A catch-all for you to catch up on who I am and what I do here Hello and welcome! Are you a busy parent who needs a good laugh or a primal scream? Are you a woman over 30 who needs to hear that you are strong, amazing, and incredible just the way…

And we always believe them — When my daughter was little, she was a calm, unbothered baby and toddler. She was just about as easy as a baby can be—sure, she spit up a lot, but she wasn’t a screamer, she slept relatively well, and she was generally easy to haul along to just about everywhere…

Spoiler Alert: It Wasn’t Easy — If you’re a writer, maybe you’ve read or heard the statistic that floats around the writing world. The one that tells us that writers have a 1 in 6,000 chance of signing with a literary agent. With odds like that, why does anyone stick with it? Good question. The truth…

Remember this when setting goals to avoid the mistake I made — Resolutions, goals—whatever you call them and whenever you set them, there’s one simple thing to remember that can make or break your success. Two years ago I was in the query trenches, sending out query after query for my picture book manuscripts and my first middle grade novel. …

Listen to one of these podcasts today to jumpstart your productivity — If writers like to listen to anything, it’s people talking about writing. Call it masochistic, call it delusion, but every writer I know loves to hear about the ins and outs of publishing, other writers’ processes, and the challenges and roadblocks that others have overcome. Maybe it’s because most of…

Three stories that had me thinking, laughing, and itching to write — What do Grey’s Anatomy, Kurt Vonnegut and Anna Karenina have in common? They’re all included in this week’s roundup. Read on to laugh and learn. How A Professor’s One Piece Of Advice Influenced My Entire Writing Career — from Eva Lesko Natiello. In this piece, Eva artfully tells the story…

And why more women should spend more time in the weight room — Years ago—almost decades (gulp)—I decided I was going to become a true, certified, Grade-A Badass. I was going to get strong. I knew it would change me physically, but never did I realize the profound effect it would have on the rest of my life. I spent the first half…

Use this strategy to decrease stress and increase motivation — I love a good list. In fact, my mom still jokes about how my main pastime when I was a kid was writing lists about everything. And I mean everything. List of dinosaurs that I know. List of foods I like…that I know. And yes, they all had that same…

Adopt this mindset shift and stop closing yourself off from your future — I never expected to come away from my daughter’s kindergarten year with a major transformation in myself. Kindergarten is full of story time, sharing, the beginning stages of reading, learning to tell stories. …