A lot of people are excited to see the Hunger Games. A. Lot. In fact, the odds are definitely in favor of this movie being the runaway blockbuster of 2012. But for me, this movie is so much more. Back in 2009, my “insider” at Barnes and Noble recommended one book. “You HAVE to read this.” I was starting a book club with two other friends from high school and we certainly needed an excuse to get together and gab each month (thus, book club.) So Suzanne Collin’s Hunger Games was what started it all. Years later, dozens of books, my book club is going strong. The group has been...
Exploring the verb, “To Nikki.”
“To Nikki:” verb. …to park where the front tire touches one white line and the back tire touches to other white line. …to fall down the “stair” and twist your ankle. …to back into a parked Toyota behind you. …to drop nearly half of the cooking supplies before they reach, or after they reach, the pan. …to start cooking a meal that requires 1.5 hours of oven time, when you have only 1 hour until you need to leave the house. …to break ones nose and then snap it back into place. …to roll a truck door into a pole, bending it backwards. …to lose one’s balance while carrying a...
Thoughts on Writing Real and Living Real
At this past OCW conference and ACFW meeting last Monday, author Lauraine Snelling spoke on the stories of life and how those play into making your writing real. This lead me to stop and think about my own life and my own writing. The drafts I wrote in high school are as simplistic as you can find. Not in the writing skill or plot, necessarily, but there is a definite lack of real-world perspectives. Of course there was. Back then, I knew nothing. I had seen nothing. Even now, I know I’m entirely green to the world. I could name twenty people around me who have seen more in their...
How Horses Changed Me, Defined Me
Horses defined me long before I was even born. As a child, my mother was a horse owner and my father…sometimes was forced to clean his sister’s horse’s stall. (One of my favorite family stories is of him getting frustrated at having to clean the stall and slamming the metal pitchfork into the ground – and into his foot.) After I was born, it was pony rides, horse figurines, horse books and everything My Little Pony. Nothing has changed in 25 years, really. My first horse, Whiskey Rose. When I was twelve, I found my first horse waiting in the driveway after I returned from a two-week vacation with a...
Of clear plastic and chance encounters
Looking back, it is easy to see the movers and shakers in your life. Those people who have affected you for the better {or for the worse.} Sometimes, you can even see how if you had diverged from your path in even the slightest way, you might have missed out on all of it. In 2009, I attended my first summer writing conference, and history was made. Alliances formed. Connections established. Diamonds polished. Though I was terrified and feeling way out of my league, I ran into a spunky blonde woman seated near the bookstore and asked if I could join her. Connection #1. Later, that woman’s roommate would enter...