Blog

Maybe blogging isn’t dead. At least, not yet.

  • October Writing Check: am I failing NaNo before it’s even begun?

    We had snow last week, a sure sign that November is closing in. As November approaches, so too does the yearly writing challenge known as NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. Year autumn writers from around the country attempt to writing a full 50,000 novel in just 30 days. Every year, I attempt some sort…

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  • Poetic Struggle

    Poetic Struggle

    There’s so many thoughts I cannot put into words. Sometimes the struggle is in finding an original way to express thoughts already spoken: the happiness of a bright sunflower in the summer, the melancholy of toy in the rain, the butterflies in the stomach and heart in your throat for nerves. We know what to…

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  • Writing Buzz: Living the Writing Life

    I’m a connoisseur of coffee shops. I’ve issues myself a challenge to write at a new coffee shop every week until I’ve tried every single cafe in the valley. If I attempted this challenge 10 years ago, I would be done in a month. But, Coffee has become surprisingly popular in this Mormon stronghold. Now,…

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  • What’s In the Past

    What’s In the Past

    I remember my past like scenes in a movie. As if it all happened to someone else, in a different reality, separate from the one I currently reside in. I say “I” and “me” when recounting the sordid tales, but feels like a lie. Despite all evidence and witnesses that confirm their truth, I cannot…

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  • Practice vs. Passion in Writing: assessing my growth as a writer

    In many ways, writing still feels like a need that’s intrinsic to my nature. But, external forces have been removed. Writing is no longer a forced activity rubrics and due dates, but a chosen form of expression.

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  • Silence Is the Gift of Being: Learning to Love the Quiet

    We need Quiet Time. As a society, we hate silence. We play music in the background of coffee shops and grocery stores. We fill “awkward silences” with small talk and mindless chatter. We even go so far as to say that quiet people “have no personality”, or regard them with suspicion because “it’s always the…

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  • Bookshop Sundays

    Bookshop Sundays

    It’s a book-shop kind of Sunday. Quiet chatter, and whirling grinders tickle my ears. The smell of coffee and books float through the air with each long, slow breathe. I camp out at a small table with a hot tea latte, a muffin, and my little laptop. The window to my right displays a cool…

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  • The Stayed Hand: when you can’t put your ideas to the page.

    I have drafts and plots for stories I want to write. They sit in their queue, waiting for me to pick them up, dust them off, and finish them. I have dreams for fairy tales, speculative fiction, suspense, and romance, all half-written with a clear road-map- but I can’t bring myself to take the final…

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  • Persistence Isn’t the Key to My Heart: ending the friendzone to lover trope

    When I was 19 I went on a date. It was clear early to me early on that I wasn’t interested in him romantically, and I made that clear. He said he understood and that he was okay with being friends. For the last 9 years he’s been an occasional brunch buddy, conversation partner, and…

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  • The Power of “If”: Why Do We Have Regrets?

    “If” can be a dangerous word. When we use it looking forward, it’s about risks, possibilities, and potential. We may wonder what life would look like if we moved to the city, or if we take that trip, or if we ask out that person. Thinking about what could be is how we make the…

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