Blog

Taking Control

One of the best things about self-publishing is the feeling of control I have over my career and my content. Before I made the decision to self-publish, I was constantly concerned about what agents would think of my stories. Is my opening engaging enough? Are zombies overdone? Would a publisher be interested in what I’ve written? Constant doubts. Constant rewriting my work according to what I’d read on an agent’s blog or heard an editor say at a conference. There was no trust in my own intelligence or talent. And that was all before I even actively pursued an agent…

Falling Short of My Goals

Having goals is one of the single most important things in my life. I understand that some people just aren’t goal-oriented, and that’s fine. But for me, everything fell apart when I didn’t have goals. I went through a depression in my 20’s that saw me systematically sabotaging everything I’d worked so hard for up to that point in my life. Friendships. Health. Career. I gave up my goals, believing that I would never be good enough to actually achieve the things I wanted out of life. I decided to settle for average. I got a solid job, bought a…

Black Swan

Black Swan is the best movie I’ve seen in a really long time. G and I went to Winston-Salem to visit some friends and we decided to go see a movie on Saturday. The guys wanted to see True Grit, and even though I wasn’t entirely opposed to seeing that movie, I really really wanted to see Black Swan. And I’m so incredibly happy I did. Black Swan was exactly my type of movie. A thriller. A complete mind freak. Natalie Portman was brilliant in this movie and it was worth it just for seeing her amazing portrayal of Nina…

The Writer’s ‘Well’

Some people call it the Muse. Others call it the Well. I guess I think of it as Mana, but then again, I’m a gamer, so that makes sense. What am I talking about? That special something that propels and motivates a writer to write and work hard. It’s hard to explain it, but it’s even harder to find it when it’s gone. Sometimes, an idea grabs me so hard that I have to write about it immediately. Usually, though, the ideas are the easy part. It’s the sitting down and writing part that can be tough. Once I’ve got…

Iced In

A bit of a winter storm last night here in North Carolina. I went out to Borders Cafe to write with my critique parter, J, and around 8:45 got a text from my hubby saying “You might want to come home. Getting slick out there.” We shrugged it off, then decided we’d leave in about 15 minutes or so. After all, from the inside of the cafe, it just looked a little bit rainy out. No big deal, right? The second I stepped out onto the pavement, I knew I had been seriously wrong. It wasn’t rain. It was ICE….