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I freely admit that I am bad at taking care of myself. I've always been one to focus on taking care of everyone else, until I inevitably collapse or break down. It's not the healthiest of traits, I know, and it is something I'm working on. Having been through the break-downs, I'm intimately aware of the idea that you can't take care of other people if you don't take care of yourself. And yes, I know it's hard, and it feels wrong somehow. Still, it's important to remember a few things: There's no shame in taking a break. Turn off Facebook, Twitter, the news, whatever is sending you into the pit of despair at the moment, and take a breath. It'll be there when you get back, and you'll be that much stronger for not drowning in it the whole time. Find something concrete you can do. For myself, I find that I feel a lot better if I can look at the problem and find one specific, concrete action that I can take. You don't have to solve ev...

A little over thirteen years ago, I met my now-husband Eric. A little while after that initial meeting, I met his two cats, Ramses and Feina. They were around four and five years old at the time, and they were clearly important to Eric. The fact that they were important to him is actually one of the things that attracted me to Eric. Ramses, the older of the two, was a black cat of mighty strength - he was about eighteen pounds at his height, and most of it was muscle. He was not what you'd call a good kitty - he frequently decided that he didn't like certain people, and made his displeasure known by discovering what color their blood was. But if he liked you? He would defend you with all five pointy ends against all foes, both real and imagined. He walked into Eric's life when he was about six months old, skinny as a rail and limping just enough to look pathetic. Eric's then-girlfriend asked if they could keep him, and Eric, who had never liked cats before, said yes...

Music has always been a pretty important part of my life. I have a hard time focusing if I don't have something playing in the background, and I love a good playlist. At the end of last year, I put together a playlist called "Not Yet Dead Dammit," just to help me remember that I was going to get through the rough times. Now that things are coming to a head, and the Malevolent Cheeto is actually taking office, I know a lot of us are worried. Terrified, angry, sad - there are a lot of emotions running wild right now, and it's unlikely that that will change anytime soon. I've added some new songs to the playlist, and they all fall into one of three categories: call to action (lots of angry, "things are broken and we need to fix them" songs), celebration (primarily things that remind me that I'm still here in spite of everything), and rest (songs that remind me to take a breath, that I can't keep up the fight if I don't let myself recharge). ...

This weekend was filled with movies, and the one that made the biggest impact on me was Hidden Figures. Given the timing (MLK Jr. day, the upcoming inauguration, etc.), it felt like a movie that was coming along at just the right time. For those of you who somehow missed any of the ads or previews, Hidden Figures is based on the true story of three African-American women - Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson - who were employees at NASA when the US first launched a man into orbit. Their work in several different areas helped make the US space program possible. Set in 1961, there are scores of undertones and, well, tones, of both racism and sexism in nearly every interaction. There's also a running theme of people - women in general, and women of color in particular - being told that "it's just the way things are." Watching not just the main characters, but several other people, in their own way, decide to find a different way was inspiring. In a...

A discussion with several friends led me to wonder where the line between accurate and too accurate may be when portraying a character who is, shall we say, not well liked. For example, I know quite a few people who stopped reading the Harry Potter books after Order of the Phoenix , because Harry as written in that book is a little too close to the average obnoxious teenager for comfort. I admit, it's very clear when some authors have more experience with, say, teenagers, and use that experience to inform their writing. Obviously, as writers we want to create characters that are realistic and multi-dimensional, because those characters are much more interesting to read and write and they drive more exciting stories. At the same time, I've certainly put books down because a character was getting on my nerves - in general, if I want to reach through a page and throttle a character, it's probably a book I should put down. So where to draw the line? Or is there actually a l...