So here I’m at day four without prescription NSAIDS, the miracle drug which negates most of the pain from arthritis. I was instructed to stop taking NSAIDS seven days prior to surgery, and being a dutiful person have done so. Well. Last night had me in tears, wondering how I was going to get through the next few days. By evening I was almost unable to walk the pain was so intense, and by the…
Who cares about my knees? That just sounds ridiculous: the knees so far. I think to myself, who cares? Apparently quite a few of you do, if the emails I’ve received are any indication. I thank you all for that support. But it would seem many of you are also interested to learn about my progress through this journey because you’re facing the possibility of partial or full knee replacements as well. So, I thought…
A busy Year 2019 is going to be a busy year for me, lots of positive changes. The major one is I’m having partial knee replacement surgery done on both my knees. This is a Big Scary Thing for me, but also a Big Hopeful Potty Deal. I think facing uterine cancer surgery was easier than knee surgery, because with the cancer surgery it was either going to be all or nothing, live or die,…
It’s been a month and nothing but silence from me, I know, I know. But despite the fact I can talk to a crowd of hundreds and not bat an eye, in fact never shut up, creating blog posts is more intimate, like having a phone conversation, or curling up in comfortable chairs and chatting. I detest the phone. And in fact I detest having to talk. Out loud. That’s what a blog post is:…
It almost feels like the morning after a binge. Headache. Disbelief. A feeling you’re going to lose your cookies if you’re not very careful. Vague sense of paranoia, and just wishing everyone would duct-tape their mouths. You’re tired of hearing about it. Tired of looking up with the conviction the sky is going to fall. But you know what? You’re not going to lose your cookies. People shouldn’t employ duct-tape on body parts. And we…
I’m no expert. Not by a long-shot. But I can tell you, having to maintain three websites, that the world of creating and maintaining a website is now highly complex, fraught with frustration, imperiled by hackers and spammers and all manner of roguish ruffians. Recently my website was invaded by hackers who planted malicious code, hijacking visitors off to all manner of disreputable sites. It’s taken me weeks of lost hair in finally clean the…
It’s a glorious day here at the Old Stone House: 10°C, mostly sunny, teasing of spring to come. But not yet. Most definitely not yet; the worst storms of winter often scream through April 1. But for today, I work quietly in the shafts of sunlight from the skylights. While writing blog posts for myself and the publishing house, uploading audiofiles to proof for one of our authors, reading a submission, juggling bookkeeping and the…
Seems to be I can only manage one post a month. My apologies, dear reader. Writing of The Rose Guardian continues slowly but positively. I’m so close to finishing the first draft, perhaps by close of year. I’m very happy with how the characters have developed, particularly Vi, my protagonist. It has been a challenge writing three separate stories, meshing them so the stories flow as a cohesive whole. Fine tuning of that will happen…
Recently a dear friend and colleague (Robert Runte) and I were discussing the craft of writing, which happened concurrently with a similar discussion I was having with my husband, Gary. In particular we discussed story genesis, and how to create meaningful environment detail and description in literature. For example, I mentioned to Robert a story on which I’m presently working, that all I had so far was mood (eeriness) and one element (an owl). He…
I was featured this past week on Colleen Anderson’s Women in Horror Month. The mandate of the event, which is sponsored by the Viscera Organization, is to highlight women who are under-represented in the artistic field. You can find their vision and mission statements at the end of the article.