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So I just realized that Tuesday will be the one-year anniversary of this blog.  I still haven't finished a book to the point of self-publishing, but I've written more this year than I have in several years past, so I consider it a win.  (I've written even more, if I include the blog posts I've put up here.) 2014 has been an...interesting year.  Health issues and deaths in the family aside, it hasn't been bad.  I feel like I'm getting a better sense of who I am as a writer, which is a big part of what I need to be confident in my writing.  My day job has had its ups and downs, but the year is ending on a high note, which always makes me feel a little better.  I'm thankful for the life I am privileged to lead, and I hope to use my time to make the lives of others a little better, too. There.  Now that I've gotten the maudlin sentimentality out of the way, it's time to set some goals for myself for next year.  More and more, I'm realizing that i

The other day, I started sorting through my jewelry.  I had recently gotten a new necklace, and I wanted to put it away and make sure I had everything else in order.  A few years ago, I had done a massive culling of the herd, as it were, and I like to go through and see if there's anything else that should be sent out to pasture when I add new items. I don't have a ton of jewelry (anymore), and I realized that the items I kept, and that I wear the most often, are the ones with stories behind them.  There are the necklaces my husband has given me, a locket with some of the dirt from my father's grave inside, and earrings my mother gave me when I graduated from high school.  Not all of them are things that have big, important meanings, of course - I have several necklaces that I bought at various conventions that I keep because they remind me of the convention and, of course, because they're pretty. You can tell a lot about a person (or a character) by the things that

Well, that last post certainly got more attention than I expected!  To any new readers, welcome to my little corner of the internet.  I'm a writer who's working on making writing a bigger part of my life, and will someday have a book or short story published, be it by a publisher or by my own hand (thank you, self-publishing). Being a big fan of fantasy and science-fiction works, I read a lot of books in a series, and I've enjoyed seeing how different authors handle the overarching story lines.  My favorites are the Discworld books by Terry Pratchett, the  Dresden Files  by Jim Butcher, and the  October Daye  books by Seanan McGuire.  Conveniently, I'm involved with craft swaps on  Ravelry  for two of the three series, so I've been going through the books again and reminding myself why I love them so. The Discworld books were the first series that hooked me from the start.  They're not a traditional book series, in that you don't necessarily need to read