In the Heart of the Labyrinth
Aaaahhh summer. Sun, sun, sun, lots of sun, sun and more sun.
Sadly, I’m likely to burst into flame if I spend too much time in direct sunlight.
Thank goodness for shade, AC*, hard apple cider and looooong summer reading lists. Continue reading “What’s on Your Summer Reading List?”
My name is Sonia and I’m a recovering pantser.
For some folk, writing by the seat of their pants is the only way to fly (The Great and Powerful Stephen King, for example). On the other hand, when I try to fly without a plan, I end up crashing into the side of a mountain. Now, if I’m taking a short trip (flash fiction or short story) I can cruise along just fine. Sure, I might revise a dozen times or so but I can get to the destination without the screaming and flaming debris. For a novel length trip, however, a plan is a must.
Of course, because I have a very thick skull, that’s taken a long time to sink in. Even now, though I lean more towards the plotting end of the spectrum, I’m more a hybrid of plotter and pantser than pure plotter. A plantser, if you will. Or maybe a plotser. Continue reading “The Truth About Your Novel”
When I was a kid, I heard a lot of negative advice about becoming a writer. I heard all about how my chances of being a NYT best-selling author were like a million-to-one. I heard about how many manuscripts were rejected compared to how many published. I heard how writing was a nice hobby but I better have a back up.
Super awesome encouragement. Right?
Now, I’m sure the advice was (mostly) well-intentioned. Folks didn’t want me pinning all my hopes on what seemed to them to be a pie-in-the-sky dream (what is pie-in-the-sky anyway and what does it taste like? Clouds? Mmm…cloud pie. Fluffy. Like marshmallow cream). Continue reading “Do You Have What it Takes to Succeed?”
Do you honor your scars?
We all have scars, some more visible than others. Dog bites. Skinned knees. Surgery scars. Stretch marks. Broken hearts. Cuts and scrapes, physical and emotional.
So often we hide our scars, ashamed to let them show. As if they make us less, mark us down like bruised fruit. Continue reading “Our Scars Are Our Stories”
When I was a kid, I often heard how stubborn I was, how rebellious, that I was a moody daydreamer who talked too much and couldn’t sit still. Sounds pretty terrible, right? And I’ll admit I could be a pain in the behind, often to the adults around me and sometimes to my friends.
As hard as I tried, I couldn’t seem to completely squelch any of these traits. I could mostly subdue them but the temptation to give into them sometimes proved too much.
Yet, sometimes my worst traits were a blessing. My stubbornness kept me going when I was tempted to give up. My rebelliousness meant I didn’t blindly follow anyone or anything. My daydreaming and talking too much made me a good storyteller. My moodiness and couldn’t-sit-stillness were harder to see in a positive light but they gave me passion and drive. Continue reading “Why You Should Embrace Your Worst Personality Traits”
May I confess something to you?
No? Well, I’m going to anyway.
Because it’s my blog.
And, also, I don’t have anything else to write about today.
I’m a pantser by nature. I hate schedules. I frequently have no idea what I’m going to fix for dinner before lunch and usually have no idea what my weekend plans are going to be until it’s actually the weekend. I fly by the seat of my pants.
And it works.
Sort of. Continue reading “Why the Advice You Hate the Most is Right”
Here are my wishes for you this holiday season:
May you be warm. May you be welcome. May you be full of hope and peace. May you overflow with joy. May you be loved completely and love in return. May you be able to laugh at your mistakes and delight in your successes. Like a child, may you see something new and wonderful in what you see everyday. May you see the goodness in others and yourself. Wherever you are going, may your journey be bright and full of unexpected sweetness.
When you were a kid, did you ever walk across a pier, look down through the narrow cracks between the planks to the ocean below and become convinced that, if you made the slightest misstep, you were going to fall through the cracks and drown? Or maybe you crossed a bridge, clinging to the side or staying steadfastly in the middle because it seemed like you might be easily swept over the side and plunge to your death, that you might even be compelled to jump over?
When we got a little older, we realized how irrational, how insane, those fears seemed. We could laugh them off because we knew, duh, people can’t fit through the cracks in a pier nor easily be swept over a bridge. But it seemed so real back then. Continue reading “Are You Afraid of Falling Through the Cracks?”
Today, I thought I’d share an enjoyable read with you. If you like action, humor, thrills, a dash of romance, and some heavy, thought-provoking content all held together with a thread of hope, you’ll probably love Piper Bayard’s and Jay Holmes’s Spy Bride, part of the Risky Brides set. I had the chance to read an advanced copy (thank you, thank you, thank you, Piper and Jay) and thoroughly enjoyed myself.
The story opens with bride-to-be, Sonia Perez (spectacular choice of protagonist names, by the way), shopping for her trousseau with her fabulous mother Kathleen, when a *ahem* fluffy Santa falls from a balcony and squashes a courier (thief?) carrying something very interesting. And everything goes downhill (in a very good way) from there. Continue reading “Something Borrowed, Something Blue, Something Stolen…”
NaNoWriMo is just around the corner and, if you’re anything like me, you’re waiting for it to arrive with a mixture of excitement and dread.
Most of us don’t really have time for NaNo. We make room by temporarily pushing aside non-essential activities, making a bargain with our families to offset some of our individual responsibilities and planning for the chaos as much as possible. Or we just dive in and hope for the best. Either way, we do it because, if we win, we’ll have most or all of a first draft done. That’s a pretty decent reward for a month of madness.
For my family, meals are the biggest concern during NaNo. While it’s tempting to get take-out or drive-through all month, it’s not so friendly on the budget or health.
Assuming, of course, you can make it to a fast food joint. Otherwise… Continue reading “How to Survive NaNoWriMo Without Resorting to Cannibalism”
