Clik here to view.
Checking In and Saying Thanks
It’s been a little over three weeks since Alex, our older daughter, lost her two and a half year battle with cancer. It feels like more. It feels like less. We have had celebrations of her life in New...
View ArticleHappy New Year and a Musings Post Celebrating Grief (Yep!)
For years now, I have written New Year’s posts, often more than one per holiday. In December, I have often taken stock of the year that’s ending, evaluating my accomplishments, examining my...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Monday Musings: The Emotional Challenge of Writing
Whenever I work with writers who are at the outsets of their careers — whether I’m editing their work for freelance or for an anthology, or teaching them in a workshop, or just talking shop on a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Monday Musings: The Power of Dates, the Power of Memory
Today is the 22nd of January. It’s been exactly three months since our older daughter passed away. I didn’t used to care about the 22nd of any month (my apologies to those with a birthday on one 22nd...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Monday Musings: The Tyranny of Clocks and Calendars
Many years ago — more than a decade, which boggles my mind just a little — Nancy, Erin, and I went down to Monteverde, Costa Rica, to visit Alex, who was taking the first semester of her junior year in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Monday Musings: My Mother and My Daughter
My mother would be 102 years old today, which speaks to a) how very old I am, and b) how uncommonly old she was when she and my father had me. I was born at the end of the Baby Boom, when most couples...
View ArticleMonday Musings: Old Dog, New Trick
It has long been said that canines of a certain age are incapable of mastering new tricks. As a proverbial long-in-the-tooth pooch myself, I thought it might be amusing to test the cliché. And, as it...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Monday Musings Potpourri: Travel, Music, Soccer
I’ve taken a couple of weeks off from the blog recently — a week here, a week there. When I came back to the blog after all that happened last year, I chose to do so on my own terms. All things being...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Monday Musings: How Am I? Well, It’s Complicated…
Back in November, just a few weeks after the death of our older daughter, I wrote of the difficulty I regularly encountered answering the question, “How are you doing?” At the time, my emotional state...
View ArticleMonday Musings: It ALWAYS Feels Good To Finish a Book
I could have ended this post at the title. That really is the point. I have been writing fiction for close to thirty years. I have finished more than thirty novels and as many pieces of short fiction,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Monday Blues: The Hardest Birthday
Yes, another post about our daughter and our loss. A part of me shies from this, wonders if I have written about her too much. “Write something upbeat,” I tell myself. “Something funny, something —...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Monday Musings: “What’s Next?” Well, How About Some Big News?
“When I ask ‘What’s Next?’ it means I’m ready to move on to other things. So, what’s next?” — Jed Barlet, THE WEST WING Yeah, I will seek out almost any excuse to quote from The West Wing, it being my...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Monday Musings: Contemplating Marriage At Thirty-Three Years
Thirty-three years ago, on Memorial Day Weekend in 1991, Nancy and I were married. We were living in California at the time, doing our graduate work at Stanford, which is where we met. We had a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Monday Musings: Very Special Tattoos
While our older daughter, Alex, was sick with cancer, she continued to live her life with passion and exuberance, in defiance of the disease, the treatments, the fear, the injustice of a cruel and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Monday Musings: Forlorn On The Fourth Of July
We have a fun July 4th celebration in our little town. It’s a university town, and a somewhat affluent one at that, especially when compared with the surrounding communities. And so we attract a lot of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Monday Musings: Checking In, With Further Thoughts On Grief
I’ve been traveling a lot this summer — hence my inconsistency when it comes to posting. Generally the travel has gone well, and visits with friends and family have been wonderful. Whether in personal...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Wednesday Musings: Big, Big News!
Yes, I’ve been quiet for a while. Things are okay. Really. More than okay, actually. But Nancy and I have been hella busy. With travel, with family stuff. But most of all with the big news that is the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Monday Musings Return!: A Crazy, Wonderful Time
Where to begin. It has been an amazing and amazingly busy time for Nancy and me. I suppose it began in early September with DragonCon, which was great fun, as it always is. I don’t know how many more...
View ArticleClik here to view.
New Year’s Musings: Good To Be Back
The keyboard feels strange beneath my fingers. That’s how long it’s been. My typing is rusty — typos come with almost every word. But I am writing. Something, anything. I am writing. Again, finally....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Monday Musings (On Tuesday): Nesting!
No, this isn’t a post about birds (though I imagine one or three will be forthcoming before the year is out). As I have already mentioned in this blog, Nancy and I are living in a new place: a house in...
View Article