Well, it finally happened. Among my many, many rejection letters I found (gasp!) an acceptance. Wild Violet Magazine wishes to publish “The Second to the Last Time.” It’s a prose poem with a killer ending (or at least that’s my humble opinion) and the editor said that it really spoke to her. So that’s one… Read More Poetry acceptance, and lots of Tucson love
What a busy and hectic week. (And then there was that press conference, which is just too damned ridiculous, surreal and depressing to write about.) Ever since I received my novel notes back from beta reader Kevin Brennan, I’ve been writing like mad. It’s the oddest thing: He basically recommended the same changes as my… Read More Writing like crazy (and more)
I originally wrote this post for my blog but then realized that I needed a post for 49 Writers so submitted it there instead. Before I repost that, though, here’s the inside scoop. Last week, I hired a beta reader. I did this, as I do most things, rather impulsively. I was browsing through Twitter,… Read More Why I hired a beta reader
How do people do it, how do they write and blog without losing their focus? I can happily blog away when I’m not writing or when writing shorter pieces: poetry, essays or short stories (though I have to admit that I so seldom write short stories, mostly because I so seldom read short stories, mostly because… Read More Writing and blogging (and mountain pics, too)
In late autumn, right before the snow coats the ground with the cold, hard truth of winter, moose visit our yard to devour the crab apples sagging off our tree. By this time of year the apples are half fermented, and after they eat the moose slump in the yard with serene looks across their… Read More More moose, and a little writing buzz
I finally finished my novel (Waiting For My Daughter’s Ghost) rewrite. It took me over three months, countless sleeplessness nights and too many damned tears. I wrote the best book that I could. I gave it all of my energy, time, emotions and heart. I bled for my book, I bled happily and freely and unabashedly.… Read More Finished (or, wanting two things and only getting one)
The good news up here in Alaska is that the light is coming back. It’s 6 p.m. and still light, such a luxury after the long siege of winter darkness. Each year around this time something inside my chest thumps and I feel a strange trilling inside my veins, almost as if my blood is singing, as… Read More Of sled dogs, writing and romance novels
My dog is dying. Well, it’s not my dog actually, it’s one of the dogs in my book. But he’s mine, in a sense, and I’m taking his death hard. So hard, in fact, that I can’t bring myself to write the death scene. I’ve written around it, the before and after. But the real-can’t-be-ignored scene?… Read More A dog poem, and obstinate chives bread
I became lost earlier this evening while running a 10K race over the trails in Kincaid Park. I was talking with a running friend and we both missed the small yellow prompt and ended up at the finish line a mile too early. Later, driving home, I wondered: How often in life have I missed a turn and finished too… Read More Lost
I’m a writer today because my high school English teacher, Clair Blakeslee, spit on me. He became so excited talking about books that he forgot to swallow, and he spit on me. At that very moment, I knew I would grow up to become a writer. Read more about it at The Quivering Pen’s My First Time… Read More Quivering Pen, Kristy Centeno and eggs
Cinthia Ritchie 