My blog has moved to FictionMeetsLife.Wordpress.com

It's been a while since I've been able to keep updating my fiction blog. As part of my renewed commitment to you, my readers, I will be doing more to make this site more awesome.

This weekend, I've decided to completely redesign my blog to make it easier, faster, and prettier, which means it has moved over to WordPress.

It has also been renamed, "When Life Happens," because the focus of my novel and short stories is essentially about life, and how we are faced with difficult decisions, hardships, and changes all the time, whether we're ready for them or not. I am also hoping to create more ways for users to comment and participate in discussions in the future.

Thank you for continuing to support my fiction career by following my blog here. Please be sure to follow my fiction blog at the new location: www.fictionmeetslife.wordpress.com.

If you knew me as a writer, you'd have me committed.

The writer’s blessing and curse: his or her own writing process. Trust the process. Believe in the process. But truly, if anyone else knew the process of a writer, they’d have you committed. It’s completely unlike any other way of life out there. Even in my days as a copywriter, writer’s block leaves me banging my head on the desk or pulling out my hair until the right words formed. If you cracked open the mind of a writer, you’d be shocked and probably corrupted to the core. And there’ll be no going back.

Tonight, I watched “Adaptation,” and fell in love with how much it reminds me of the trials of being a novelist. It’s the excitement in capturing that completely genius plot twist by paper or tape recorder. Your voice climaxes as the words leave your mind and formulate into existence, finally. It’s even more evident with voice recordings for me.

A year ago, my work commute was one hour each way, leaving me with too much time on my hands. I started getting lightning ideas halfway home, and soon I had no choice but to start recording my thoughts in the heat of the heart-pounding moment. Palms sweating, eyes widening, thoughts growing frantic with each second, I unloaded my brain’s incessant babble and thoughts – often still unprocessed and jumbled – into the small device in the palm of my hand. Everything surrounding me was blocked, distant from any concern. The only noise I heard was the sound of my own rambling voice, as I discovered the key that would unblock my story roadblock. It was brilliant, simple. After the first 10 minutes of scrambling random words that made no sense, the rest seemed to create its own logical pattern that would solve everything. My characters, sitting idle in my head until I could continue typing the next chapter of their lives, would find their purpose again soon.

Everything is perfect. Until I get home that evening to replay my notes. Something’s gone wrong. Is this my voice? What the hell was I thinking? The expression of horror on my face is frozen, and I’m mortified that there is evidence of these ideas. My instinct is to erase the file, as if the thoughts never existed. I resist the urge to stash my recorder into the depths of the back closet, buried under the less desirable items hidden there already. It will only be minutes before I have to fight back the sensations to tear apart my manuscript, take a sledgehammer to the computer with which I’ve trusted my files.

In my office, evidence of bad ideas and juvenile writing is a deadly sin. But I still mourn the loss of my first poem, which was part of a collection published when I was 12. All I recall is that is was about the lonesome tales of a traveler leaving home and exploring the world. It wasn't until around four years ago that I began to understood the true beauty of the story, which was lost on me for many years.

It took me years before I could force myself to stop destroying my documents. My writing notebook (actually, it was just one spiral notebook, but has grown into four different notebooks), which contains bits of my manuscript and endless notes and thoughts, is not readable. Call it my own secret writing code, I truly doubt that if stolen, my notes could ever be put together and determined logical. This is where my bad ideas belong, so that they’re never unearthed by accident in future brainstorming.

“It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance … and I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of its process.” (Max Eastman, American journalist and published author)

Trust the process.

Launching Blog #2: Our View through Tinted Glasses

I've tossed and turned over my vision for this blog, and last night came my answer. I strongly desire an online presence as an author, but writing snippits about my thoughts and my stories don't seem enough.

I happily decided to start up a second blog, called Our View through Tinted Glasses. With this blog, I intend to write about many of the key issues for which all of my fiction work is intended to raise awareness: domestic violence, child abuse, women's equality, relationships, personal growth, dysfunctional families, and mental health.

While my fiction blog will help my readers keep up with my work, my second blog will allow me to discuss a lot of the topics occurring today, which are raised in my novel and other published works. I picked this curious title because I think that we miss a lot going on around us due to our view on the world, affected by a number of barriers - the "tinted glasses" that make us believe that everything is just fine the way it is.

Thanks for stopping by, and I will definitely be keeping you posted more often on both sites. Please come back soon!

Why I'll Never Buy Another Greeting Card Again

Earlier this year, I made an important decision as a consumer: I will never buy another pre-written greeting card from the store again. After more than 20 years of receiving these types of cards, which are intended to convey how people feel about me (and are written by some anonymous author), I refuse the convention in my personal life (if I can help it).

I feel convinced that many people use pre-written cards as a crutch - because either they cannot convey their own sentiments or perhaps they have nothing to say. As a writer, I can appreciate this type of writing that freelancers out there may take up regularly...however, the problem I have is that often, the messages often typify and make broad assumptions about relationships. Is there only one way to feel about a mother, a father, a brother, or your hairdresser? For those who haven't discovered so yet - there is at least 1,001 different kinds of mother-daughter, son-father, brother-sister, granddaughter - grandfather, etc relationships. And what about those of us who choose not to have "traditional" relationships? I can't tell you how HARD it had been to find my boyfriend Mike a decent card that's not prefaced to "my husband".

Why is it difficult for us to break into honesty instead of asking a "faceless stranger" to define the things we value in the people who are in our lives? After having the same message on every holiday, it has certain grown into an empty, numb reaction. And hey, how about a "holiday" card that is not completely created for the Christian audience? Is it really accurate to assume everyone is a Baptist or Methodist? I feel like these "cut and paste" messages have been used for too many years - it's almost to the point where phrases like "I love you" and "thank you" are recycled too much to have the same impact it once did.

I would absolutely applaud the revolutionizing of the entire way we write, sell, buy greeting cards. This is not a call to action for every consumer to abandon the greeting card aisles. I can appreciate that this is a convention that works for some people, maybe it is a better alternative to an wordless card when there's nothing to say to people. But as a creative writer myself, I don't think it works for me to box and label my relationships now or ever again.

Where My Stories Come From ...

Intrigued and bewildered? Welcome to the inside world of my imagination - may it never find itself bound by logical thought or sensibility by any means.

As a reader, I love a great variety of books for entertainment, education and enlightenment. The past few years have created a fond fixation on science fiction and fantasy for me - which actually started in my childhood, but discouraged greatly as I was growing up in the Midwest.

I'm a passionate writer of contemporary fiction, dealing mostly with topics including dysfunctional families, women's issues, and the dilemmas of traditional values many of us hold dear. I find it interesting to see that much of today's world is shaped around a traditional mindset, particularly idealisms of family life and the often unspoken expectations that bind us.

I'm currently hashing out my first novel, and hoping to be done by the end of year, leaving all of next year to rewrites, critique groups, and querying agents. There's more to come, so be sure to check back here for updates. What's it about, you ask? Here's a little something to chew on for now:

In less than a year, one event will change the course of the strong bonds holding a family together. Thriving on the comforts of old traditions, close ties and familiar times, the foundation of a family living in the Midwest will unravel, and that which has been held true to heart may be lost forever. This story will journey through the secrets of one family and the relationships that define them, and how many of them struggle with the past - and a future that is diminishing by the day.

Broken up into three sections, this novel will reveal the story through the eyes of three main characters as they experience the events leading up to and following the "occurrence".

A Little Bit about Me

Who am I, you might ponder? Call this just a little "sampling." I am passionate about writing, an artist in any other way I can be (music, photography), and as quirky as they come. I will always prefer dark and dreary before sunny days, and my random quips and jokes are not made for everyone.

I was born in the small town of Springfield, MO and moved to the Washington, DC area about four years ago after graduating from Missouri State University. I'm a professional marketing/advertising writer during the day, and retreat to fancy flights of fiction every other chance I get. I love working in travel so far, but nothing could ever top the personal satisfaction in writing my short stories and my soon-to-be-revealed masterpiece (novel).

Writing is all I think about from when I wake up all the way through my dreams. Every twist and turn that life throws my way finds its way in my works. I'll even confess that I whip out my little black book in between stoplights on my hour-long journey to/from the office.