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There is no right way. Everyone is different.

Michael Anderle

I’ve written about comparison and how dangerous comparisonitis can be before. However, I tend to look at comparison from the bottom up, from the perspectives of those who compare themselves to writers who are further ahead in their careers.

Here, I always stress the importance of being realistic, of knowing where you are right now, and how that impacts what you can and cannot do today.

I never really talked about the other side of the coin, about how those we look up to and in whose footsteps we want to follow compare ourselves to us. Do they have a full grasp of where they are right now compared to where they’ve been when telling us how it’s done? Are they aware of the privilege that comes with being further ahead when talking about writing or publishing to a group of people desperate to get to that place too?Read More →

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You can choose courage or you can choose comfort. You cannot have both.

Brené Brown

For the past two and a half years, I’ve been joking that I haven’t seen my comfort zone since late 2017.

It’s not actually a joke, of course. I have been pushing myself beyond what I thought myself capable of and I’m not even close to being done.

During the last eighteen months alone, I quit my teaching job to start editing and coaching full time, I moved to Cyprus, I published my first co-written lesbian romance, I published my first and many other nonfiction books, and that’s just the business and writing part of my life.

Of course, these were all calculated risks, and some were bigger than others. You really don’t have to jump without a safety net. Falling flat on your face and bruising your ego is embarrassing enough as it is. Besides, there’s no guarantee a crazy leap will bring in a bigger reward. It might, but it might also end in a trip to the ER.Read More →

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Feeling guilt or even shame around our creativity is nothing new…

…but I see more people dealing with it these days.

After all, aren’t we all supposed to be locked inside our homes waiting for this to pass?

Not-Enoughness

To start, that’s obviously not the case. We’re not all locked inside just waiting about for better days to come.

Some of us—those we’ve been calling the frontliners—work more than ever, under more strenuous circumstances than ever.

Some of us locked inside our homes are still working as well, and a few of those might even be working harder because their line of profession is asking that of them right now.

Some of us have kids who they are supposed to homeschool.

Some of us have all of the above and then some.

Yes, there are people waiting out this pandemic who are bored out of their minds, but, for a lot of people, life as they knew it kind of went on or got harder.

And yet we’re all being shamed and guilted in not feeling enough, in not taking this ‘opportunity’ to finally learn that language, finish that book, become fit (what? If there’s one thing I’m not becoming these days, it’s fit).Read More →

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Hyphens!

Love ’em or hate ’em, they do make our lives—or our reading, rather—easier. The tricky thing about hyphens is that some rules about them aren’t set in stone. They depend on preference and that means our usage in those cases change over time.

These days, hyphens aren’t used as much, which leads to a lot of confusion. When do you use a hyphen and when not?

Luckily, some basic rules still exist, especially when it comes to the use of compound adjectives and numbers and fractions. In other cases, the most important rules to adhere to are:

  • Consult and stick with one particular dictionary, whether an online or offline one. (Don’t use both the online and offline version of one dictionary. Really try stick to one version and one version alone.)
  • Be consistent.

Compound nouns

Today, a lot of compound words are no longer spelled with a hyphen (we write website rather than web-site, and writing paper rather than writing-paper).Read More →

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Last month, I had my first virtual book tour. I had about zero expectations going in, but I did have hopes and dreams…

…and the results exceeded those in the extreme.

Which is why I can’t wait to share my results with you, and urge you on to try it for yourself.

A virtual book tour…

One of my writer friends, Lasairiona McMaster, has been on such a roll. Ever since I met her, Las has published five romance books and she has another three up for pre-order.

With every release, she kept posting about her ‘virtual book tour’ and the amazing reviews she got during it.Read More →