Blog Articles About Writing

The Aurora Foundation of Southern Arizona Seeks Editor for Online Publication!

Since June, I’ve mentioned now and again that I picked up another freelance gig, but haven’t said too much about it. I’ve been very lucky woman to have the opportunity to work for Stephanie Parker, President of The Aurora Foundation of Southern Arizona on a wonderfully exciting and important project. In the last four months…

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New Ebook – 7 Facets: A Meditation on Pain

Pain is a funny thing. Not just to live with (in which case it’s not always very funny), but in terms of the myths and the silence surrounding it. Talking about pain is uncomfortable, especially for those who don’t have it. Pain is hard to understand. You can’t measure it, it’s difficult to describe and…

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What Okinawa’s 80% and Mary Kay Taught Me about Writing with Chronic Illness

Updated September 28, 2021 I ran out of spoons around the middle of June. Then I spent the next six weeks teetering on the line between having just a few and being deep in energy overdraft, while mentally (and repeatedly) chanting just hold on until August 1 and not quite understanding why I was flaring…

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Unbound – FREE DOWNLOAD

Unbound is the story of my childhood with juvenile arthritis. It is a story of loss of ability, the isolation that comes with illness in childhood, but above all, it is a story of how I found freedom and independence. Unbound is free and is available as a PDF for download here.        

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A Smack Upside the Head

“How do you know when you’re stressed?” Marianna asked this in her most recent giveaway (g’ahead, click and enter, it’s open until May 19). It turns out that my answer is I don’t. It’s been pretty obvious — even to me — that things have been very busy for a long time around here. My…

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Writing with a Chronic Illness: Chronic Pain and Writing Practice

After my big flare eight years ago, I decided it was time to do something about that lifelong dream of being a writer. To stop being practical and having a day job and throw it all into getting off the pot, so to speak. Never mind that I hadn’t had a day job for quite…

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In Which Writing is Like Living with RA

2 1/2 years. 67,000 words. 268 pages. The Book is done. At approximately 12:37 PM, Saturday, November 17, 2012, I closed down the finalized manuscript. And then I said out loud to no one in particular – Lucy was ignoring me – “I am done.” Well, not entirely done, but it’s now in the hands…

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Liberated

   It is almost Valentine’s Day and tales of love flutter about wherever you look. They are like verbal cupids with wings made of verbs, nouns, adjectives and altogether improper punctuations, for love brings with it a gush of emotion not responsive to the strictures of grammar. And these tales of love are this year…

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Notes from Editing Hell

And it continues… The editing, I mean. Although I finished writing The Book about six months ago, I am still editing and rewriting and then editing some more. And it is kicking my butt. I take great comfort in reading about other people’s road to publication. It took Toni Bernard six years to write How…

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Limited

Limits are everywhere I go these days. It seems as if almost every post I read and every question I answer on MyRACentral has an element of someone beating their head against the wall of limits. Of no longer being able to work, no longer being able to kick a ball around with their kids,…

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Taking A Leap

I discovered that part of the problem on doing a rewrite of your book is that it inevitably leads to becoming convinced that you’re an amateur and an atrocious writer. Asking people you care about to tell you what’s wrong combined with turning you on a very critical eye on chapter after chapter leads to…

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Flatware Musings

You have to respect your limits.Keep track of your spoons so you don’t run out.Take care of yourself first, otherwise there won’t be any energy left over for other things. I tell other people do this all the time and I’m sure I sound very reasonable and at peace with the whole thing when I…

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