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The Art of Giving Up
Have you ever tried, and tried, and tried, until you were blue in the face, and all the world felt stale and useless and without-purpose all for the fact that you could not succeed and it was making you miserable? And have you ever, actually, given up? Because I did. And as it turns out,…
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Abusing the Use of Sexual Assult in YA
If you haven’t seen this article on The Victimization of Lara Croft, read it. It brings to mind an issue I have, specifically about YA novels, that has been bugging the hell out of me lately: there is too much god damn sexual assault. Before you get upset and say “it’s a real thing and YA…
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5 Reasons Why Aspiring Authors Should Not Trust The Internet
Call me a hippy, or an optimist, or whatever you like, but I have a personal rule about any kind of advice: if it makes you feel good, take it; if it makes you feel like shit, it’s probably wrong. At least, it’s probably wrong for you. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve…
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On the Road Again
I’d like to take a moment here to wax philosophical on the idea of The Road to Publication. Depending on how long and deep you dig into the over-flowing informational pool on “What to expect when you try to publish a book,” you’ve probably come across all kinds of stories, and have been told to…
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In Like a Lion
It’s MARCH. WHAT? Winter has been shockingly–shockingly–mild here in Buffalo. For the first time in years, we can accurately say at the beginning of March that spring is right around the corner. For me, spring always brings with it a surge of passion andĀ determination. My To-Do list quadruples, but so does my Got-Done list (and…
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Wailing at the Wall
Life has been a whirlwind. Let me tell you about the past few weeks as succinctly as I can. Nothing major has happened, not by certain standards anyway. But my brain and my heart have been on a strangeĀ journey that can’t quite be captured in words. Perhaps that’s the reason behind my blog-silence–it’s certainly never…
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On Words, Human Creativity, and the Ineffable
Friday night I was driving from South Buffalo to a friend’s house in Amherst. The radio was playing all kinds of awful music, so I turned it off and just drove. I kept being struck by how familiar the roads were–the roads I grew up with, that I know like the back of my hand…
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The Artist as Batman
Like most of you, I have a day job. I happen to work at a pharmaceutical telemarketing group from 8:30 to 5, not using my degree in media study whatsoever. Maybe I’m using a little bit of my anthropology minor when dealing with a bazillion unpleasant receptionists (however, the cross-cultural appearance of generic job dissatisfaction in a particular segment of the working population is…
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Things Never Said
If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, “thank you,” that would suffice.Ā ~Meister Eckhart I was inspired by a post on twitter that my friendĀ made about writing to her old college professor, the one who helped her to believe in her writing. It reminded me of the people in my life…