I just finished listening to Turtles All the Way Down by John Green. It was one of a few audiobooks I borrowed from the library to keep in my car and listen to in increments to try to boost my number of books read this year. I’d been wanting to read it for awhile, but since it was new and…
I’m sure most of us have our individual pet peeves when it comes to our media–things that just get under our skin that most people probably don’t even notice. Or if they do notice, it doesn’t bother them. I have more than my fair share, I think. They can be big and important, like the one highlighted by my recent…
I used to wonder if it would get weird when I started getting significantly older than my characters. Especially when it comes to the Firmament series. Because the eighteen books, while they take place over a period of maybe five to six years, will probably take pretty close to eighteen years for me to get written and published. Needless to…
Sometimes I’m amazed how easy it is to lose focus on what’s important so quickly. For a Bible study we’re doing at church, we had to read a piece called “The Tyranny of the Urgent.” It contrasted the “urgent” things in our lives with the important things. I already knew all about this. I knew that good doesn’t always mean…
Two things caused this post to percolate in my mind over the weekend. 1. A few mentions of the “Bechdel test” scattered across social media. 2. Continued Marvel Cinematic Universe movie marathon with my husband. For anyone unfamiliar with the Bechdel test, it states that a work of fiction only passes the test if two women have a conversation with…
No, not biological evolution, as in Darwinism. That’s a completely different topic that doesn’t fit on this blog at all. I mean the evolution of the development of our skills and talents. I’ve been reading the collected stories of O. Henry lately. I’ve always enjoyed the stories of his that I’ve read, but I found a big, beautiful hardbound collection…
New apartment means new workspace! Well, not really because the apartment we moved to is just the mirror image of our old one, so my workspace is really exactly the same, just on the opposite side of the room. But it still feels fresh and new–all clean and organized–so I thought I’d give y’all a little peek at it! I…
In the past couple of weeks, we saw four relatively recent movies. All within the past couple of years, at least. Only one of them–Black Panther was in the theater. One, Spotlight, we downloaded on our tablet to watch on our anniversary cruise. The other two, Logan Lucky and Breathe we rented with my grandparents. All very different stories. And…
I talked about expectations a few days ago, and just over the weekend I’ve come upon a situation where I got to put my preaching into practice. Let me back up for a second. In case you don’t recognize the quote in this post’s title, it’s from a pretty fantastic movie called Eight Below. In it, a man determined to…
Well, now it’s public and I can finally admit the main reason I’ve had so much trouble keeping up with blogging, writing, emails, and really all forms of pretty much everything. After many years of creating fictional people to populate the pages of my stories, it’s time for me to make a real person to populate my home! Yes, my…