"Put yourself in the hero’s shoes and you can see that it’s a difficult passage. You’re being asked to say yes to a great unknown, to an adventure that will be exciting but also dangerous and even life threatening. It wouldn’t be a real adventure otherwise. You stand at…

Today's the 30th day of the 30-day #Trust30 writing project. Yet another prompt urged looking ahead. My response is my 30th poem for the project, a Shadorma titled "Self-Texting":

http://writingwithoutpaper.blogspot.com/2011/06/self-texting-poem.html

Reposted from Trashy's Treasures

Because plans change. Whether or not that’s progress remains to be seen, but I like the direction it’s taking. Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up. ;)

I’ve been blogging about my short story WIP and the response I’m getting is good.  I revealed the names of my male characters and a few hints about their personalities, and I discovered that people want…

AN INTERVIEW: FRATERNAL TWIN SISTERS

With a successful 'kickstarter' project, my book is moving right along!  I was able to raise funds for professional editing, book cover design, and website updating through my kickstarter project for Clouse's Houses - Memoir of Architecture, Nature, and Human Spirit!  Through SW's I hooked up with the wild and wonderful Barbara Fischkin as one of my editors, to begin the polishing process.  So, here we go!

My daughter, V, like any curious toddler, asks a lot of questions.  Some of which, I’m not quite sure how to answer. But I’d rather admit that I, the great and powerful mother, am not all-knowing, than lie to my child. After reading the book, Nurture Shock, which includes a discussion on lying in young children and teens, I was shocked to learn how frequently both children and adults lie.  It truly…

Today's Wednesday Wonder truly is a wonder: the work of Dutch kinetic sculptor Theo Jansen, who is creating "new forms of life" to populate Holland's beaches. I've included two videos about his otherworldly "herds':

http://writingwithoutpaper.blogspot.com/2011/06/wednesday-wonder-strandbeests.html

This past weekend, Elliott and I flew to Boston for the weekend.  For the most part, it was an uneventful trip. 

If you’ve flown lately, you know what a hassle air travel has become.  There are the security lines, the overbooked flights, and the testy airline employees.  With a cancelled flight out of Kansas City, air traffic control issues in Chicago, and weather delays in Boston, it took us 13 hours to get to Boston, but only five hours to get home.

...…

I think if you really enjoy doing something and you really get out of it what you put in, that you should carry on and enjoy yourself in the process. Well that something for me, is blogging. I guess I'm a little addicted to it. Some might say I'm obsessed with it. Especially my husband and my sister, neither of whom understand blogging at all.

PLEASE CONTINUE - I'm running a…

I follow bookslut.com on Twitter and saw the tweet about their first book raffle on Facebook. I’m always up for the opportunity to win a free book, so I followed the link, and was excited to see that all I had to do was enter the name of a female artist overlooked by popular culture to enter the drawing for Who is Ana Mendieta? By…

 When Evil walks the earth

 in a time of horrifying stillness,

no one is safe

off the narrow spiritual path.

I had left my big dog, Isis, at home, had had only two…

Joanne “Buckshot” Bryant was a notorious bank and train robber and is possibly best-remembered as the Queen of the Rustlers in the American West of the 1800′s. It could truly be said that this queen came from a family of outlaw aristocracy. Her parents ran the infamous Bryant Gang in Australia and may have even known the outback bandit…

Everybody stretch with me, do some downward dog, cross your fingers, and send your best vibes -- tonight is game time. I'm about to go into the technological back end of She Writes and install the redesign we've been working on! 

I'm incredibly excited about unveiling this new "look and feel,"…

Reposted from the Writerly Habit

I’ve been reading The Two Kinds of Decay: A Memoir by Sarah Manguso. In her memoir, she talks about the gaps in the narrative and not being able to account for all of her time. Now that I have had another back injury, I understand. Mind you, I…

This story  appears on Lost in Fiction, thanks to a referral from Barbara Alfaro-- nice to go global!

http://www.lostinfiction.co.uk/

Today I posted about cursing and the (incredibly funny) Go The F**k to Sleep book by Adam Mansbach, read by Samuel Jackson. What is your take on cursing with kids?  What are some of your favorite alternatives?  I'd love to hear from you:

http://departingthetext.blogspot.com

The Queen’s visit to Ireland: Hope for the Future

In May 2011 Queen Elizabeth made the first visit to Ireland by a British monarch in 100 years since King George V in 1911. Gracious and friendly, she acknowledged the bleak record of past relationships between the two countries, particularly in her remarks at Dublin Castle on May 18:  “It is a sad and regrettable reality that through history our islands have experienced more than their share of heartache,…