Thanks to 4amWriter, otherwise known as Limebird Kate, for sending the One Lovely Blog Award my way. Clearly, she has never seen my office, brushed aside the cobwebs, or moved the piles of mail and newspapers off my dining room table so that food can be eaten. When I think of "lovely," I think of … Continue reading One Lovely Blog Award
Category: Success
Carp Fishing and Poetry–Who Knew?
Thank you, Samir of Cecile's Writers, for presenting me with a Liebster Award! You're one of my favorite bloggers who expands my thinking horizons, and I appreciate it immensely! For readers who always eat their desserts first, page down for the carp fishing video. As part of the award, Samir asked me to answer 11 … Continue reading Carp Fishing and Poetry–Who Knew?
Making Good on Promises
I have been lax, very lax indeed, in acting on the awards that have been so generously blown in my direction. There was the side trip to Costa Rica that consumed my life in July and August 2012, a trip to my familial heartland at the end of August 2012, the back-to-school rush of soccer, … Continue reading Making Good on Promises
Goal-driven
Head down. Nose grinding. Just registered for SCBWI's regional conference at Asilomar on Mar 1-3. Also registered for two mini-sessions: a roundtable critique and social marketing advice. Must have the picture book trilogy polished to brilliant cut diamond standards by then. Gotta make something happen. Gotta do it. Gotta do it. Visualizing a bullet train. … Continue reading Goal-driven
Pura Vida!
The de facto greeting from any Tico in Costa Rica: Pura Vida! And like this greeting that springs from the supersaturated jungle foliage, howler-monkey raucous, poison-dart frog chirping, and coffee-cacao-banana-coconut-beans 'n' rice country, Ticos are full of life, generous, and likely candidates for people you'd most want to hang with on a deserted island. … Continue reading Pura Vida!
I’m Off!
Dear Presserheads (what do you think of this newly-coined term?), Thanks to friends who are taking care of our place and our living greenery, on Saturday morning our family is boldly going where thousands of tourists have gone before. We will be flying in to San Jose, Costa Rica, and then hopping a bus to … Continue reading I’m Off!
A Banner Week for Women Writers – or Not?
I just posted this on the Dogpatch Writers Collective, but I thought I'd share this on my blog, too. The women at VIDA have their work cut out for them. A Banner Week for Women Writers - or Not?.
True Story
One of my nieces dated many men on her way to the altar. She stayed close with some, and one in particular, Ted, became a long term friend. At least until he died from cancer. Ted left a twenty-something wife and a young son, Tommy, to figure out their lives without him. They all live … Continue reading True Story
Open Mic Fright
And so my eight-year-old son, the voracious reader but painfully reluctant writer, has progressed from writing about building a treehouse in Maine with his dad, to a nonfiction report on the Iguanodon with its fearsome thumb spikes, to creating a fictional story about the adventures of Frog the Kitten and Sid the Skunk. Now the … Continue reading Open Mic Fright
Mea Culpa
I am highly skeptical of suggested “group reads.” Why does someone think that entire cities should be immersed in a particular book? Is it a form of group grope? Group hypnosis? Group drumming? I am a bristling porcupine, can you tell? So when Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void was chosen as … Continue reading Mea Culpa
Jilanne Hoffmann 