A few weeks ago, I gave myself a report card for my 2025 writing year, which means it’s time for new goals for 2026. I don’t always hit every goal, but posting them publicly keeps me accountable. Saying it out loud ensures that I do something to move the ball forward, even if I don’t reach the pitcher’s mound. Did I say that right?

Diamond’s disintegration is not the only crisis facing comics publishers these days. The latest distribution company ceasing to exist is the venerable library distributor Baker & Taylor. If you’re not...

The holiday season is also a good time for indulging traditions, and here’s one of mine. I’ve gone into the background on this meditation in previous blog posts, so if you’ve read this before, feel free to skip to the end. If you’ve joined me in the last year, this will be new. I adopted this creative exercise from the writings of psychologist Gay Hendricks, fittingly from his book…

One of my should-do-but-might-not-do goals this coming year is to interact more on my social media accounts. When I started my branding (loathsome word) project last summer, I cleared much of the detritus from my various public accounts and limited myself to following or friending folks actively engaged in their creative work. I deleted all my pop culture and political pages on Facebook and added a few writing groups that seemed both active and useful.

There’s never a bad time to stop and reflect on life, but the end of a calendar year lends itself to both a sense of conclusion and new beginnings. And even though March feels like it happened about three weeks ago, we’ve arrived at the end of another December. If, like me, you are time challenged, I apologize for breaking this news so abruptly.

In addition to my (usually) weekly blog, I have a monthly newsletter where I recap my writing month, discuss books I’ve read, and sometimes share news of a more personal nature. It’s my version of DVD bonus features: a bit of behind-the-scenes flavoring for the blog’s main courses. I conclude every newsletter with a parting song, generally something that reflects my mood in the moment I’m writing.

A bit quiet on the blog front this month as I needed to prep two presentations for the Manor Mill Writers Retreat. I meant to blog a bit after the event, but I needed a bit of downtime. I also ended the day feeling energized to work on my creative writing, which I did, and I set aside some time to beta read and provide feedback on a novel from one of the writers in my network.

Over the summer, I wrote about the new Superman movie and wondered whether we were shifting into a cultural phase wherein audiences would crave the concept of heroism – actual heart-on-the-sleeve, morally upright, sacrificing for the greater good heroism – rather than the cynical, manipulative, trust no one, ends-justify-the-means type of protagonist that has been much more prevalent these past years.

I’ve been posting a bit less than usual the past few weeks. August was intentionally a skimp period, given my brief mid-month vacation, but I full anticipated getting back into a steady writing and posting rhythm in September. That…didn’t happen. There are several factors, but importantly, I was visited by the brilliant idea of painting my craft room over Labor Day weekend, which in my youthful days would have been an achievable task.

An AuDHD writer considers where her mind’s fragmentary and circular style of expression fits in a paradigm of linear storytelling.

I’ve been beating myself up about the blog the last few weeks. I missed a deadline two weeks ago – my first this year – and have been dreading writing the next few posts. By coincidence, I came across a post I wrote in 2023, which contained a timely message: It’s ok to take a break. Take five. Take ten if you need it.

On Saturday, November 15, I’ll be joining a dozen other expert authors at the Manor Mill Writers Retreat, where we’ll discuss questions about craft, publishing, and platform. Local writers can expect a welcoming, casual environment and lively discussion with peers. Where and When Manor Mill is a newly restored historic grist mill and miller’s house in Monkton, Maryland, located in northern Baltimore County.

According to MSN, GenAI developer Anthropic has agreed to pay at least $1.5 billion to settle a class action lawsuit alleging the firm pirated thousands of copyrighted works to train its large language model Claude. In June, U.S. District Judge William Alsup ruled that Anthropic was within its "fair use" rights to use legally acquired works to train its LLM, because the platform transformed the material into "something new." However, Alsup also found Anthropic…

I’ve always been a writer, but I didn’t get the DIY publisher itch until the mid-1990s, when anyone with a Sharpie and access to an office photocopier could produce their own magazine. In California, a few friends and I created four issues of a 5x8 fiction and poetry zine and after I moved to Portland, I put together two issues of a fiction/poetry zine called…

“The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.”   ― Carl Gustav Jung As promised, after a couple of weeks of mental vacation, I’m back with some lengthy blather on a writing topic. I’m going to talk about character relationships, plot, and conflict, so you can bail out now if that’s not your thing.

Writers recently won a partial victory in a class action lawsuit against generative AI firm Anthropic. The lawsuit alleged that Anthropic trained its language learning model, Claude (Claude?), using millions of copyrighted works scraped from pirate sites. In a recent ruling, US District Court Judge William Alsup ruled that Anthropic’s use of purchased or otherwise legally acquired material to train its AI was fair use, even though the authors were never contacted and never consented to Anthropic using their work in this way.

Speculative Fiction Writers' Summit

I know what my problem is. After 16 years working for or adjacent the federal government, I’m accustomed to the dead zone of August. Congress is generally in recess, which means a lot of feds schedule their summer vacations during August, which means it’s also a good time for contractors and journalists to get in some much-needed time off before the September spending spree and rush to miss the Sept.

You may have noticed the new banner gracing the top of the page and the face in the corner. I’ve been slowly aligning my visuals on various social media platforms while working on this whole “being a brand” thing, and now here we are. I hate seeing myself in photographs, so I commissioned a few friends to take a shot at capturing me in art.

In a recent edition of his 3-2-1 newsletter, James Clear asks a question that speaks to much of what I write for this blog. What aspect of your work is hardest to copy? How can you amplify it? This is you. This is your voice. This is where you find your authentic self. What can you do – what and how do you write – that would be hard to copy?

I’ve been mulling this thought for awhile, beginning late last year when the teaser trailer for the new Superman received a rapturous response and then a bit more after the presidential inauguration, which absolutely feels way more than only six months ago. Now that the movie it out, it seemed a good time to say it out loud. Are we in - or about to enter - an era where our cultural heroes act heroically?

I didn’t post my writing goals this past January, not because I didn’t have any, but because I wanted to focus on the journey of writing, rather than word counts and timekeeping and spreadsheets, though I did that too, behind the scenes. Also, my goals occasionally evolve during the year and - full disclosure - sometimes I simply blow them and start over.

A bit late for Independence Day, but I came across this quote from James Clear (Atomic Habits) and thought it a concise summary of how easily writers can become trapped in uncreative thinking and how as easily we can free ourselves. “When I notice myself worrying about ‘what other people will think,’ I find I'm usually not worried about any single person's opinion.

Wishing a happy 4th of July holiday to my US friends, however you plan to spend it. I'm a few days early, but it's too damn hot to think. I knew we weren't going to have a decent spring this year, but instead jump from rainy slog to baking heat. Welcome to the future, friends. I'm taking the rest of the week off. Back soon!