To all moms—biological moms, adopted moms, stepmoms, foster moms, moms to be, moms who never were, aunties, moms of pets, caretakers of anyone’s children, grandmothers (of course!), and those who simply care a great deal about the children in your community or the world. Thank you for cherishing and nurturing the future along with those individuals you love and care for each day.

I hope I didn’t leave anyone out.

I write on my laptop, in a barricaded corner of the living room near the kitchen—eight feet from the coffee grinder and coffee maker—surrounded by instruments of creation, including my L-shaped desk that used to work in a bank. The remaining wires from the silent alarm were removed just prior to positioning the desk in my living room. (more…)

Dust bunnies, that is. It must be spring. All that rain has sprouted every seed in existence, and they’re all weeds, and they’re all in my yard. The inside of the house doesn’t look a whole lot better. They call them dust bunnies because they reproduce at an alarming rate. I’ve started learning feng shui, to motivate myself to do housework. There has to be some creative narcotic fix to this, or some kind of puzzle or magic to hold my interest, or it ain’t gettin’ done. I find the prospect of writing an entire novel less daunting than cleaning house. I’d rather read a rejection letter than clean house. (more…)

I found a link on Bill Crider’s Blog to a wordofmouthwriters.org letter to Oprah Winfrey (link no longer active on 03-07-2008), asking that she focus once again on books by contemporary authors in her book club. The request is made by Word of Mouth, An Association of Women Authors. (more…)

Here’s to the prettiest mother in the universe.

Photo credit: earthobservatory.nasa.gov

2020 Hindsight posted this lead to a New Yorker piece by Chandler Burr, author of The Emperor of Scent: A Story of Perfume, Obsession, and the Last Mystery of the Senses, a book that might break my heart if I read it.
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This pair, found at Watermark, may be the cutest thing on the Internet at the moment.

The first draft is you and your idea’s courtship. It’s the time when you try each other out, let things happen as they will. It flows organically out of your creative center, and you let it come, trusting that there’s a purpose to it, that all will work out in the end and you actually have something worth keeping. (more…)

I’m a regular viewer of the Stargate series. Or is that serieses? Both of them, I mean—Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis. I love the original Stargate SG-1 with Richard Dean Anderson, Christopher Judge, Amanda Tapping, and Michael Shanks. I watch the original motion picture with Kurt Russell every chance I get. I like the newer Atlantis series almost as well as the original, but it’s darker, with less humor. Or is it just those Wraith scare the hell out of me? (more…)

We’ve had a wet season in Southern California, and while the weather warmed up and turned dry again yesterday, after the previous day’s cold drizzle, we still aren’t sure if the rainy season is over, or whether this will turn out to be the third wettest, second wettest or the wettest year on record. The season ends June 30, and we have less than an inch of rainfall to go to beat the record, by most accounts. (more…)