Past Posts

How Becoming an Editor Changed the Way I Read 

October 31, 2025

I’ve always been a reader. I think I was around two when I first learned to read, and I was reading full books (kids’ books, but books nonetheless) on my own by the time I was three. 

Reading has always been my favorite thing. I’d say “hobby,” but that word is so small and insignificant and has such a trivial connotation. And there’s nothing small or insignificant or trivial about reading, at least not for me. 

It’s the center of my universe—always has been. So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that it ended up becoming my career, my life’s work. 

But I have to admit, there is a line in the sand in my life when it comes to reading. There’s a “before” and an “after,” and that line can be placed precisely on the calendar in the summer of 1996, when I first became a professional editor.

So, you might ask, how exactly did becoming an editor change reading for me? There are a few ways, actually.

Before taking a job as an editor, I would never have considered writing inside of a book. I wouldn’t even crack a book’s spine (even a cheap mass-market paperback). To damage or alter a book in any way would have felt like sacrilege to me. I always believed a book should look and feel as pristine after being read as before I opened it. 

Since becoming an editor? Marking up manuscripts has turned me into a monster. I can’t let errors go, even in published books. I need to point them out, fix them. I’m almost compelled to do it. I think it’s partly a fear that whoever reads the book after I do will find the mistake and think I didn’t catch it . . . and that would be tragic (in my warped little mind). I admit, I even fix errors I find in library books (though I use a pencil instead of pen for those . . .). 

Another change in my reading habits since becoming an editor is how difficult I find it to just enjoy a story anymore. I see too much—the minor inconsistencies (for example, a floor made of concrete suddenly becoming wood in another chapter, or a character—I’m looking at YOU, Nancy Drew!—who is interchangeable a blonde or a redhead). 

Now that I’m a “professional,” I’m much too focused on the details and problems to ever truly abandon myself and fully join the fictitious world, which is something I did with every new book I read as a child. I miss that.

Finally, I’ve become much less willing to give writers or stories the benefit of the doubt. If a story has one flaw, it’s essentially garbage in my “professional” mindset. To be fair, I tend to blame the editor of a bad book rather than the writer when I find a gaping plot hole or a lower-middle-class character talking on a cell phone in 1979. (This, of course, is probably also why I find so many self-published books impossible to read . . . because in most of those cases, there IS no editor to save the writer from him- or herself.)

The thing is, even though reading has become much less of a pleasure or escape for me than it was before I started doing it for a living, I do more of it—even in my free time—than ever these days. Before becoming an editor, I probably averaged around 50 books a year. Now, it’s closer to 150 (not counting the manuscripts I edit for work).

So, clearly, I still love to read. And why not? It IS the best way ever invented to spend your time, right?

My Favorite (Unused) Writing Prompt

October 22, 2025

Today, I want to talk about my favorite unused writing prompt. First things first, here’s the prompt:

“A woman is trying to stop a lifelong habit: biting her nails. Write about the swirling thoughts and emotions going through her mind as she fights against the impulse to put her finger in her mouth.”

Second thing you should know is that the reason I chose this one as my favorite is because I (just this week) learned that I have an OCD condition called dermatillomania, where you have a compulsion to pick at your skin—for me, it’s always been the skin around my fingernails. (Although I’ve known for decades I have this problem, I didn’t realize until this week that it had a fancy name!) 

I believe the problem started back when I was around 10 years old and used to bite my actual nails, rather than the skin around them. I stopped biting my nails after my father promised me $50 (big money for a little kid, especially back then!) if I could break the habit. I immediately stopped biting my nails, but soon after getting the money, I started biting and/or picking at hangnails, dead skin, my cuticles, or whatever was handy. In essence, I traded one gross habit for an even more disgusting one. (After all, fingernails, unlike skin, don’t bleed when you bite them!)

So yeah, this particular writing prompt hits close to home. (But don’t despair for the health and beauty of my poor dry finger skin: In addition to learning my compulsion has an actual name, I also learned that there are ways to stop doing it, including picking at specially designed fidget toys . . .  which I have tried and found to be AWESOME!!!)

Anyway, the third thing you should know is that the writing prompt I chose (and have never used, at least until right now, sort of) comes from a book of writing prompts that I wrote myself a few years back. And if I’m entirely honest, I didn’t just not use THIS prompt. I’ve never used ANY of the prompts in either of the two writing prompt books I’ve written!

More truth: I very rarely use writing prompts at all. If I’m free writing or journaling, I normally just let whatever comes to mind be my focus. But I may be reconsidering. Just reading the writing prompt about the woman trying to stop biting her nails has brought back a flood of very vivid memories for me, everything from sitting in the hard wooden pew at church, with my hands pressed under my legs so I couldn’t bite my nails, to the color of the hat and gloves set I bought a relative that Christmas, using part of the $50 I earned by breaking my bad habit.

So many images and emotions—swirling thoughts, just like in the prompt—are running through my brain as I think back to that time. Clearly, that one little line of text had a powerful suggestive influence on me. 

Maybe I should give my own writing prompts a try more often. 🙂

So, writers, what do you think? Do you get any use out of writing prompts? Should I start giving them a try?

Writing Is Not Therapy (But Sometimes It’s Close)

October 18, 2025

If you’ve read my posts recently, you already know I’ve been struggling with my seasonal depression the past several weeks. As much as I hate to “jinx” it, I definitely feel like I’ve turned a corner lately, and I’m starting to feel almost like my usual self (and, at times, even better than that). 

So, what’s the secret to the transformation?

Partly, it’s simply the change in the weather. Here in New Jersey, despite the switch to autumn a few weeks back, we had an extended heat wave that left me feeling grumpy and tense (a natural reaction to the sensation that your brain is melting, in my humble opinion). Now that the temperatures are finally dropping, my natural good cheer is returning. (Those of you who know me well can stop laughing RIGHT NOW. I’m a delight, dammit!)

Related to the improving weather is the fact that I’ve been able to get out to run a lot more, and running is the thing that (almost) manages to keep me sane, even when life gets rough. 

But if I’m entirely honest, the thing that played the biggest role in helping me overcome my depression was . . . writing.

Here’s the thing: I get depressed every summer, but this is the first summer I forced myself to do more than just my standard “One Sentence a Day” no matter how crappy I felt. Sure, I didn’t write as much as “cheerful me” would, and I certainly wasn’t writing anything brilliant or even publishable. Mostly, I was using my writing time to, well, whine about my life. 

Which is exactly what I’d be doing with a therapist, if I had one. Somehow, writing has taken over that role. It lets me vent. It helps me take a good, hard look at problems. And, often, it helps me find the solution to those problems.

So, yeah, maybe writing isn’t technically therapy. But it’s pretty damn close. 

The Alchemy of Editing:

How I Know When a Manuscript Is “Almost” Ready

October 11, 2025

What I want to talk about today is how I know—after one or 5 or 30 edits—when a book is pretty much as good as it's going to get and is ready to push ahead, toward layout and design, and eventually the printer and ultimately, the book buying market. If you're not an editor, I'm guessing there's a good chance you imagine even the first draft I see of a new manuscript comes in pretty good. You'd be wrong, but that's not the point I'm trying to make. 

What I want to say is this: Very few books (at least, in my experience—and I have almost 30 years of it) hit my desk in a state where they look/feel/sound to my trained eyes and ears like a “real book” (for lack of a better phrase).

Anyone who’s had to critique a peer’s essay in an English composition class probably knows what I mean. Too often, writing just doesn't “sound” like . . . well, writing. Many (most?) writers are trying so hard to make their writing “good” that they end up making it “fake” (if that makes any sense). The vocabulary comes across as phony or “off.” The dialogue or description reads forced or stilted. Somehow, the prose just doesn't quite work. 

Most manuscripts people submit have these exact same problems. It takes a hell of a lot of work (and decades of time reading great books to develop the “ear” for the task) to turn an English class essay (so to speak) into a full-on novel that somebody besides the author’s own mother might actually want to read.

Of course, some manuscripts are better, from the start, than others, but I’ve rarely had one that didn’t need several heavy-duty read-throughs to get the writing just right. Whether that takes two edits or 50 is anybody’s guess. But eventually, through some process of experimentation and finesse and, yes, even a sort of literary alchemy, it happens. 

So, how do I know when the manuscript is “ready”? That’s easy: The moment I can read through the entire thing without reaching for my pen (or my keyboard) to make more edits is one sign. But the bigger sign is when I find myself no longer thinking about editing at all; the manuscript is “done” when I’m simply reading (and enjoying the experience) because the manuscript has been transformed through my editorial alchemy, not into gold, but into a “real book.”

When the Muse Goes Missing

October 4, 2025

I haven’t been writing enough lately.

Now, before you start throwing that statement in my face and shouting “I told you so” because you think I’m just being bitchy when I say there’s no such thing as writer’s block, let me clarify something: I am NOT blocked. I’m depressed. And maybe a little (or a lot) lazy. There’s a difference.

I CAN write. In fact, though I’m not doing enough of it, I DO write. (Obviously, I’m writing this.) But it’s not reaching the level of productivity where the writing can sustain me—my mood, my motivation, my . . . whatever. (Soul, maybe?) 

See what I mean? I’m not writing the way I should be—by which I mean prolifically and easily and with enough abandon to feel artistic and smart and like I’m doing the thing I’m here on this dopey planet to do.

I haven’t written a ton about my mood issues or my tendency to fall into a deep depression, especially during the hot summer months when I feel like my brain is melting and I can barely stand to keep moving, much less trying to be creative. Those who know me well know how much the depression can knock me off my game, but I try to keep it—mostly—to myself.

But right now, my regularly scheduled summertime depression is hitting late and drifting into autumn (which is normally my favorite season and a time of renewal and increased energy for me), so I’m not doing great. Throw in some other unfortunate incidents to make me feel even worse, and it’s turned into a perfect storm that’s keeping me from doing much of . . . well, anything.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is this: Even the worst depression can’t touch a truly ingrained habit . . . like my “One Sentence a Day.”

No matter how shitty or unmotivated I may feel, I continue to crank out at least one sentence a day on each work in progress I’ve got going. Maybe I’m not exactly stacking up the finished pages of my next book, but I’m still moving forward, even just a little, every day.

I need to focus on that, especially when the sad/angry little voice in the back of my head keeps telling me things like “It’s not worth it; skip the one sentence for today.” Because that voice is real and it’s cruel, and if I let it have its way, everything really will fall apart.

So, for today, I’ll just acknowledge the fact that I’m not where I want to be. And I’ll write my sentences even if/when they suck. And I’ll ignore the voice and hope that, maybe tomorrow, this black dog that’s got me clamped in its rabid jaws will loosen its grip and maybe, soon, I’ll be free—free to write, for real, and to be the “me” I want to be and almost am when I’m writing enough.

That’s not happening today, but I can tell you, from decades of experience, that it WILL happen. The fog will lift, and when it does, I will write a whole hell of a lot more than one sentence a day. 

So stay tuned. 😀

From Mastery to Meh: The Troubling Shift from Dedication to Indifference and Entitlement in Modern Culture

August 25, 2025

Something has happened to our society over the past few decades. Maybe it’s been going on longer, but I can only speak to what I’ve witnessed myself, and what I can say without qualification is that there has been a definite shift over the past 30 years since I started my career in publishing: We appear to have transformed from a culture of achievement to a culture of laziness. 

Now, don’t get all offended; I’m sure YOU are awesome—high-achieving, not lazy at all (just like me! 😀). But bear with me as I analyze the unmotivated masses surrounding us, okay?

As busy as I am (and as uninterested as I tend to be to popular culture), I’ve had no choice but to notice something troubling, because it’s THAT obvious: These days, we as a society seem to expect to receive (a lot) more in return for (a lot) less. 

Modern people seem to be demanding a lot: Free or 75-cent ebooks. Six-figure salaries when they’re fresh out of college or even high school. Large tips for the cashier handing over a prepaid bag of takeout food that the cashier didn’t even help prepare. A publishing contract for a half-baked manuscript. Or, worse, bestseller status for a 70-page self-published file that can only loosely be called a “book.”

I admit, I see some of this trend toward laziness even in myself. Too often, I stop after writing my “One Sentence a Day” and declare it enough writing for the day. After all, it’s easier to doom scroll social media than to create an entire fictional world. 

Sometimes it seems like the only people among us who are really TRYING anymore are the perfectionists—and they’re so focused on the impossibility of flawlessness that they never actually FINISH anything. 

So we’re left with the garbage produced by the lazy contingent or the unfulfilled promise of the perfectionists’ impossible dream. We’ve changed from a world that valued mastery to one satisfied with—hell, impressed by—mediocrity. Our collective battle cry has become a resounding “Meh!”

Worse than the mediocrity, though, is the sense of entitlement so many of us have developed. We seem to expect to be rewarded for our most minimal efforts. 

I see it in the attitude of the aspiring writers who submit work to Blydyn Square Books, where I’m editor in chief. They send work off-season. They send emails demanding special treatment. They ignore our guidelines. They refuse to pay any attention to detail—at least, I hope that’s what they’re doing, because it’s VERY common for someone to put down numbers like 150,789 in our submission form for the number of PAGES (as opposed to WORDS) in the manuscript being submitted. (That one is a red flag no matter how you look at it: Either you effed up and don’t know the difference between words and pages, or you have actually written an insanely long book that I most certainly do NOT want to read.)

These writers’ demanding attitude would be one thing if the quality of the prose I’m seeing had been steadily improving over time. You can deal with a lot of crap if it means you’re getting something fabulous in return. But the writing has NOT been improving, not by a long shot. 

Thirty years ago, when I first started reading submissions at a small publishing house, most of the manuscripts didn’t receive a contract. That’s one thing that hasn’t changed. However, those “bad” manuscripts from the early years of my career were only “bad” in the sense that they weren’t right for OUR publisher. The writing itself was generally passable, and you would have been hard-pressed to find a typo in most of the submissions we received. Today? Almost the opposite is true. It’s no exaggeration to say that I’m lucky to see a single submission out of 50 that DOESN’T have a major error or obvious typo within the first paragraph. Seriously. And yet, the writers who send these sloppy submissions seem disgusted by the fact that the world isn’t throwing them a party to celebrate their “talent.” 

Even more disturbing than the things I see from overly entitled writers (and, I assure you, I see some STUFF!) are the behaviors I witness in a social meetup I run. Somehow, by organizing the group and setting up events for the members, I seem to have inadvertently nominated myself to be everyone’s social director. No, it’s worse than that; many of them appear to believe I’m their parent. 

If, say, there’s a guest limit for a happy hour at a bar/restaurant, and some members didn’t sign up fast enough to get on the “attending” list, they’ll message me begging to be allowed to come, and they’ll KEEP asking until I practically have to scream: “It’s a public place and I’m not your mother! Do whatever you want!”

So, what do all these behaviors have in common? They all stem from a refusal to take responsibility. In fact, it almost feels like nobody is interested in taking responsibility for anything: not their words, not their actions, and apparently not even their social lives. It’s as if a lot of people are hoping to get someone else on the hook so they’ll have a scapegoat to blame in case they don’t get precisely what they want. Years ago, it was a point of pride to take on as much responsibility as you could and to show off your mastery of a project or situation. Now we’ve swung in the opposite direction. 

In my mind, this is a recent phenomenon, but just the other day, I found this quote in a book by Orison Swett Marden, published in 1894: “The trouble with many Americans is that they seem to think they can put any sort of poor, slipshod, half-done work into their careers and get first-class products.” So, clearly, this decline has been happening for even longer than I thought. 

My question is: How and why did we get this way, as individuals and as a society? And the bigger question: How do we make it stop?

Let’s Streak! 

(No, Not Like That, You Pervs)

August 18, 2025

Back around 2015, I read about a challenge in Runner’s World magazine: Run (at least) one mile every day between Thanksgiving and January 1. They called it “streaking”—keeping up a daily running streak during the most difficult weeks of the year, that period between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, when you’re most likely not only busier than usual with extra work and errands and cooking, but also tend to be eating in a less healthy way and (if you’re like me) drinking more wine than normal!

I immediately jumped on that bandwagon. Why? Because I’m already a dedicated streaker in other areas of my life, so why not add running to the list?

At the time of this writing, I have a few different streaks going:

I have done at least one language lesson on Duolingo every day since Christmas of 2013. (Unfortunately, it took me until sometime in February 2014 to realize that failing a lesson meant it didn’t count, so my official Duolingo streak is currently “only” 4,101 days. Oh, well.)

Since the week between Christmas and New Year’s of 2020, I have meditated for at least 5 minutes a day without fail (a streak that started when I saw how much my blood pressure had gone through the roof, and yes, the meditation has helped).

Finally, there’s my longest current streak: my “One Sentence a Day.” Back in January 2012, I made it a New Year’s Resolution to write something every single day, no excuses. I didn’t have to write a lot, just a daily minimum of one sentence. The plan was that I would not necessarily write more than that, but I would never write anything less.

So far, I’ve met that goal and held on to the streak. I’ve passed 13 and a half years of daily sentences (which have, over time, translated into something like 15 books and countless shorter works). I’ve written my one (or more) sentence every day, whether I was fighting a stomach flu, happy or depressed, even in the middle of the night in a hospital bed after having major surgery. At this point, if someone wants me to break this streak, they’re going to have to pry my pen (or phone) from my cold, dead hand.

In case you’re wondering how exactly you manage to keep up a streak that long, the answer is easy: Every time you consider skipping the task and breaking the streak, you ask yourself: “Will I feel better if I do it or if I don’t do it?” That one thought—“I’ll feel better IF . . .”—is the magical key to unlocking vast stores of discipline. (Shout-out to the friend who taught me this technique, the fabulous writer, life coach, and all-around inspiration Kathleen Carew!)

Or maybe you’re not wondering how to achieve a streak that lasts over a decade. Instead, you might be asking: What’s the point of streaking? As a friend and former long-distance runner put it when I told him about trying the Runner’s World daily mile challenge: “You put the miles in the bank.”

In other words, by forcing yourself to run (or learn languages or meditate or write or whatever you want to do), even just a tiny bit every day—no matter how busy or tired (or hung over) you are—you build your body’s stamina and you don’t lose valuable training. To become a great runner, you need to run often (even if it’s not every day), so you can “put the miles in the bank.” And to become a great writer you need to write often: Writing every day puts words in the bank. 

Now, as I’ve said before, when I say you should write every day, I’m not saying you need to write an entire book or a chapter or even a whole page each day without fail. Few of the best streakers among us could keep up with that kind of schedule (though, I admit, I’ve recently started a one-full-page-a-day streak that’s about three months old and going strong . . .). But writing one quick sentence? Anybody can do that, and you don’t even have the excuse that you “need a rest day” like you do with running because you don’t risk shin splints or sore knees with writing.

So to all my fellow writers out there, I’m not asking you to crank out thousands of daily words. But I AM challenging you to become a streaker with me. Make it your goal, your mission, your “refuse to settle for less” habit to write at least something every single day.

Let’s streak!

The Magic of Flow

August 10, 2025

Seeing as most of the people who read anything I write are writers, I’m going to assume you all know what I mean when I talk about “flow.” (But, just in case, here’s a quick explanation for the uninitiated: Flow is a concept described by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. It’s a state of “optimal experience” that happens when you’re deeply absorbed in and thoroughly enjoying an activity.)

I’ve known about flow for years. I mean, obviously. It’s probably one of the main reasons most of us write—that magical sensation of getting caught up in something that matters, something that has real meaning. Flow is the thing that reminds you you’re doing something with your life, even on those inevitable days when you’re beaten down by all the other responsibilities and emergencies and demands on your time. For a brief moment, as a writer in flow, you get to look through an elusive window: the one that lets you imagine what your life could be like if you ever achieved that luxurious goal of becoming a full-time writer (you know, and actually surviving financially at the same time). 

So, yeah, sure, flow is great, but something occurred to me this morning. As you already know if you’ve read some of my earlier posts, my personal rule is that I have to write at least one sentence a day on any work in progress I have going. I’m a chronic project starter, so it’s not unusual for me to have more than one novel or other piece going on at the same time. Right now, I’m simultaneously working on a YA novel in an ongoing series and a women’s fiction/smart romance book, so at the moment, I’m always writing at least TWO sentences a day.

Anyway, some days, there’s no flow involved: I’m just cranking out an easy sentence to fulfill my quota so I can move on to more pressing work for the day (in the life of an editor, doing your own writing is a privilege and most decidedly NOT a right). But other days, even if I only write a couple of new sentences on my own work in progress, the flow . . . well, flows. 

I get sucked into whatever I’m writing and into the flow. Even a few minutes in flow leaves me numb and confused, wondering what time and even what day it is. It’s not just that I lose track of time; I lose track of this world, the real one. I feel like I’m transported, bodily and mentally, to the world I’m writing about, and I live there for as long as the flow lasts. And whether that’s two hours or two minutes, returning to the real world can be almost as hard as coming back home after a long trip. I feel spacey, almost swollen, kind of the way you feel during a fever, when your head is all . . . you know . . . balloon-like. 

And as unpleasant as that sounds, when it happens because of flow (as opposed to fever), it’s actually a good feeling, because the symptoms are a physical sign of success. If you’ve left this world and fully entered another one, you’ve managed to create something close enough to reality to inhabit. You ARE there, if only for a little while. And sometimes, the fictional world has its advantages over our other one—there’s no getting away from that fact. 

Sometimes I feel like all the other things I have to get done throughout the day are just the necessary glue binding the moments of flow together, because even the most “flowy,” the most prolific among us, would have to admit that you can’t spend all day, every day lost in some other world. But knowing you CAN get there and break away—even just for a moment—from the real world is a powerful motivator. 

Which brings me to one other question that came up in my warped little head today: For people who DON’T write or make art or do anything creative, do you get to experience the magic of flow? If so, from what? And if not (and I shudder at the mere thought that it’s possible to live a whole life without flow), I need to know: What keeps you going? How do you stand the monotony, the drudgery, the pure awfulness of day-to-day crap if you don’t have the magical escape of flow waiting for you? 

How Do You Rate?

August 4, 2025

Recently, at Blydyn Square Books, we did a weeklong feature on our social media accounts celebrating readers: giveaways, quotes about reading, that sort of thing. 

Toward the end of the week, I posted a reminder for participants in our annual “Reading Challenge” to assess how far along they were from finishing. (This year’s challenge is to read 25 books for 2025. We offer a list—you know the kind: a book with a red cover, a book you loved as a child, etc.—but anybody who reads ANY 25 books is eligible for the raffle drawing for the prize at the end of the year because we care less about WHAT you read than THAT you read!).

Anyway, posting about the Reading Challenge forced me to review my own list of books I’ve read this year (122 and counting, thank you very much—too bad I’m not eligible to win the prize!). Something I quickly realized by taking a glance at my Goodreads account is that I haven’t really given a single book more than 3 stars this whole year (so far).

That’s when I realized that my rating system seems to differ from the norm, and I thought I’d share it . . . because honestly, I think my system is WAY better than what Goodreads has got going on!

Okay, here goes:

A single star goes to a book so bad you had to abandon it. It was too crappy to justify wasting the time to read it all the way through—and if you DID push through it, it’s because you had to (maybe it was a required read for work or school or your book club). 

I give 2 stars to a book that was mostly bad, but somehow managed to hold your attention long enough to make it all the way to the end. Maybe there are plot holes or other flaws and you kept reading, hoping the author and editor would redeem themselves, but . . . not so much.

A book gets 3 stars if it was an enjoyable enough read but will have zero impact on your life in the long run. Think: most popular fiction. Even if you could barely put it down while reading it, if the story and characters are going to fly out of your head by the time you close the book for the last time, it doesn’t rate more than 3 stars. (For the record, almost ALL books receive three stars—or fewer—from me.)

A 4-star rating is rare, awardable only to books that make such a strong impression that you won’t forget them anytime soon, or maybe ever. Whether they’re fiction or nonfiction, these are the kinds of books that stick with you (and maybe even give you that odd, sickly “book hangover” feeling, where you can’t stop thinking about what you’ve read for hours or even days after you finish). 

To achieve 5 stars, the author (unfortunately) has to make the ultimate sacrifice. That’s right: You can only get 5 stars if the author (a) has written a book that qualifies for my 4-star rating, i.e., one that changes your life in some way, AND (b) the author has been dead for at least 25 years, and his/her book still holds up. 

Let’s be real and objective for a second: Giving something 5 stars means that something is perfect. There is ZERO room for improvement in any conceivable way. In my mind, even the greatest works of literature in history don’t measure up to that standard. That’s why I reserve the sacred 5th star for works that are not only terrific, but also hold up over the long term.

Needless to say, the members of my book club (shout-out to the Blydyn Square Book Club—woohoo!!!) think I’m slightly, well, batshit crazy. But I think I’m dead-on in this assessment.

How about you? How do YOU rate? (Books, that is.)

Where Inspiration Comes From

July 11, 2025

It’s been a stressful week. And yeah, a “normal” person (read: not me) probably wouldn’t have been the least bit affected by the events of the week, but I’ve been an anxious, OCD-riddled mess. Why? Because of a bird. 

Yup, that’s right. A bird.

Let me take you back to last Sunday morning. I was outside around eight a.m. watering my garden (the source of the previous week’s animal-related stress, as I spent my days screaming obscenities at the obese, entitled groundhog that kept sneaking under the fence from my neighbor’s yard to eat my kale, parsley, and Brussels sprouts—the bastard!). As I turned to water some flowers on my deck, I caught some motion out of the corner of my eye and saw that it was a bird.

More specifically, it was a robin. Even more specifically, it was a young, fledgling robin. He (I have no actual idea as to the bird’s gender, but let’s keep things simple, okay?) could pop around, but he clearly could not fly. 

Cue the anxiety, because now that I had SEEN the bird, according to all the laws of the nervous person’s universe, I was now responsible for the bird.

I put out some water for him, given that the temperatures were expected to approach 100 degrees that day. By mid-morning, I noticed him trying to squeeze through the chicken wire around my garden, because another robin—presumably, the baby’s mother—was inside it. She (no surprise) flew off as I approached, but I put on some gardening gloves (to avoid “bird germs;” I DID mention the OCD, right?) and gently set the baby inside the garden. There, at least, he was somewhat guarded from predators and had plenty of shade and shelter under my massive cucumber plants (which, I'm grateful to report, the fat groundhog has not yet begun eating).

For the rest of the day, I watched as the mother flew off and returned frequently to feed the baby. By Monday afternoon, some helpful sparrows had taught the baby robin how to squeeze through the gate and get out of the garden, to take shelter under my weeping pussy-willow tree, where the shade was better (and, I’m guessing, he would face fewer invasions by chunky groundhogs throughout the day). 

Over the next few days, I kept leaving out water and even some crushed peanuts for him, fearing the mother might abandon the fledgling and wanting to provide some alternative food sources. Each night, as darkness fell, I worried. Would this be the night a cat or something even more terrifying discovered my little buddy? Each morning, when I spotted the fledgling, I was overjoyed to find him alive . . . and that happiness lasted approximately 30 seconds before my anxiety set in, along with the knowledge that there was a whole new day full of dangers to get through.

Fortunately, the mother robin continued to return, and even started offering her offspring flying lessons, which the little guy had some trouble with, though by just after dawn on Thursday, I noted that he was moving freely all over my yard, able to “fly” well enough to get up onto the willow’s retaining wall all on his own. As I headed to my office to start work that morning, I took one last look at the baby and mother having an intense flying lesson in the yard. 

That’s the last I saw of them. 

I don’t know where the baby robin went. Maybe a hawk got him, or maybe a cat sneaked into the yard despite my days of vigilance (though such predator attacks tend to leave . . .  well, evidence . . . and I saw none of the telltale signs, to my relief). Maybe, just maybe, he finally figured out how to use those little wings and took off, with his mother, to live his life. That’s what I’m choosing to believe. 

Now, you might be wondering why I’ve bothered to tell this long, drawn-out tale about birds, seeing as I’m supposed to be a writer-slash-editor and not a birdwatcher or ornithologist. And that’s the whole point: In the midst of all the stress and worry, the obsessive checking on the little bird as often as I could step away from my desk, I realized something: There’s a story there. It’s a children’s book, and I can’t wait to start writing it.

So no, I’m not a birdwatcher. I’m just a writer who's always on the lookout for a story, and my bird stress provided the perfect inspiration. I took a terrible, worry-filled week and turned it into material. Because that, my friends, is what we writers do!

June 23, 2025

One Sentence a Day Revisited

A few years back, when I was working as a writing coach (in addition to my job as editor in chief at Blydyn Square Books), I wrote a blog post that got a lot of people talking (well, a lot of people for ME, anyway). It was my take on the never-ending debate between writing “experts” who say writers absolutely must write every single day and those who say flexibility (and self-kindness) is king. 

Last week, while I was on a short writing trip (more on that in another post soon!), I bought two books of writing advice (yes, I still buy and read such books, even after authoring one myself!). And, of course, I quickly discovered that the two different authors were offering precisely opposite advice on the matter. 

Seeing as the debate is still going strong, I thought now might be a good time to dust off my old post—which, I think, strikes an excellent balance between the rigid “everyday writing” faction and the opposing “loosey-goosey” school of thought.  

So here it is:

Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of discussion on social media among the writing community about whether writers should write every day or if that is an unrealistic goal that “shames” anyone who can’t find the time to do it. 

I’d like to put in my two cents on the topic.

I’ve long supported the idea of writing every day—but probably not the way you might think.

As a busy person myself, I know how difficult—nay, impossible—it is to carve out the time every single day to sit down and spend hours cranking out entire chapters or fulfilling a set quota (like, say, 1,000 words). 

I would never suggest that any writer force him-/herself to do this. To try to do so is a perfect recipe for burnout, and before long, writing will feel like a chore, not the thing you’ve dreamed about doing your whole life.

Instead, what I advocate is that you do your best to write at least ONE SENTENCE A DAY. 

That’s it.

And before you start whining that it’s hard to write the “perfect sentence,” let me remind you: Nobody said anything about “perfect.” ANY sentence will do.

I readily admit that there have been days when my own one sentence for a given day was a mere single word: Recently, I recall a day when my “sentence” for the day was, “Wow!” Literally. Just one word.

What’s the point of writing if you’re only advancing your work by one sentence (or even one word), you might ask?

That’s easy.

Writing at least one sentence a day helps keep your head in your work in progress. It keeps your story (or memoir or whatever you’re writing) fresh in your mind. If nothing else, it adds a (miniscule) amount to your overall word count.

Most important, writing even one sentence a day makes you FEEL like a writer—and that’s something we could all use, especially at those too-frequent moments when we feel like everything we’re writing is garbage and it won’t be long before the world finds out we’re nothing but imposters.

Best of all, you can handle one sentence a day no matter how busy or sick or stressed out you are. (And if you CAN’T handle typing or scribbling the word Wow, like I did, to achieve this daily goal, you have MUCH bigger problems—ones I can’t help you with!)

I urge you to try it. One sentence a day may seem like nothing, but it adds up. Fast. Trust me. I’ve written my last 8 books using this method.

Sure, I write more than one sentence when I have time and feel up to it. But I never force myself to do more than that when life just isn’t cooperating. 

It works.

In fact, I believe one sentence a day works so well that I think we should start a movement among the writing community: #onesentenceaday.* 

To kick it off, I’ll be posting MY one sentence (or my FIRST sentence, if I happen to write more that day) on social media every day for the next year—no matter how bad that sentence is, or how out of context or disjointed. I’ll post it just to prove that it CAN be done.

And I invite you to join me. 

There’s nothing more empowering for a writer than to write, and one sentence a day is the perfect way to get started.

*Note: I wrote this back when X was still Twitter and hashtags still mattered a lot more than they do now, but just because you don't necessarily need to use the hashtag to take part these days doesn’t mean the overall point isn’t just as valid now as it was then. Also note: I have, in fact, been posting my first sentence of writing (sometimes my ONLY sentence) every single day since I first published this original post back in 2018. Seriously. Check my Twitter/X profile (@CoachTaraT). It’s kinda nuts. 🙂

April 4, 2025

Happy spring!

Just wanted to share the latest news: The rough sketches are starting to come in for my upcoming picture book, Oh No, Rosco! 

Those of you who know me will recognize the name in that title right away: Rosco is my (not-super-well-behaved) dog. He's a chug (half pug, half chihuahua) who is full of attitude and definitely thinks he's a LOT bigger than he actually is.

I wrote the story way back in early 2019, less than a year after I first got Rosco (who was already 2 years old at the time). Unfortunately, the original illustrator I hired to draw the pictures for the book never got around to finishing the project. 

As much as I hated wasting all that time, I didn't want to abandon the idea of the book, so, just recently, I approached Paul Hernandez, the extremely talented artist I've worked with on several projects, about taking on the work. As always, he jumped right in and has already started working on rough sketches. I'm excited to see how his creativity takes my story to the next level!

Below, you can get a sneak peek at the rough character studies for Rosco and me (I'm also posting a photo of the two of us, for reference). I'm thrilled to report that Paul was kind enough to make us both slimmer and cuter than we are in real life. 

Stay tuned for more about when the book will be released. And if you're on the U.S. East Coast like we are, I hope you're enjoying this muggy, wet April weather! Until next time . . .

December 2024

I'm writing this from Lavallette, New Jersey, at my sister's shore house, looking out over the sunset on Barnegat Bay. 

Normally, just being here, with some time to myself, over the holidays, with my favorite time of year (Christmas!) coming next week, would be enough to have me spinning with excitement. But today, I have even more to celebrate because . . .  I just finished the first draft of the second book in my upcoming YA series of novels. 

There's nothing like a little time alone, away from the usual routine and pressures, to get some real writing done. 

Happy holidays!