This past weekend, I visited a local farm that was sponsoring pumpkin picking, hay rides, and a pumpkin trebuchet. That’s right, one of those medieval hurling things; if you’re a Monty Python fan, think of the flying cow in “The Holy Grail,” and you’ve got the idea. While I hadn’t yet acquired my pumpkin for…
This article on Halloween was recently published in my community newspaper — a paper for which I will step in as editor at the beginning of 2005. The material is pretty basic and has obviously been simplified for the sake of brevity, but it’s still a fun little piece on my favorite holiday. 🙂 Happy…
Though my neighbors tell me that nutrias cause trouble and aren’t worth having around our lakes, I’ve still enjoyed seeing them from time to time while taking my dogs for walks along the water. I’m told that there used to be quite a large population of the critters here, but I’ve only seen three since…
November 1st will mark the beginning of the 5th annual National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), founded in 1999 by Chris Baty and friends as a simple framework for writing a novel in a month. That’s 50,000 words in 30 days. No small undertaking. NaNoWriMo has grown by leaps and bounds each year and now features…
I had been debating with myself on whether to even discuss this topic on a pseudo-public forum, but then a friend of mine overheard me and shared her own gynecological hilarity, so I decided to plunge ahead. (Kate is welcome to post her experience as a comment, if she dares….) Plus, I’m a Scorpio; I’ll…
The Current Electoral Vote Predictor 2004 page (http://www.electoral-vote.com/) this morning features a run-down on the current Supreme Court justices, who appointed them, how long they’ve been on the bench, and how old they are. While there are a few errors in this information (e.g., Ginsberg was appointed by Clinton, not by Carter), it’s still quite…
Every author has a unique and personal process of bringing new characters and a new story to the blank page. As I now immerse myself in the created world of my current book project, I find a familiar phenomenon manifesting. When I was writing ‘rhythm,’ I got so deeply under the skin of the two…
