Category: Writing

Writing

Announcement! Book Release!

Welcome to the world, Deus Ex Machina! 🎉 I’m proud to introduce Hamartia’s sequel, Deus Ex Machina, born on November 18th, weighing 276 pages. Author-mom and book-baby are doing fine. (That’s a lie. One of us is freaking out.) If this sounds like a birth announcement, that’s because it kinda is. Writing a book and then putting it out into the world feels very much like sending a child I’ve raised out there to fend for themselves. I’ve done all I can, now it’s in the world’s hands. Please be kind to my baby. Grace has lived in my head […]

Life, Writing

White: the default setting

I’m just going to come out and say it. I am not white. Neither is Grace Dartmouth (often times). Eight years ago, when I started writing my first novel, Hamartia, I made an important choice about how I would depict the main character in any story I ever write. But I told no one about what I did (or rather, didn’t do) which made my bold statement seem more like a sneaky decision. And the result blew up in my face. What did I do (not do)? If you look at Hamartia’s cover, you’ll notice that the running woman has […]

Writing

Beware of the procrastination demon and elephants

I’m a writer and an experienced procrastinator. If this is also you, you may find comfort in this post. It otherwise contains no words of wisdom. It’s a short read, though (3min), so you can get right back to doing whatever you’re putting off by reading this entry. I started writing this post to procrastinate from editing my work in progress. I researched the topic of procrastination which then caused me to put off writing this post. While researching, I came across an interesting article about elephants. How could I resist? I love elephants! And this is how some of […]

Writing

Piss off, self-doubt! I’m trying to write a book.

*SPOILER ALERT* We are all susceptible to an occasional violent yes-I-can-no-I can’t shit-storm. Sadly, this post offers no remedy. There is no moral or heartwarming message, either. However, at the bottom of this entry there is a happy ending. This is about a girl with a dream (me) going through a shit-storm of doubt. Welcome to my story. I had completed the first draft of my second book (Hamartia’s sequel) when something awful happened: I contracted the silent dream killer, self-doubt. It preys on all people regardless of race, social class, gender, and so on. Some weather through it as […]

Writing

An update from my rabbit hole

Happy New Year! Wait… are we past the point where it’s okay to say that? Sorry, I’ve been busy. But I’d like to take a moment to breathe and to tell you all what I’ve been up to. Why haven’t I written a blog post in a dog’s age? Because I’ve been deep in a rabbit hole writing my next book! I’ve proudly written 150 pages in three short months. Inspiration comes at the strangest times when I least expect it. I can’t control it or stop it and sadly, I can’t make it happen on demand either. I wish […]

Life, Writing

Irreconcilable differences & bonbons

Like most new writers, I wrote my book while juggling life. For me, life was a fun full-time career, an awesome family, and a long list of cool friends. In May 2016, however, the thing that ate up a huge chunk of my time came to an abrupt end: my career. And when you’ve worked in the same place for as long as I had, it felt more like a marriage unravelling than a job ending. In my case, the uncoupling was not only amicable, it was welcomed. Let me take you back to when my love affair with the […]

Writing

Fearless chicken-shit!

It took two years for me to tell people I was writing a book. I told my husband when I reached the 25 000 word count. It was spring, 2013 and I had already been writing the book for almost nine months. His reaction was, “OMG, this is going to be a trilogy! I can’t wait to see the movie!” He thinks I walk on water. But I stopped writing. Then, in February of 2014, I went to Vietnam on a three week trip by myself and started telling people I met there that I was writing a book. It […]

Writing

Meet my friends Lucid & Lazy

Question – How does a screaming woman at an airport tie in with my visit to the Science Museum that inspired the story HAMARTIA? While in a meeting, I wrote the vivid airport scene that constantly ran in my head simply to make it stop. Period. I didn’t know what I would do with it if anything, but I freed it from my mind so I could get back to living my life. But then it happened again. Another scene manifested in my head. This time, the event that played on repeat was a funeral on a sunny day and […]

Writing

Lisa – the short story that ended (postponed) my writing life

LISA is the very last story I wrote and the only one I still have from my childhood. The day I decided to write Hamartia, I dug Lisa out from the depths of my closet to re-read it with adult eyes and finally understood why the teachers took action to ‘save me’. So I kinda sorta forgave those I loathed and blamed for making my life hell when I was twelve and decided to move on. To be honest, the story is not as vivid as I remember it; however, the topic would cause any responsible adult to react as […]

Writing

Where HAMARTIA began

Literally, the writing of HAMARTIA began on a notepad during a boring management meeting. But the idea of HAMARTIA began with a conversation in London England with my then 14-year-old son at the Science Museum. It was July 2012 and we were in London England celebrating Liam’s graduation from elementary school. Although I had positioned this trip as a celebration, it was actually my selfish way of spending time with my baby before he started high school in September and turned into an asshole. High school was when every kid started behaving like wild animals released from captivity, right? We […]