asked. Serving: a Waffle Bar. You heard me. I'm doing it. Not even ashamed. Reading: Last week I took my kids on a field trip to Los Angeles. We capped off the day with a…

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How To Be A Hooker

The theme of last weekend's RWA meeting was “Creating a Strong Story Hook.” The entirely delightful Debbie Decker taught the class, and she gave a lot of great examples of stories that began with a great hook and don't let you go. The beginning of Star Wars, for example – that pounding explosion of music, the crawl of words across the screen, the space battle. We don't even meet the hero until a good while into the movie, but we're already hooked. After talking about some other movie and television examples, we went through the opening and closing of some of the…

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2016 Complete Reading List

  Here you are, friends, a list of the books I read in 2016, complete with links so you can buy them for yourselves. I'm a giver. I read 76 books in 2016, which is pretty standard for me. I like to alternate between big fat bricks and shorter, easier reads. I never set actual reading goals, but it always seems to average out to about 1.5 books a week. The overall quality was awesome. I lost a whole lot of sleep in order to finish some of these beauties. Technically, all of the books on this list are my 'favorites' of the year, because…

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San Diego, Howard's End, and a Story Ninja

How are you celebrating Labor Day? We are spending the weekend in San Diego celebrating my husband’s 50th birthday. According to our kids, 50 is when a person officially turns OLD. When I was a kid, I thought 50 years old was like a million years old, so I get where they are coming from. But for what it’s worth, Joe is rocking his old age – running marathons and going to metal concerts with our teenagers. He’s pretty cool. Did you know that this year is the 25th anniversary of the movie Howard’s End? In case you don’t know…

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