Yearly Archives: 2015

From Cliques to Clubs.

 July 17, 2015   |     29 Comments

Hello my friends,

I can NOT stop listening to the Glee Cast version of Teenage Dream. I literally drove three blocks past my office so I could let the song play through for the third time in a row. Feel free to judge.

And now for the headline news… Most of you know I have been working my knockers off writing The Dirty Book Club. Is it done? Nope. But I’m powering through and I’m falling more in love with the story and characters every day. So much so that I’ve started giving life to the novel living before it’s born.

Go to http://www.cafepress.com/thedirtybookclub and check out the products I designed. I am getting the pillow cases for everyone in …

Good Cliques Never Die!

 July 8, 2015   |     15 Comments

I’ve always heard authors say it took years to complete a novel and assumed they were lazy. I mean, I wrote 31 books in ten years and I wrote them quickly!

Well, call me Judy because I was super judgy.

I have written half of The Dirty Book Club about nine times in the past four years. It’s an ambitious project that spans generations, includes secret rituals, funny conversations about dirty books, and great characters in their early 30s with lives that need some serious fixing. And it’s HARD!

My latest start-over was this January. Among other things I changed it from a novel with multiple points of view to a novel with one main voice. Now, seven months later …

A BLAH-G IS BORN!

 June 17, 2015   |     6 Comments

You know when you hit the fridge over an over again hoping something new will magically appear, and it doesn’t? Those wilted spinach leaves and that hairy-lipped carton of orange juice are still the only things in there! Well, that’s what trying to find words feels like today: a maddening cycle of hope and futility.

My brainwaves have short-circuited. Reduced to a blinking cursor; an anxious heartbeat flipping the bird at my lack of creativity.

Flip… flip… flip… 

As a professional writer it’s a terrifying place to be. All I’m good for are words and ideas. What am I supposed to do when I run out??

And yet, I am at my favorite sushi restaurant typing away. When I sat …

Intention Deficit Disorder

 June 10, 2015   |     3 Comments

intention

A few years ago, I was having one of my many panic attacks while trying to finish one of my many books before one of my many deadlines. Not one to wallow in my own suffering, I looked for help and found Candice. I’m sure I’ve written about her before. She is a life coach and really helped me look at my stresses in a new way so I could manage them. One of my biggest issues was Life vs. Work. As a writer, you really need to enter what I call The Cone Of Silence and stay there for many straight hours.

There are no texts inside the cone. No phone calls. No e-mails. No paying bills. No online …

The Teat of Technology Part 2

 May 28, 2015   |     5 Comments

Hey Good Looking,

(Yeah, I’m talking to you.)

Last week I gave you a list of ten reasons why those of you born in 2000 and beyond have it easier than those of us who are, as old people like to say, wiser. Well, now it’s my turn to gloat.

The following are ten ways that pre-millennials had it better.

1) Prank Calls. We got to make ’em, got to answer ’em, and we laughed our abs into six-packs because of ’em. Nothing brought more hilarity to a sleepover than dialing up random people or our crushes and messing with them over the phone. Unless the victim recognized our voices (most of us mastered the art of disguise), we got …

The Teat of Technology part 1

 May 28, 2015   |     7 Comments

Hey,

I hope you all had a great long weekend.

What did I do, you ask? I drove to Palm Springs with my friend Elaine to celebrate her birthday. If this picture proves anything it’s that you can take the girl out of Laguna Beach but you can’t keep her from dropping a french fry in her bellybutton. That’s me on the right admiring my accuracy. And yes, of course I shared it with Elaine. It was her birthday.

Palm springs

Anyway, we got to talking about how different life was when we were in high school (1980s)  compared to life in high school now (2000 and beyond). And we came up with two lists: We Had It Worse Because… AND  We …

ADVICE TO THE DAUGHTER I DON’T HAVE.

 May 20, 2015   |     10 Comments

Hello my friends!

As promised I have attached a photo of last week’s extraction.

Still Life: Dead Rat.

rat

My apologies to those of you who would have preferred I show the unbagged version of what lay decomposing under my house. Believe me, I would have loved to. But I have a line–it’s thick and bold and drawn at a “dead rodent teeming with maggots”. Even the professional was dry heaving.

I do wish I had the temperament of sociopath–if only for the time needed to photograph and post the vile creature, because a teaching moment was lost. Mother Nature went to town on this beast and I am censoring her work. So I would like to teach something else so …

32 is the new 50!

 May 13, 2015   |     14 Comments

It happens.

Last Wednesday to be specific.

I was feeling low. Uninspired. A little unloved. A lot human. I had been thinking of the old days–when each of my blog postings would yield thousands of comments. You discussed them. You made friends. We were a community. A clique. And now? Notsomuch.

That’s okay. Times change. People grow. I read The Giving Tree. I know how life works. As long as you’re out there I’m all good. Truly. You inspire me. Being reminded that my words matter to you is everything. Not in a needy, desperate way. More out of wanting to connect.

Because the comments have dropped so dramatically I was convinced that your interest had too. Then I …

To Blah-G or Not to Blah-g…

 May 6, 2015   |     43 Comments

Hey you,

We’ve been together for what–twelve years now? During that time I’ve posted over 1000 blahgs and written 31 books that many of you have read. I’d say that gives us real relationship status. And as we all know open and honest communication is essential to a healthy relationship. So here is goes: Would you miss my Blah-g’s if I stopped posting for a while? Just long enough for me to finish writing The Dirty Book Club, then I’ll be back?

If I receive 50 comments in the next week asking me to continue I will. And I’ll do it with gusto. If not, I will assume you want to play the field for a while so we will …