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I’m a recovering perfectionist. I’m limiting the amount of perfection I’ll allow in my daily thoughts, my interactions with my friends and family, and in my creative process. Limiting, not banning, because perfectionism is an extreme disease. It feeds on phrases like “always” and “never” and “can’t” and “must.” My perfectionism would have a field day…
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It took me years to admit I wanted an MFA in creative writing. I mean, YEARS. When I first graduated college, I would have laughed in your face if you told me I’d be willing to write admissions essays and fill out that stupid FAFSA again. But by the time my sons were starting school, I started…
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Housecleaning is part of my writing process. People always tell me to leave the dishes in the sink and the dust-bunnies on the stairs, as if there’s something pathological about needing to clean first. For a while, I believed them and tried to force myself to just sit down and write when I had ten…
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I’m gonna out myself and admit that criticism scares the crap out of me. It literally stops me in my tracks sometimes. What can I say? I like to be liked. But over the years, I’ve learned that you can do two things as a writer: you can write to be liked or you can…
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I’m plotting a massive rewrite. To be completely honest, I’m feeling pretty intimidated by the size of the mess I have in front of me. But this story is one of my favorites, and it’s a really solid potential follow up to Edwin being the same teen lit type of story, so I’ve decided it…