I am a huge believer in being yourself. Something I had a very hard time with growing up. Not because I didn't know who I was but because I grew up in a time and place where people judged the parents by the kids, and maybe they still do and I just don't care enough to pay attention. I wanted to be one of the wild, blue haired, nose ringed goth kids that protested everything, didn't eat meat and listened to music that was considered "made by the devil". Instead I was a proper, well behaved ,charm school girl, like everyone wanted me to be.
Now I'm an adult and sadly being the wild blue haired girl is out of the question (unless I become rich as a writer, fingers crossed!) But I do have children of my own now, all special and unique in their own way. I have a hard headed do as you please 17 year old daughter that knows what she wants and how she wants it and although she sometimes has a mouth like a sailor she has the heart of a saint. I have an 11 year old  daughter with fibromyalgia and anxiety who is quirky and strange and loves pokemon and dinosaurs and never wants to get married just wants to adopt a baby girl. And I have a 5 year old son that wants to be a girl because they are beautiful and they get to have babies, and I wouldn't change a thing about any of them. But there are those that try. Year before last when my son Atticus  was in preschool he wanted to paint his fingernails just like his big sisters. So we ran to the store, let him pick out some colors and we painted them. At his request we painted them in an A, B pattern. Blue , purple, blue , purple. His teacher was outraged. She told my mother who picks him up after school that it needed to be removed, that the other children had mocked him and bullied him. My first question was why would she allow them to? But when I asked Atticus if his friends laughed at him he said no, only his teacher said something to him. A parent teacher meeting followed. If my son wants to wear fingernail polish or a neon pink tutu so help me he's going to.
There is too much judgement in this world, to much conforming to a cookie cutter ideal of good and perfect. I like my kids the way they are, and I will stand up to anyone who tries to change them. He may grow out of his "girl" stage and he may not, either way he's perfect. I guess this rant is to say,when you look at someone don't look at their clothes, or hair or tattoos, look at their heart. I don't want my son or any of my kids to ever be ashamed of who they are. No child should feel that way. Where would this world be if we were all the same? If there were no inovators, no risk takers, no one willing to say let's try it this way instead? Celebrate our differences what ever they may be and be you, no matter who the people around you are being!
Thanks for coming by as always I appreciate your time!

I recently clicked on a blog link on Twitter, by recently I mean literally 15 minutes ago. And what I found there prompted me to write this blog.
The name of the blog and the author will remain unmentioned, but I imagine I am not the first person to fall into this conumdrum.
Lurking in said blog were powerful moving poems, words that clung to one another and screamed epic bard song. And I was taken with them. And I wish I had stopped there.
Alas I ventured further into the new literary world of words, only to stumble upon another writing that although it was extremely hard to do I read three times. The basic underlying story was wonderful, the plot, the theme, the everything was wonderful, EXCEPT littered about on almost every line sat multitudes of harsh curse words and racial slang. How could someone write such deep, moving things and follow them up with 32 uses of the "N" word.
I understand there is a global arguement over the use of this particular word and many are confused on if or when it is okay to use it. As noted in the Gwyneth Paltrow upset. I say it's never okay, others say there's a place for it. That debate is neither here not there for this post. What I am really trying to grasp at was how torn I was over the literary work. I loved the short story, I hated and was repulsed by every other word of it. I left a comment on the post, in a wild attempt to explain my feelings, I simply stated I loved the authors work, found it inspirational and had enjoyed this particular short story but was saddened by the language choices in it. Am I crazy? Am I wrong? When is it art and when is it just ugly slang words? Can a story be told and be as moving or dramatic without harsh language? Does it reach the right audience with it or the wrong ones without it. Is it worth the ones it turns away for the ones that will stand and applaud it? I have no idea. I was hoping maybe you did! LEt me know how you feel about racial/abusive/or demeaning language in books.
Thanks for coming by! Always glad to have you.

For the longest time I didn't really know what "Indie" meant, and it's quite possible that I still don't. I've always loved independant films, they have a magical quirkiness to them that Hollywood block busters never can seem to muster.
When I became serious about writing books that I wanted published I began searching the web for every ounce of advice I could find. I bought motivational books, online webinars, I read blogs and anything else I could get my hands on. Many of the articles and things I read had the same advice, it all fell under building the perfect best seller and molding your book for mainstream.
Then a crazy thing happened, I got a twitter account and a world of Indie authors was opened up to me. I read as many of their books as I could, devouring them page after page without remorse, always hungry for the next one. About three or four indie books in I realized why I loved them so very much, aside from the fact that they were amazing books filled with lands and characters I loved, they were not cookie cutter books. There was no perfect blue print method to write these books, they came straight from the authors imaginiation and heart and main stream modeling be damned. I was hooked. 
To me Indie means maybe not writing the "perfect" book,but writing the best one. Because its honest and real, because it's the story YOU want to tell and your readers want to read, not the story that best fits into this weeks Bestsellers list. Indie to me is freedom. Indie is power and honesty. It's fearlessness. It's everything I hope my books can be!



The pictures I post are ones I have taken. The above picture as well as the one next to my WIP are of my oldest daughter who was nice enough to pose for me but would die if she knew they were posted online!

Sometimes I find myself filling up,
Like an old forgoten junk drawer.
Spilling over with things left unopened, unwanted.
I yearn for a swift pen and virgin paper,
anything to spill my contents upon.
These things crammed inside my soul
become bent and wrinkled.
Gray with neglect and age.
I fight to grasp them and lay them on the page.



It's true I always try to have some sort of writing device near by. The worst is right before I fall asleep or just as I enter the mists of a hot shower, for some reason the ideas just start pouring in.If I can't find a pen and paper I normally run around chanting whatever idea has formed like a crazy lady until I find some.If I don't get them down on paper they either sink back into the recesses of my mind and wait or they swell and scream and keep my awake at night. Some of my characters demand my attention, they are so ingrained in me, their likes thier fears thier needs that I am compelled to write it all down just to get it out. But lord forbid I lose that scrap of paper because once I write it down its gone forever,as if scrawling it with ink literally pulls the words from my brain for all time.
When I was in the 7th grade we had to read "The Outsiders" by S.E. Hinton. I became very popular with the slackers in class because I'd already read it so many times I could quote the whole first 20 pages by heart, yet I can't remember the first line to anything I've ever written. It's nuts!
I write and I read because I can, because it fills me with a joy that nothing else on earth does, because when they say "reading takes you places" for me that phrase is real. I am there with the characters, I laugh with them, I cry with them. I find in them peices of myself. In the characters I write I hide pieces of people I know as well as pieces of me and I love every minute of it. 
Thanks for stopping by. I hope you are enjoying the page so far! Look for Losing Connor a little later this summer! Feel free to drop me a line or a comment!

Summer time is
one of my favorites! As an employee of the school district I'm off all summer
and free to write and read and chase my kids all I want. I am devoting this
summer to FINALLY publishing a work of mine as well as taking my kids on an
amazing vacation. As the days slip by remember life is short, follow your dreams
and live a life full of kindness and compassion! Don't be afraid to walk out on
the ledge and spread your wings. I waited longer than I should have but I'm here
now and nothings gonna stop me!