Going Inkless

     At times, I take great comfort in my capacity to be wrong.  My daughter regularly counted on that quality when she was growing up.  Often, my first answer to a request for permission on one thing or another was instinctively "no".  Mothers are protective of their little ones and wary of potential dangers in all things "fun".  But my daughter learned that if she kept trying, that "no" might eventually swing around to a reluctant "yes".  All children try this tactic, and many a parent has been worn down by a persistent plea.  If she had gone the usual route, however, I doubt she would have had much success.  Repetition, begging or whining would have broken on an unyielding wall of stubbornness and only strengthened my resolve.  But calm, reasoned arguments would always find a way in, and she could be very good at that.      Often, the fears that prompted a negative response could be eased with logical counterargu...

Living with teenagers is a lot like living with raccoons. You see them rarely by the light of day. Most often you only hear them skittering and clattering around in the middle of the night, and you wake to find the house in disarray. Things go missing and turn up in the most illogical places. Remnants of their snacks are left scattered in the living room or found stashed around the nest, tempting other vermin to the party. If you do encounter one and make a suggestion as to how they should amend their behavior, you just get the blank stare. At best, they will pretend to comply, but the charade is dropped or the lesson forgotten as soon as you're not forcing the issue. There seems to be no end to the messes, literal and otherwise, you're left to clean up. Technically, we have neither raccoon nor teen in our house. Our son is officially just beyond his teenage years, though still not old enough for all the privileges of adulthood. But, despite the date on his birth cer...

I often hear it said that writing a novel is like giving birth. Having done both now, I can see the similarity, but I think the experience is closer to raising a child than to birthing one. Both involve work and pain, but there is a difference in determination. If you decide in the middle of labor that the struggle is too great and you would really rather not do the baby thing, it makes no difference. You're in for the full ride, and there's no going back. By contrast, raising a child requires a more active participation. We choose to be a good parent. We choose not to abandon the effort when times get rough. We work at molding a child who will be capable of going out into the world without us, and we hope that our child will be both well-treated by that world and also a benefit to it. This is, I think, a more appropriate analogy for our literary children. Together, my husband and I have produced a novel, written primarily for the pure goal of telling the story, but ...