Zoe the Dalmatian is fifteen, and like all old creatures, she does not enjoy change. In her life, each day should be a healthy mixture of sleep, food, walkies, and attention, with a possible side of peanut butter. While the occasional trip to the store is welcome, long car journeys are not. At all. Ever.… Continue reading Traveling With a Histrionic Dalmatian
People in the apocalypse are always portrayed as savage, dirty, and on the brink of killing everyone else. This makes perfect sense. You see, they no longer have flush toilets. I don’t know how much time most of you have spent without this modern convenience. Growing up in southeast Ohio, I can’t say that a… Continue reading Toilets In the Apocalypse: A Short Guide
Vacations are largely wasted on me. I hate strange beds, become annoyed by eating out too often, get tired too quickly, and really would just rather be writing. My idea of a lovely holiday is one in which I just move somewhere for a month or two, so I can have all the fun of a… Continue reading Scotland In Slightly Dumb Photographs
I know I’ve talked about tenses before. I’ve said lots about how much I love present tense, and why you should give it a chance. But today, I’m taking a different track. I’m talking about how past tense might actually be trying to kill me. This seems excessive, I know. “Past tense is a construct… Continue reading Me, Dying in Past Tense
I’m beginning to learn what the phrase “those who can’t do, teach” means. It doesn’t mean only people who are crap at something teach it. It means that if you do something instinctively, actually trying to figure out what you do enough to explain it to someone else is a process that might actually drive… Continue reading Those Who Can’t Do, Teach the Rest of Us Coping Skills
I’m not saying that marriage causes spicy curries, I’m just saying that three out of the four curries that have been too hot for me to eat have been cooked since Husband and I got married a couple years ago. Which is what happened this wedding anniversary. It was one of those fatal meals where… Continue reading What Dinner Is Like When Your Husband Lacks Tastebuds
So if you didn’t know, I’m in the final stages of editing book 2, aka The Mercy of Men, which means going through the proofreading notes from my editor and performing any last tweaks. Some of these are stylistic, like whether to capitalize the word mohawk (I don’t) or to write out numbers in percentages… Continue reading MS Word, Thou Art A Jerk and CALL FOR EARLY READERS
Well, first of all, don’t click on articles like this. That is, of course, impossible. Clickbait is everywhere—on blogs, on respected news sites, on your friends’ Facebook feeds. Once the territory of newspaper headlines, it’s now the stuff of everyday life, and thousands of people spend their lives dreaming of that perfect clickbait headline. “She… Continue reading How to Avoid Clickbait
Today is Ed Balls day! Are you excited? You should be! Today we wear our Ed Balls hats and eat our Ed Balls foods and celebrate the fact that there is actually a politician, quite high the UK Labor Party, named Ed Balls. So high up that one day Britain may have a Prime Minister… Continue reading Ed Balls Day: Letting Our Immaturity Hang Out Fancy-Free
I am not a technology person, so of course I married the sort of man who thinks a month-old phone is “a bit dated.” In some ways, this is perfect. I hate all things that require more set-up than plugging them in and pushing an “on” button, he positively revels in finding little bowls to… Continue reading Smartphones Are For Idiots Like Us
Under-Paid, Over-Enthused 