The main criticism I’ve heard of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is that it encourages quantity over quality in writing. Writers are spurred on to spew out words as quickly as possible without regard for the value behind the words. And then, thanks to the ease of self-publishing, there is a glut of poorly written […]
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Halloween, the celebration of all things that go bump in the night and make our stomachs jump into our throats, is over and gone for another year. On Monday, as we celebrated the day, I found myself thinking, “What is my greatest fear?” This is a good question to ask ourselves now and then. Our […]
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It had been a beautiful fall day and I was determined to get in a bike ride along Falling Waters Trail to Lime Lake before going to New York to babysit my new grandson later that week. When I noticed my back tire was pretty soft, I thought, “No problem. I’ll use the pump at […]
Read MoreIn 1921 the Anglo-Irish war ended with Ireland achieving freedom from Britain except for six counties in the northern part of the country that now make up Northern Ireland. This had not been the goal of the war. The goal had been a united Ireland, free of British interference. However, the predominantly Protestant counties of […]
Read MoreComing up is the great celebration of writing, National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. Time for me to clear a writing space on the cluttered catch all table in my kitchen that I use during NaNoWriMo. NaNoWriMo started 17 years ago as an effort to encourage writing. Every November all are challenged to write a […]
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I spent the last week in New York. I walked along Broadway, Times Square And had soup from the soup Nazi! I also toured Carnegie Hall and the Alvin Ailey School of Dance, all to assist me with the novel I am currently working on. Have I told you lately how much I love […]
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“I can’t do this anymore! I’m no business woman. I quit,” I said last week when receiving notice about a form I was supposed to have filed but hadn’t. Sometimes I just don’t know, what I don’t know, which leads to frustration. Over twenty years ago, as a lay woman running a Catholic Church, […]
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Sometimes life throws us a curve ball, sometimes more than one at a time. Three weeks ago, I came home from a brief retreat at my brother’s cottage to the sound of rushing water, coming from the depths of our house. It took ten days, and periods of shutting the water off, to finally find […]
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In the fourth book of the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, there is a maze that the students compete in that changes it’s pathways as you walk through it. This means that you can’t go back the way you came in because that way no longer exists. Driving my car […]
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During my thirties and forties, I had a number of books of daily meditations. The idea was that by reading these positive reflections every day, eventually I would internalize their message and change negative thinking patterns. I read them faithfully for years. I remember one meditation that spoke of depletion and depression. When starting to […]
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