Not All Who Wander Are Lost

Just pondering the concept of truth today. Don't know why really. Maybe I've been reading too many newspaper articles on the presidential election. Or I listened to my daughter and her cousin blame each other for everything that fell over this evening. Just got me thinking about truth. You know, they always say there are two sides to every story. When I think about that it's actually wrong. There are three sides of every story--yours, mine and the truth. No matter how much we try to hold onto veracity, I think we all do some judicious editing. Think about your own childhood. Have you ever caught yourself thinking about, kids these days? (Cue the Broadway song in the background!) When you were their age? How many of our parents traveled uphill, both ways, to school in the snow? Our own childhoods have that gilded look. I think back to all the years at the lake house and it brings a nostalgic smile to my face. It was so great, wasn't it? I only have to look in the journ...

I usually read genre books. I love fantasy, science fiction, romance, horror . . . you name it. I like genre fiction. I usually do not like modern fiction. I remember several years ago talking to a colleague of mine about books. We'd come back from summer break and she was telling me about how much she loved Nicholas Sparks. I don't recall at the moment which book it was, but I do remember her telling me that she sobbed through the whole book. I think I looked like a dog listening to a high pitched sound at that second. How could you possibly love a book that made you cry? Maybe I'm just deficient. I don't like, for the most part, those tear jerker endings. Titanic, the movie? Never saw it. Never wanted to. Never thought there was a point to subjecting myself to three hours of misery ending in a freezing death. I teach Romeo and Juliet to my students, but we talk about how the tragedy isn't romantic. It's just sad. The tragedy isn't that Romeo and Juliet d...

I'm sitting here waiting for the 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremonies to begin. I've convinced the four year old that these are going to be some of the coolest shows she's going to watch in the entire universe. I'm sentimentally patriotic and a hopeless romantic all rolled up into one. I always mist up at the national anthem playing in the background with the flag rising to frame one of our athletes. I also love the stories behind the athletes. The legally blind Korean archer who set a new world record, the Japanese equestrian who happens to be Buddhist monk, the sprinter with two artificial legs . . . It's my mom's fault. I know that. She always watched the Olympics. It was a big deal in our house. My brother and I were gymnasts, never anywhere near the Olympics, but we did have dreams of gold. The same dreams of every young athlete. I know what it's like to stand on a balance beam with the crowd looking on and feel your heart in your throat. I remember the pa...

According to a quote by Ray Bradbury "You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them." I love this quote both as a writer and as a teacher. More so as a teacher. I teach 8th graders so I hear, "I hate to read," pretty often. I love it when I take them to the library in the first week telling them they all need to have a book in their hands before they leave. There are a handful in each class who dive toward the stacks knowing exactly what kind of book they're looking for. A few others meander around checking covers and skimming backs of books. Two of three more wander aimlessly not even really picking up a book or getting too close. At the end of the class those two are still circling--looking for a place to land. I've spent most of the class talking to my meanderers. What do you like to read? What do you like to do when you're not at school? What's your favorite movie? As I walk with them pulling books ...

How do you describe what it feels like to be in the home stretch of a book? To know that there are only about twenty or thirty pages to the end? You know where the story is, you know where it has to go, and you know what you need to write in order to get there. Of course, it's only the beginning of the end. Once you finish the story itself, once that first draft is done--well, overall, it's a heady feeling. When you actually write those last words you automatically want to erase them. You can't be done. There's got to be more to be said. That's true. There is always more that you can say. The problem is knowing when the book is done. Sometimes there are stories that you just can't let go. Characters you love. You really want to stay with them, know more about them, follow them home after they're done riding away into the sunset. Like I said the end of a book is actually only the beginning of the end. Once that draft is finished you have to go back and re...

A sample from THE SHATTERED PRISM--book one of my fantasy trilogy. Let me know what you think! CHAPTER ONE Aerin tensed. Awake in the darkness. In spite of the fatigue of travel, despite slogging into Crystalmer earlier that evening, drenched to the skin and numbed to the bone she couldn’t settle. Every nerve thrummed—aware. Body braced. Ears straining. She heard nothing but the usual shouts and laughter from the tavern below. She saw nothing but the faint light that seeped under the ill fitting door and through the thin walls from the hall.       The flickering light made the shadows of table and stool sinister in the gloom. More than once in the last several weeks she’d jumped at a mysterious shadow seen out of the corner of her eyes. Nightmares. Fresh nightmares brought on by her current search, and old nightmares of the last Circle convergence drove her from sleep. Aerin wondered if she’d always jump at shadows? Her fingers fumbled at the lacings of her shirt an...

I'm writing about hell right now. I know. That's a rather harsh lead in, isn't it. It's true though. I just sent a character, a fallen angel named Rue, to hell. I want it noted that I came up with his name long before I ever read the Hunger Games, by the way. It comes from Ruvan, the name of one of the angel judges. I made him an angel judge at hell's gate who'd lost his compassion. He's booted down to earth as a human to rediscover his compassion, and of course, the devil has his own plots and plans. So, now Rue's gone to hell. He's actually there to rescue a soul that the demon Asmoday tricked into going with him. I was a little stuck, though. Hell's a huge concept--what do I want it to look like? That's a bit of a brain bender. How do you describe hell? Do you stick with the Judeo-Christian concepts? Do you spiral down into Dante's concentric circles? What about the Greco-Roman underworld with its Fields of Punishment and Sysiphus an...