As the waning days of summer encroach on August, teacher dread begins to return. If you aren’t in education right now, there’s no way to understand the current classroom climate with AI cheating, US politics, and low literacy rates. It’s like trying to sell broccoli for seven hours a day to kids who only eat candy.

Okay, that comparison made me chuckle because literature is way better than broccoli, but that’s basically the groans and complaints teachers get on a daily basis. However, I think some students are starting to wake up and see how much technology has stolen from them (time, mental health, friendships, education, and jobs), and they are returning to analog experiences and reading actual novels again. I hope the budding trend sticks.

I have three things to look forward to this fall, and that’s what I’m choosing to focus on.

First up, after teaching in a windowless classroom for over two decades, the room fairies have granted me a reprieve. I am moving to a classroom with windows!

My classroom before (above) The tapestry was my attempt at having a “view.”

My new classroom (below) Not decorated yet and the lights were off, but look at those windows!

Yes, it’s a view of a rooftop and on the shady side of the building, but I’ll take it! For someone who has mild claustrophobia and possibly seasonal affective disorder, being able to see the sky outside a sea of glass will be so good for my soul.

Next, my agent and I will be going on sub with FIREWALL this fall. For those of you who aren’t writers, subbing means submitting manuscripts to select editors at publishing houses for consideration. It’s a nail-biting time since it comes with many rejections that she will manage for me. But hey, getting rejections means I’m back in the arena playing the game of publishing.

Last, and certainly not least, if you’ve been following my “50 Things birthday challenge”, then maybe you’ll remember that one of the items was more of a reach. I really wanted to go on a personal writing retreat at Boyds Mills, formerly known as the Highlights Foundation, but it was the most expensive item on the list. It’s been one of those splurges that I couldn’t justify with current finances and my youngest in college.

Well folks, I’m going this fall! :)

My retired uncle and aunt who read my Substack from Maine saw my birthday challenge list and graciously offered to pay for my retreat (shout out to Michael and Annie!) I managed to book a personal retreat before they sold out that works with my teaching schedule. I can’t believe I’ll get to soak up the historic creative atmosphere under autumn trees and meet other amazing creatives also escaping the real world to replenish their souls. I’ll definitely share my experience with you in a future post.

One of my favorite things about summer is having time to reflect on my life and make little changes for the better.

Each morning, I’ve been listening to an online body scan guided meditation, and the stress in my nervous system is finally starting to melt. This week I’m hoping to get back into an easy yoga stretch routine.

This week I weeded and ripped out plants that never quite worked. There was a low ground cover phlox on either side of my front steps that looked beautiful each spring, but then a ton of grass would sprout up through it, creating a mangy mess.

(See the light blue lavender phlox. Don’t let it fool you. This is when it looked nice for a few weeks. Then it looked awful for the rest of the year right in our walkway.)

So I ripped it out rather than walk past it every day, trying to pull out random blades of grass, and constantly sighing and sweating in failure. The walkway is cleaner, and I feel a little lighter. It only took three summers for me to pull the plug.

Sometimes, small changes really do make a huge difference.

I also found this used robin-egg-blue bureau at Savers for only $29. Score!

It looks fabulous in my writing office, and my printer even fits inside the cabinet. Before, the printer was balanced on a plastic storage bin. This feels so much nicer!

If you’ve been feeling frustrated with life lately, try buttoning up a loose end. Any loose end. Is there something you walk by every day, and it bothers you? Fix it. You’ll thank yourself and wonder why it took so long.

What else can I spruce up?

I was so close to finishing my next manuscript, FIREWALL, that as soon as school let out at the end of June, I threw myself into finishing and revising it. Last week, I finally sent it to my agent after two years (damn, has it been that long? Anyone else feel like time is weird lately? I can’t tell if it’s empty nesting or the current political climate in the US. Whatever it is, my brain doesn’t like it.)

Now that I’m waiting for my agent to read the manuscript and send notes, I’ve taken a week off writing (except for this post) to ground myself. I’ve been reading novels and going for walks in the mornings before the day gets too hot.

The garden shrubs and flowers are looking gorgeous (see pics below), but my vegetable beds shriveled up this year. I wonder if the soil needs refreshing. The problem could also be encroaching shade from trees getting taller. As an experiment, I planted one tomato in full sun near a rose bush, and that one is thriving. Why do we separate flower beds from our vegetable beds? I kind of like them blending together, and they seem to like it too…I might have to expand this experiment next year.

I’ve tried to plant sunflowers twice this year, and the wildlife isn’t having it. Something keeps digging them out by the roots. One plant made it up to my knees before it vanished in the morning like it never existed. So I’ve planted more seeds and put a wire basket over them to give the seedlings a fighting chance.

You win some, you lose some. You start over.

My “50 Things Before I’m 50 challenge” is going well! (See link for my original birthday post). So far I’ve completed these items:

1. Spend one day actively bird watching

2. Dance in the rain

3. Go for a rainy neighborhood walk with an umbrella

4. Make a memory quilt for my youngest in college using theater T-shirts.

   UPDATE: Six weeks later, and the company sent us the quilt this week! It came out lovely. Phew. I’m not posting a photo of it since some of the T-shirts have specific events, locations, and kids’ names on them, but it’s a great keepsake.

5. Ride a bike as an adult ( I haven’t been on a bike since I was 13)

   UPDATE: This was a humbling experience. I was on my morning walk and passed by a huge yard sale. Out front was an adult bike for $60. Since one of my “50 things” was to ride a bike this year, I stopped in my tracks. It was a little rusted, but other than that it seemed to be in good condition.

   

   “Take it for a spin around the block,” the woman at the house said. “I trust you.”

   I laughed like I was joking. “I haven’t been on a bike since I was a kid. I might fall. It seems high.”

   “Nah, the seat is hitting at your waist. That’s about right.”

   It was higher than my waist, though. So much so, it was hard to swing my leg high enough to get on the bike. That should’ve been a red flag. But when you have a list of things to do before you are 50, you try them.

   “Remember to do the hand brake on the right before the left. The right is the back tire.”

   I had no clue what she was talking about. Don’t you squeeze them both at the same time?

   There was also no helmet, but I’m Gen X. Not a problem. I used to ride my bike around the beach front from sun up to sundown with no helmet.

   I straddled the bike and rolled the tires forward to get the pedals in a decent position. And then I launched myself up on the seat, placing my left foot down on one pedal, and could not for the life of me get my other foot onto the other pedal before the bike tipped at an awkward angle and I almost fell. The bike took a dive into the grass as I jumped off. I tried a wobbly second time, and not only could I not get my second foot on the pedal, but I had to jump off the seat when stopping since it was too high for me and my feet couldn’t touch the ground. Thankfully, I didn’t fall, but I did notice my reflexes are not as quick as they used to be.

   I walked the bike back to its original “For Sale” spot. I wonder if anyone bought it.

6. Watch a sunset from my front steps.

   UPDATE: My husband decided to join me on our brick steps. I drank a cup of tea and just…sat. If anything, I found myself checking the time too often and not letting myself just be, and my butt got numb on the hard steps. So not the romantic, relaxing vision I thought it would be. To be honest, sunsets remind me of grief and leave me a bit unsettled. Maybe I’m more of a sunrise person?

7. Make homemade sage and lavender room spray using herbs from my garden.

   UPDATE: I ended up making two sprays, one for creativity (mint, rosemary, sage, and lemon thyme) and one for self love (rose, lavender, and sage). I bought perfumer’s alcohol and little glass spray bottles, boiled the ingredients, let it cool, then strained it. In each bottle, I poured 1/3 alcohol to 2/3 boiled liquid. After all that, they don’t have much scent. Perhaps it’s the placebo effect, though, because when I spray them in my writing office, I am very productive! Next time instead of boiling, I’ll let them steep in the alcohol for a few days.

More next week!

I’ve made some progress on my “50 Things Before I’m 50” personal birthday challenge! (Here’s a link to Part 1 to see my total list.)

First, a confession. I still haven’t come up with 50 total things. The list will have to evolve over time. I also edited/deleted a couple items after some reflection, realizing they weren’t things that I actually wanted to do (like making soap), or I realized I had already done it before (like buying myself a piece of jewelry). The whole point of the challenge is to do things I've always wanted to do but haven’t yet, so why not set the goal before my 50th birthday next year.

Okay, so in the past two weeks since I started the challenge, I’ve already checked off four things!

• Go for a rainy neighborhood walk with an umbrella

• Dance in the rain

• Make a memory quilt for my youngest in college using theater T-shirts from grades 3-12.

• Spend one day actively bird watching in my garden and tracking all the species

Going for a walk and dancing in the rain was easy since it’s been a rainy spring here. It was almost too easy to complete those two, and I wondered why I had never done them before. Funny how we make up weird rules for ourselves without questioning it. Usually when I’m at home and it’s raining, I reach for a book. I never venture outside. Until now.

I’ve discovered that I enjoy walking around my garden and listening to rain drops plink plink plink through the canopy of leaves above me. It’s also a good time to weed without the sun baking against my back. This is a habit I will continue to cultivate in my life (my word of 2026).

For the memory quilt, I decided I couldn’t test my novice sewing skills on such sentimental items, so I found an online company that specializes in making memory quilts from T-shirts. Two downsides, though: I still had to cut 24 T-shirts down the seams to ship the exact sides of each shirt that I wanted in the quilt. It was hard to take scissors to the past, but after a few shirts, I got into a groove. And the second downside, I had to pay shipping both to the company and back to me, so it was almost 1/3 of the cost of the quilt. I can’t say yet if the cost was worth it. According to the company, it’ll take six weeks to receive the finished twin size quilt. But getting everything ready and shipped felt like I was honoring the past and moving forward, a perfect empty nest activity.

For the bird-watching task, I used an app and spent one day tracking birds in my garden. I live in a small Massachusetts town, about a mile and a half from the Atlantic Ocean. In one day, I identified 22-27 different bird species either in my yard, flying overhead, or (in the Wild Turkey case) patrolling the neighborhood. I love knowing the diversity of birds around me, their distinct calls, and how my garden serves a small part of their needs. This helped me heal some of my worries about my bird bath and the dead birds I found in my yard two summers ago.

Here’s a list of the birds I spotted in one day. I wanted to include some photos, but WTH, it is so hard to take good pictures of birds. They either blend in with the background or fly away too quickly. So sorry, no pics.The ones in bold I heard and saw multiple times, so I’m pretty sure of those. The others I’m keeping on a watch list:

• Song Sparrow

• American Robin

• Carolina Wren

• House Finch

• House Sparrow

• Blue Jay

• Chimney Swift

• Gray Catbird

• American Goldfinch

• Northern Cardinal (pair)

• American Herring Gull

• American crow/ Fish crow (I can’t tell the difference yet)

• Mourning dove

• Black-capped Chickadee

• European Starling

• Wild Turkey

• Northern Mockingbird

• Mallard

• White-breasted Nuthatch

• Common Grackle

• Cedar Waxing

• Tree Swallow

• Osprey

• Chipping Sparrow

• Blackpoll Warbler

• Red-winged Blackbird

Am I going to turn into a birder? Probably not. I don’t have the patience to sit still long enough. But now, every time I step into the garden in the morning, I recognize the melody of Song Sparrows greeting me, and I even found their nest with three little pale eggs inside one of my potted topiaries. That I can get used to.

In my writing life, I’ve finished the rough draft of FIREWALL at 70k words. I put it aside for a week to marinate, and I’ll spend the next month editing it before sending it to my agent. I thought I would finish it last summer (haha!), but that’s the writing life sometimes. You can’t really force a story that isn’t ready.

When I say editing, I don’t mean fixing grammar or spelling. I tend to underwrite drafts to see if they will work, then once I have a viable draft, I fully shape scenes, fleshing out characters and the setting, and make sure the pace and emotional arcs hit at the right time. It’s actually my favorite part of the writing process since I love creative structure, so I’m looking forward to digging in this week.

Tonight, I am writing this post during a blue moon, the second full moon in the same month. It’s a good time for second chances and letting go to bring in new opportunities.

Ever since the Artemis II mission, the moon has been centered in my mind as a reminder of how small we are on this little planet in the vastness of space, and how remarkable life really is.

Stay hopeful.

I’m writing this on my 49th birthday, and I’ve decided to celebrate next year’s mid-century mark of my life with a “50 Things Before I’m 50” personal challenge.

I’m not talking about expensive trips around the globe or anything like that. I don’t have the money or time, and if you know me at all, I’m a homebody. I don’t mind a good local day trip, but I love being home. I live in Massachusetts, so if you see an item that involves travel, it’s probably in driving distance.

No, I’m talking about those little times in your life when you say to yourself, “I should try that.” And then you never get around to it. I want to finally do all those little things, and maybe a few not-so-little ones.

Rules for this challenge: Each task has to be something that I’ve never done before, but not something way out of my comfort zone. I’m afraid of heights and claustrophobic, so there will be no jumping out of a plane or any escape room antics. They also can’t be something that’s out of my control, like my book becoming a New York Times Best Seller. Although that would be nice, universe. As I complete items, I will track my progress in future posts for accountability. I am not planning to do them in this order.

The best thing I’ve loved about this challenge so far is telling people in my life and how encouraging they’ve been. I already have friends offering to join me on items that appeal to their personality, either because they have experience in that area, or they’ve always wanted to do it too!

Here’s my initial list (in random order):

1. Spend one day actively bird watching in my garden and tracking all the species

2. Ride a horse

3. Ride a bike as an adult ( I haven’t been on a bike since I was 13)

4. Watch a sunrise at the beach

5. Watch a sunset on my front steps

6. Try gelato

7. Try kimchi

8. Try a galao (local coffee drink)

9. Do a random act of kindness

10. Eat all three meals outside one day

11. Enjoy a book marathon, reading a book all day at five different local places.

12. Dance in the rain

13. Make a pizza from scratch

14. Make English muffins from scratch

15. Make an apple pie from scratch

16. Make homemade sage and lavender room spray using herbs from my garden

17. Visit the Boston Public Library

18. Visit the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston

19. Visit Authors Ridge Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, MA

20. Visit Walden pond

21. Visit Blithewold manor and gardens in RI

22. Start a new collection

23. Have a yard sale in my driveway

24. Refresh and streamline my wardrobe

25. Eat a fancy candlelight dinner at home on a random school night

26. Get a facial

27. Enjoy Providence for the day

28. Make my own piece of jewelry

29. Make a piece of pottery

30. Go for a rainy neighborhood walk with an umbrella

31. Find a signature fragrance

32. Write in a personal journal for 7 consecutive days

33. Learn to play one simple song on a guitar

34. Attend a themed party

35. Read Moby Dick (I was born in New Bedford, I’m an English teacher and author, and I’ve never read Moby Dick. Shame!)

36. Join a book club

37. Go on a YA personal writing retreat at Boyds Mills in Pennsylvania, formerly known as the Highlights Foundation. (This is my most expensive bucket list item on the list. I might have to skip this one if I can’t swing it financially this year. I also have to time it right with a work-in-progress.)

38. Organize the box of family photos into albums (this is a harder task than it seems since my mom died, and I inherited her disorganized cardboard box of hundreds of photos. I’ve become the family historian by default, and I’ve been avoiding it.)

39. Make a memory quilt for my youngest in college using theater T-shirts from all past shows, grade 3-12. I think we have 25 of them stored away. Seems like a good empty nesting task to honor the past, and the project has the youngest’s approval. Note: I’ve never made a quilt, and I don’t know how to use a sewing machine.

40. Ride the new MBTA Commuter Rail from my area to Boston

41. Start writing an adult novel (I’ve only written YA)

42. ?

43. ?

44. ?

45. ?

46. ?

47. ?

48. ?

49. ?

50. ?

Uh, I can’t think of more things at the moment, so if you have any suggestions, please leave them in the comments!

The blizzard of ‘26 hit my area in Southeastern Massachusetts pretty damn hard this past season. Before this storm, my relationship with snow had always been inspirational, much like Lorelei’s connection with snow bringing her luck in Gilmore girls. Snow has always brought me new creative ideas and the time to slow down from teaching and get those ideas on paper. When the possibility of a huge storm approached, I was all in. Bring it! I thought maybe I’d get a snow day or two and extra time to write.

Anyway, the storm hit, and I swear we got almost 30 inches of snow in one day. Here is a video of the conditions around 10am that morning.

We immediately lost power and heat around 7 am since our cottage has forced hot air heating with gas, but it requires electricity to kick on. And no, we don’t have a fireplace or a generator.

We layered on clothes and blankets, and when I still had my sense of humor to help cope, I remembered the episode of Friends where Joey wears all the clothes at once, and yeah, that’s kind of how I looked.

Except as the quiet hours went by and the sun set, the darkness settled in along with fear. The cold air started affecting my sinuses and my breathing. I forget sometimes how sensitive my body is to change, and how essential my routines and environment are to feel safe.

I had time off from teaching and couldn’t write. I could barely keep devices charged. Instead, I was left with a lingering dread as the snow began to stick to the window screens and completely blot out the world.

No one was coming to save us.

The street was empty and still, the entire region not plowed, and my neighborhood eerily dark. If we needed an ambulance, what would happen?

For someone who has mild claustrophobia, as the snow piled up around us, I thought about all the stories I had read about survival. Into the Wild. Into Thin Air. My mind wandered in worries. Did they know they were going to die? Would we run out of food? Would we freeze to death in our sleep? Would our cats eat us? I always thought I’d go out fighting, not cowering and shivering “with a whimper.”

I had to relinquish my power to the snow gods, and it was humbling.

The dark silence became deafening, and time slowed. Then I remembered I had recently bought a chargeable FM radio and CD player. So we listened to the radio by flashlight, and tried to sleep. It was nice to hear human voices around us.

I boiled water on the gas stove to add humidity and heat, but when a friend warned me about carbon dioxide poisoning from heating with a stove, I only did it every few hours for an hour. School was cancelled for the rest of the week, and we slowly dug a path to the car with shovels. At least then we could warm up fully every few hours.

Four days later, and 48 degrees in the cottage, the electricity and heat returned that evening, and my husband and I cheered. When we could finally drive to an open store, I bought a carbon dioxide detector.

Back at school, the dread lingered. Most of my students didn’t lose power, and I questioned how fragile my self of security is without it. I tend to think of myself as a tough survivor, but this storm triggered the worst in me.

I felt embarrassed of my fear in comparison to the real struggles of people around the world dealing with war and famine, and here I was struggling without power for a few days and immediately feeling vulnerable.

Oh, having a dystopian author brain is fun.

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Anyway, things are back to normal around here. Spring is slow to get started, or I am just impatient this year. It’s a bit cold still, mostly in the low 50s, and while the garden survived the harsh weather, a few plants have seen better days. So I’ve been retooling some beds and letting go.

We don’t have deer in my area, so I think desperate rabbits chewed the crap out of one of my rose bushes, and I think it died since it’s not pushing out any new growth. I’ve seen several bunnies chasing each other in the yard, but I didn’t think they would destroy an established rose. Check out the destruction and all the stripped bark:

Nature has a way to bring out the best and worst in us, to teach lessons of life and death, to test our ability to accept change, and to serve as a mirror to our vulnerabilities and potential.

(I made this video with a borrowed view of my neighbor’s forsythia hedge that divides our properties.)

I turn 49 this May, and I’m thinking of doing a “50 things before I’m 50” challenge. Small things to mark my mid-century birthday next year. Hmmm…

I’m still not done with the Firewall manuscript. The beast keeps growing the more I feed it. I’ve been back to working on it daily in the evenings, so I think the draft should be completed by the end of May for my agent.

One more update—that surprise thing in my writing life that I’ve mentioned in other posts is still a possibility. There are meetings happening soon. Keep thinking positive thoughts!

This past fall, I was interviewed by picture book writer and illustrator Nancy Miller for her podcast, My Creative Life. The interview was released today, so check it out wherever you listen to podcasts. Here’s the link to Apple and Spotify.

I’ll be back next week with more blog posts so we can catch up. I needed to rest and to log off for a bit after a hard winter (the blizzard hit us hard here in southeastern Massachusetts), but the garden still finds its way back to spring.

More on this next Sunday.

Enjoy the podcast!

When I’m stressed, I rearrange furniture. It gives me a sense of control (especially when so much in the world is out of my control), and provides a fresh perspective on my daily life.

I’ve loved my writing office ever since I painted it a moody blue, but this week I decided to turn my desk and move my bookcase behind it in the far corner of the room.

Here are some pictures.

My writing desk before:

My writing desk after:

By placing the side of my desk against the window, I can still see the view of my garden when I type, and my back is no longer to the doorway. Plus, it allows for a better background for publishing-related Zoom meetings.

The energy is better, and all I did was rotate the desk and move a bookcase.

Perspective helps us rethink, unlock stale energy, and accept change.

In my classroom, I rearranged the student desks as well, from rows to a U-shaped configuration with the center of the room open as a “stage” for reading Macbeth with seniors and Hamlet with AP juniors. It’s a major shift for the second half of the school year, and at first students are like, “What did you do?” But then they adjust and enjoy seeing the space in a new way.

My agent emailed asking when my FIREWALL manuscript would be ready. I told her I’d be done by mid-February, so I’m buckling down. I thought I would be finished this summer, but life had other plans. The manuscript also had a great ending that I wrote months ago, and then I realized it was the climax of the story, not the ending.

So perhaps this rearrangement of furniture is also a form of procrastination.

What are your healthy ways to cope with stress? I’d love to read them in the comments.

Every year I chose a new word, often garden-inspired, that encapsulates what I’d like to focus on in my life. My word for 2025 was ROOT, and wow, did I ever hunker down and dig deeper. I took a few hiatus weeks offline, including from Substack, read a ton of fantasy books, and just let myself rest, heal my soul a bit, and practice becoming my own best friend during this empty nesting phase of my life.

I’ve decided my word for 2026 is CULTIVATE. It feels like a natural progression after ROOT, and I want to focus on nurturing the things and experiences in my life that I want more of.

My vision board (see above photo) hangs on the corkboard in my writing office so I can see it every day when I sit to write. I created it by taping two open manila folders together as my backing, but you could use any cardboard for this (cereal boxes work well). Then I clipped images from magazines and catalogs collected over the past year, and added an image of the word cultivate from online. (Tip: Ask your local library if they have any magazines they are discarding, and you’ll often get a free stack to use.)

This past year, I realized that sensory details are really important to calm and fill my creative side. I love decadent smells, bright color, natural textures, and soothing sounds. I guess who doesn’t love those things, right? But I’ve had to focus on other people’s needs for so long, that it’s the first time I’ve acknowledged how overstimulated and burnt out my body feels from decades as an introverted teacher.

So, I plan to cultivate more calming sensory experiences in my daily life. I’ll be reading novels with my book light, a cozy blanket, and a good cup of coffee in a beautiful mug. Typing away on a clickity, clackity keyboard. Enjoying the smell of fresh blueberry muffins. Dancing in the kitchen. Walking to the library and the beach. Going to the theater for a live performance. Taking photographs of nature. Living seasonally.

More of that, please.

I like luxuriating in simple things. I want to cultivate a softer, meaningful life.

A friend gave me advice to cultivate more play in my life to fuel my creativity, and while that is true, her examples stressed me out. She suggested to make puzzles, do adult coloring books, and play more games. Um, no. I’m at the point where I can only experience a sense of calm if there is nothing to complete, and I am responsible for nothing. Moments where I can savor, breathe, experience, and just be at the pace of the day.

I bought myself a CD player and some CDs from my past, so I can hear music throughout my kitchen and writing office. Forget headphones/earbuds, I love the way music fills a shared space and sets a mood in the room. It’s fun to listen to a familiar album and reminisce about who you were back then versus who you are now.

Maybe you aren’t into making a vision board, but I highly encourage choosing a word to guide you throughout the new year. I find it works better for me than setting strict resolutions.

Need help deciding on a word for you?

Start by asking yourself these questions, then search for synonyms to capture the feeling. I like choosing verbs, but nouns work just as well.:

• If you could encapsulate an ideal day in your life right now, how could you describe it in one word? Maybe this is the year for more of that.

• Do you need to expand more this year, or turn inward?

• Is there something you’d like more of this year? Less of?

• Is there something major that you’d like to work on? Can you turn that thing into a more abstract word? (For example, if you’d like to be healthier, words like STRONG, MOBILITY, EMPOWERMENT, RESTORE, REST, ENERGIZE might work).

Now post that word where you’ll see it every day along with one inspiring image to associate with it. You can even set a picture of your word as your phone or laptop background.

If you choose a personal word for 2026, please share it in the comments to help inspire others!

I tried to move forward, but just looking at the original book covers of my series made me angry. I never thought I’d feel that way about my own work.

There was a rights-reversion loophole in my contract with the small press which extended to the buyout company: I could retain all rights back if the publisher didn’t sell at least 50 copies of the series in paperback and ebook formats combined within a six-month period.

So I waited.

During which time, I wrote another manuscript. I attended conferences and developed strong friendships with other writers and industry professionals. I switched agents (all good—a story for another time) and found my current agent, who had been a huge fan of Consider when it first came out, posting online at the time that it was her top read of 2016. We were a match made in heaven.

Then the pandemic hit, and my agent couldn’t sell my YA manuscript about a virus. So I switched gears and worked on a YA Christmas Romance.

And I waited.

Twice a year, I scoured every royalty statement that arrived with a small check. Sometimes 100 copies sold within that six-month period, or 72, or 30 of one book and 23 of the other, along with a check for three digits or less.

Six years later, it finally happened.

I opened my royalty statement, and the combined number of both books sold was in the thirties in all formats.

My hands shook, but a sense of calm washed over me. I had waited long enough. I had to take the shot. If I didn’t, and the next statement arrived in six months, higher sales in that period could close the loophole.

I said to my husband, “I think I’m going to kill my book series. Do you think I’m making a mistake?”

And he said gently, “You wouldn’t be killing it. It’s already dead.”

That, my friends, is the kind of people you want around you. They understand what you need.

I wanted my fucking power back.

My creative soul yearned for healing, and sometimes that means the willingness to start over. I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. I figured I’d self-publish the series this time, and at least it would feel like mine again. The series deserved another real chance.

I called my agent, and within a week, I got all my rights back to the series.

The publisher then asked if I wanted to buy the cover art and the book layouts from them, and they also gave me a date to buy all remaining copies before they were discarded.

Yes, this felt like a slap in the face after everything that happened, even though it’s an industry standard.

I let their copies burn.

In my garden, I burned two original copies of my series and buried the ashes to symbolize the end of my disappointment and anger, and then planted a mini lilac in the spot to symbolize new life.

I was fully prepared to take the indie self-publishing route after that. I had my rights, I had the drive, and I believed in my series.

But there was a tiny possibility that I couldn’t quite shake, the spark from a discussion I had years ago that still lingered in the back of my mind.

Someone from Sourcebooks had once said to me they saw great things for my writing career. As a new writer, you just need a few early moments of external validation from trusted industry professionals to know you are on the right track. That had been one of those moments, and I had tucked it away for myself to remember when I was feeling discouraged.

In my gut, I thought that maybe, just maybe, my series had one more shot in traditional publishing.

So I asked my agent to take a long shot and reach out to Sourcebooks. She sent them a cold pitch to repackage the series, and only a month after getting my rights back, we got a two-book offer from Sourcebooks Fire.

They repackaged and published my series in 2023 as The Warning (book 1) and The Fallout (book 2) with gorgeous new paperback covers by UK cover designer and illustrator Andrew Davis, new titles dreamed up by the editorial and marketing team, and the promise of bookstore presence.

This time around, Sourcebooks can absolutely keep up with any printing demands as my series finds new readers.

Unfortunately, I did lose all reviews on Amazon and Goodreads since the titles changed, and the books also immediately joined Sourcebooks Fire’s backlist, getting little publicity since they did come out seven years prior, albeit in a different form. (By the way, if you reviewed the original Consider and Contribute versions, pretty please post a quick review again under the new versions!)

I got the opportunity to edit book 1, making small tweaks to keep with the times (like a trip to Sears changed to Best Buy since Sears is gone now.)

For book 2, though, I asked if I could edit the ending since I had originally wrote it during contract disputes. The editor said I could do whatever I wished, so I added a few missing scenes and killed off different characters :) Talk about traveling through time and changing the rules!

The whole process felt so much safer with a good agent. (FYI, I highly recommend having a reputable agent—totally worth the 15% commission—when dealing with publishing contracts.)

For the first time in seven years, I can walk into a Barnes & Noble and find my books on their shelves.

Plus, maybe timing matters. The universe is funny that way.

I wrote the series back in 2014 as an anxious warning about AI holograms, and people not being able to tell truth from lies after I did some research projecting where the tech industry was headed in the future. I didn’t expect it so soon.

Now that AI is a real concern in our world, my series is suddenly more relevant than ever.

Welcome to Where Stories Grow, my blog about writing, teaching, and creativity, all coming to you from my small backyard garden.

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Followed by this:

I get asked this question a lot—how did you end up publishing your debut dystopian series twice with different publishers?

Yeah, um…it’s complicated.

I thought I’d unravel what happened and finally post about it. Feel free to ask any questions in the comments. I’ll try to be as transparent as I can, but there are some things I don’t feel comfortable sharing in a public post.

Okay, so when I first wrote book 1 of my series under the title CONSIDER (which is now THE WARNING), I was offered a two-book publishing contract by a small press in 2015. I won’t mention names here (you can easily Google it if you care) but mostly because a small press still exists under that name, but it’s nothing like the old publisher. More on that in a minute.

The amount of my paperback advance with them was zero.

Sounds ridiculous to even type that, but I didn’t have an agent at the time. The publisher did sell my audio and German translation rights for me, for which I received a surprise check, plus I’d get 10% on paperback royalties. Money for my creative writing? Dream come true!

In the lead up to my debut publication date, I worked on edits and did all the things I could to promote my book—blog post interviews, cover reveals, hometown newspapers and radio—all with the help of family and friends and my own excited energy. The publisher designed a great cover, and my editing experience was fantastic.

CONSIDER received a starred review in School Library Journal, won the PEN New England Susan P. Bloom Children’s Book Discovery award, and was a finalist for the Philip K. Dick award for distinguished science fiction. I was on cloud nine. This was my childhood dream life come true.

My local community was super supportive, and on the weekend of my debut release in April 2016, I signed and sold out of 140 books at my local Barnes & Noble, a huge success coming from a small press! (A huge success coming from any size publisher to be honest. This is highly unusual, by the way. I’ve done plenty of store events where no one showed.)

But then one week later, my book went out of stock, disappearing everywhere.

I was told by the small press that they needed to do another print run. They flattered me on selling out of books so quickly and assured me it would be back in stock soon. I had made plans with other bookstores and upcoming festivals, and the publisher made promise after promise that the books would be back in stock in time for the events…

They lied. (I bet you’re not surprised.)

They had run out of money to print books, the number one thing a publisher is responsible for.

During this time, I was still under contract to write book 2, CONTRIBUTE (which is now THE FALLOUT). I stopped going to book events because bookstores couldn’t order the books. The publisher kept feeding me lies, and I kept believing them because the alternative was worse. I tried to focus on writing book 2 since it was the only thing I could control.

SIX MONTHS LATER, the book was finally back in stock. But all the fucking legwork I had done to launch my book came crashing down, the momentum lost. And for a series, that’s the kiss of death. I figured I’d chalk it up to a learning experience and move forward with book 2.

Then it got worse.

Only weeks later, the small press announced online they were closing, and all rights would return to authors. They posted it on their website without informing their authors privately first.

I was devastated.

Other authors reached out because they knew how disappointing this was. I felt like an idiot, like a failure, and I was so angry and embarrassed. When writing books is your dream, it sucks to have someone else lie to you about their company for months while you work your ass off. To reach a goal, and then have it immediately ripped away was cruel.

Kindly, one of my writer friends contacted her agent, who I ended up signing with temporarily. She reassured me that once the publisher officially emailed my rights back in a signed letter, we would try to find a new publisher. I felt safe having a reputable agent in my corner for the first time, and I figured we’d weather the storm together. If nothing else, at least I’d finally get away from this terrible business relationship.

Nope.

At the end of the month, the small press made another online announcement: they were no longer closing. Another indie company would be buying them out.

They would still have the same imprint name, but under new leadership. They stressed that if any authors wanted to leave before the buyout, they would return their rights. Some authors chose to stay and wait it out; others asked to leave and were, in fact, given their rights back.

My new agent and I requested my rights back, believing my series still had huge potential, and I could escape the emotional roller coaster.

But the small press declined my request.

I believe I was the only author who asked for their rights back and was told no. My series had apparently been a major selling point of the deal with the other company.

So, my debut series was sold against my wishes, which happens in publishing, but it felt worse after my book had gone missing for the six months after its release, after all their lies and the time and work I had put in to launch it. I also work full-time as a high school English teacher, so wasting the little time I have after teaching, family, grading, and writing—the experience was rage inducing!

Under the new company with the same imprint name, I had to reluctantly finish edits for CONTRIBUTE book 2, which was eventually published by them in 2017. Every person who originally worked there left, and a lovely new staff took over. Unfortunately, my book series immediately became part of their backlist—in other words, no longer promoted in any way. What was the point? I was so burned by them, I wanted out from under this tainted umbrella. I wanted my creative power back.

So I waited.

Six years later, a loophole in my contract created that possibility…

(Click here for Part 2, where I join forces with Sourcebooks Fire to repackage my debut under THE WARNING series!)

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It’s August, and in three weeks I’ll be back to full-time teaching and part-time writing. At the end of every summer, teaching colleagues always greet me with the same questions, “Did you have a great summer? Did you get some writing done? You’re still writing, right?”

How do I explain? This is what I did all summer:

Every summer vacation, my creative soul finds its joy again as I switch into full-time author mode for a few glorious months. I get lost and find myself in the draft pages of new worlds. Authors always have characters and plots running through their minds. It’s the constant way my brain soaks in the world and wants to express itself, and my subconscious will start taking over the story for me when I show the universe I’m open and ready to work.

Yes, I get stuck and some days are a slog, but the days when everything clicks surpasses those low moments. During the school year, sometimes drafts scream at me to work on them, sometimes it’s a faint whisper since the noise of teaching overwhelms that creative voice. So the quiet pace of summer is the perfect time to let my guard down and let creativity reign.

I thought I’d share a behind-the-scenes glimpse into my author life (*summer edition*).

So where am I in my writing career?

I’m at the published author stage with a 2023 debut young adult dystopian sci-fi series out with Sourcebooks Fire. I have a literary agent and a film agent, and yes, I still teach high school English full-time. It’s a myth that once you publish a book, you are magically set for life and get to quit working the 9-5. Far from it.

I’ve taught English in public high school to 150+ teenagers every year for the last 25 years. I’m the sole provider for my family, so I don’t live with any other safety net. More like I’m the safety net for other people. On the positive side, teaching has provided me the stability to be able to write, and I’ll receive a state teaching pension when I retire.

My literary agent has two completed manuscripts that I wrote in the past few years that haven’t sold to a publisher yet for various market reasons. I can’t control that, so I just keep writing more stories.

I have lots of free time during the summer to dedicate to my writing now that my kids are in their twenties. I also have a writing office since I’m empty nesting and have the extra room, so it’s a pretty ideal writing environment at this point in my life. (I remember writing my debut series from my bed in a small basement apartment. If that version of me could only see me now! I’m grateful that she kept going…)

Okay, before I get to this week in particular, it might make more sense if I explain my writing plans for this summer.

I currently have four projects in different stages:

1. A Secret Book Proposal: (Chapter 1, pitch, and outline only needed)

2. FIREWALL: (YA grounded sci-fi) Rough draft stage

3. THE DIGITAL OATH: (YA dystopian fantasy) Outlining and character-building stage

4. UNTITLED: (Adult space opera) World-building stage

I’ve already finished the Secret Book Proposal and sent it to my agent in late June. Woohoo! It ended up 31 pages long. My agent said she will get back to me at the end of summer, so I checked that off my list and put it out of my mind for now.

And that brings us to this random week.

Here I am (see the first photo above). Me, alone, thinking and typing in my writing office, usually for one to three sessions throughout the day.

Sunday:

• I started the morning with coffee and a walk in the garden to check on my plants. It’s been too hot and humid for much gardening lately, though.

• Then I used Scrivener to plot out the sequence for the last section of FIREWALL since I felt too stuck to move on.

• By the end of the day, my outline was still not completed. I felt stuck and disappointed.

If you haven’t heard of Scrivener, it’s like a system of online file folders with index card notes that you can easily move around to reorder, then write full chapters in each folder if you wish. Some writers use it to draft their entire novel, but I only use it to outline, then Scrivener compiles all my notes into Microsoft Word. This process helps me create a draft with big picture scenes already in mind, especially since I like writing scenes out of order based on my mood.

Some writers consider themselves pantsers (writing by the seat of their pants), and others plotters, but I’m somewhere in-between. I like having an overall structure planned ahead of time, and then I like to play within that structure to allow the story to have breathing room to tell me what it needs. Overplanning would kill my creative spark. I like to be surprised by the story, too.

Monday:

• I walked in the garden this morning, but it was too hot and humid to last more than fifteen minutes.

• While I was driving in my car, random bits of dialogue floated through my brain of a new scene that would connect several themes running through the story, so I pulled over and dictated it into the Notes app on my iPhone.

• Back home, I finished the outline in Scrivener for FIREWALL and found my new ending, so it’s full steam ahead!

• I wrote 700 words by adding the new dialogue to the document.

• I logged my word count on the free version of Pacemaker to track my daily progress on FIREWALL. It shows me the exact date I will finish the draft, and if I write more or skip a day, it instantly recalculates. It says I am currently 53% done and will finish the draft in mid-September at my current pace.

Tuesday:

• I started the day with free yoga in the park. So good to get the creative energy flowing.

• Then I walked the garden, weeded a little, and checked on my miniature pumpkins, tomatoes, eggplant, green peppers, beans, and zucchini. The lavender hedge and limelight hydrangea on the side of the house have doubled in size this year.

It hasn’t been a great year for my vegetables so far. My basil looks dead, and most of my sunflower starts shriveled in a heatwave. I might have two that reach bloom stage if I’m lucky. I keep getting blossoms on my pumpkins and eggplant that fall off before they turn to fruit.

• In the afternoon, I met with Michelle Cusolito, one of my critique partners, to write together in a coffee shop for two hours. Yes, we actually write in silence, and then talk to bounce ideas off each other. (Her latest picture book, In The World of Whales, just released a few weeks ago with Neal Porter Books.)

• I wrote again in the evening since I had a breakthrough at the coffee shop and could finally fix a scene that wasn’t working. Another 700 words added to FIREWALL.

Wednesday:

• Morning coffee walk in the garden to check on my plants. It was too humid again to do more than that.

• Since I don’t draft scenes in order, I made a list of what chapters are completed in the FIREWALL manuscript. Then I wrote 700 words and completed Chapter 9.

• I reread the initial chapters and notes for THE DIGITAL OATH. In that project’s notebook, I started lists of character quirks, motivations, wants and needs, and other details I don’t want to forget about their history.

Thursday:

• Morning coffee walk in the garden to check on my plants. I cut back some spent perennials and picked some sun gold cherry tomatoes.

• I wrote 700 words on Chapter 10 in FIREWALL. It was a slog, but I pushed myself to return to the page a third time to reach the word count.

Friday:

• Rainy morning coffee walk in the garden to check on my plants. They needed the water, and I loved the cooler air and the sound through the leaf canopy.

• I completed Chapter 10 in FIREWALL.

• Then I realized a character needed to die a shocking death at the 3/4 mark for the story to have enough tension, and that was never in my initial plan. To see if it would work, I wrote a scene out of sequence where the main character discovers the death, and wow, it added the depth that was missing and connected to a subplot. BINGO.

• In my FIREWALL notebook, I created a list of things I need to edit once I finish the rough draft. I don’t want to slow down to make the changes now.

Saturday:

• Morning coffee walk in the garden to check on my plants, then I cut back more perennials and mulched one small area.

• In the afternoon, I had a Zoom meeting to speak on a podcast for an hour with illustrator and art teacher Nancy Miller, whose artwork is AMAZING and makes me feel so much joy. Her picture book, Sun, Moon, and Star, comes out February 24, 2026 with Holiday House. Nancy and I had so much fun chatting. When the podcast releases (she said probably in March), I’ll post the link.

• Then I wrote this blog post!

I spend so much of my summer vacation alone in a room full of characters having adventures and struggling to make sense of the world. It was nice to share the process with you.

Do you have any writing or gardening questions for me? I’d be happy to answer them in the comments :)

If you’d like to check out my published books, here’s a link to my series!

Thanks for your support!

Follow me on my journey as an author, high school English teacher, and backyard gardener. Every time something inspires me, you’ll be the first to know.

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William Carlos Williams was right about the wheelbarrow.

I finally bought one, after convincing myself since 2018 that my garden was too small, and that I could do the backbreaking work myself. For someone with chronic joint pain, I can be ridiculously stubborn sometimes.

So far, I’ve used my new wheelbarrow to carry bags of mulch, as a potting bench, as an extra bird bath during a heatwave, to temporarily hold garden debris for the compost pile, and to catch and reuse excess rain in the vegetable beds. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s been life-changing, but it sits there in the back of the house like an old friend waiting to support me if I need help.

In my writing life, I decided to splurge and buy myself a new fancy mechanical keyboard and mouse set for $90, and a $20 laptop stand to raise the height of the screen. Not much of a splurge, you might think. Well, to me upgrades that aren’t necessary feel that way. I already have a really nice Lenovo laptop that has a perfectly fine built-in keyboard.

Except it wasn’t. I spend hours teaching and grading while hunched over a small, school assigned laptop. Then I spend hours writing novels hunched over my personal laptop. My body was slowly resenting me.

So going into summer writing mode, I took the time to really think about what would lure me back to the screen every day. Yes, sometimes I handwrite in journals, but at some point, I need to face the digital page.

Oh. My. God. Check it out:

The clickety-clack of this keyboard and the depth of the keys makes it sound like my fingers are tap dancing. It’s such a happy, productive sound in my office where before my laptop keyboard was BLAH. My shoulders already feel looser since I'‘m no longer in training to become the Hunchback of Norte Dame.

I’ve written almost every single day, often for double sessions in the morning and evenings, after buying this keyboard.

Simple tools can have a profound effect on us and change the way we experience the world. For me, summer is when I finally have the time to slow down enough to listen to myself and re-evaluate what I do, why I do it, and if there’s a small change I could make in how I do it.

It has taken me a long time to get to this point. Growing up in a constant state of survival, simple tools can feel like luxuries. When there’s not enough to go around, you just do the thing and struggle through it. It teaches you resilience, but it also makes you feel guilty for any investment in yourself.

I’ll be 50 in two more years. I get to have the tools now! :)

I’d love to hear your thoughts on any tools for hobbies or work that have really had an impact on you.

It’s finally summer vacation, and I am free of the weight of teaching. My creative side can bloom again.

I’ve learned that my creative soul has weather and seasons, and maybe yours does, too. Sometimes it pours, sometimes it peeks through the clouds, and sometimes it’s a drought. For the past few months, I’ve been hibernating in a season of reading to replenish the well, so to speak.

This week, I’ve been writing up a storm while overlooking the abundance in my garden after so much rain this year. My roses and hydrangeas are having a banner year!

It is so glorious to create in this environment without the threat of tomorrow’s class schedule, grading hundreds of assignments, and society’s fucked up anti-intellectual values looming like a hurricane I must push through each day.

I’ve been teaching since 1999. It was supposed to be temporary until my writing career took off. Yikes, if that’s not sobering. But with that many years in an ever-changing classroom environment, from overhead projectors to Smart screens to AI ready to steal our critical thinking skills, one thing has stayed the same.

Students need good teachers.

(*Time to reflect and then pretend I’m not a fucking teacher for the rest of summer*)

Out of my eight high school English classes, one was the worst. Like really bad. Some days I couldn’t even start the lesson because students walked into class screaming at the top of their lungs at each other, and I had to get security before a riot began. Other days they’d be asleep or skipping class and roaming the hallways, and I’d have to stop teaching to fill out paperwork for administrative discipline.

How did I get through it?

Clean slate.

A little trick I learned many years ago. Before a really difficult class, I take a bunch of deep breaths, get really calm, and repeat “clean slate” a few times as I visualize washing away any negative emotional clutter I accumulated after working with them. It gives myself the luxury of forgiveness for any teaching mistakes or shortcomings, and it resets my heart to treat every student as if yesterday’s behavior didn’t affect today. It provides space to make different choices, and if they do, I make sure to notice. Not easy, but effective enough to maintain my sanity.

One day in that awful class, a girl asked me, “You have kids, right?”

Unsure where this was going, I said, “Yes, I have two daughters—remember I mentioned them before? They’re in their 20s now.”

She took one long look at me, sizing me up, and in all seriousness, she said, “I wish you were my mom.”

And then the girl next to her said, “Me, too.”

And the class went utterly silent.

It was a moment that made me pause and question all of my inner judgments about that class, and all future classes moving forward. I had been feeling like I was drowning and failing and insignificant in that room, while students saw me as a consistent role model who they could trust.

Damn. I earned this vacation.

Okay, no more teacher talk for the rest of summer :)

In the garden, the clean slate mindset also applies. It’s the first year I get to move plants around that have overgrown their spaces. So what if I made a decision in the past, and planted something in the wrong spot? I don’t have to live with past decisions that aren’t working. I always have the choice to start again.

As an author, I’m back to writing full-time for the next few months, and I’m giving my creativity the clean slate treatment as well, coming fresh to the page without internal baggage. So what if I overestimated a project’s deadline? So what if I tabled a project, and now I like it again? When we internally beat ourselves up for our past habits and mistakes, we perpetuate that energy moving forward.

What if we cleared the desk, cleared the mental clutter, and gave ourselves the grace of today with no past mistakes, no inner judgments, no baggage, only you and the present moment?

Forgiveness leads to breakthrough.

Happy summer!

(*disclaimer: clean slate is not for abusive situations, in or out of the classroom.)

Welcome to Where Stories Grow, my blog about writing, teaching, and creativity, all coming to you from my small backyard garden.

Thanks for clicking and reading, and I hope you’ll subscribe for free and stick around.

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Follow me on my journey as an author, high school English teacher, and backyard gardener. Every time something inspires me, you’ll be the first to know.

Thanks for clicking and reading, and I hope you’ll subscribe for free and stick around.

Subscribe now

Ah, the joy of change in season! Change can be scary, but when you are stuck in a winter funk, spring is such a welcome. I love when the weather finally shifts in New England, and it’s time to open all the windows for the first time in forever and let my home breathe again.

This week I basked in the glory of spring break at home. I really needed space and nature to jump start my energy, and this week showed up with 60-70 degree weather. And wow, the effect has been wonderful for my mental health. So much writing, so much gardening.

I cleaned the garden space and put up a screen tent for the season.

Seriously, I am going to live in this thing this summer. Since we don’t have a fenced in yard with full privacy, it adds a cozy nook for reading and dreaming, and an escape from the hot sun and mosquitoes. I ordered rechargeable lights for it to add even more ambience. It’s a bit flimsy and may only last a season or two, but this is my temporary solution until I can save up for a small, hardtop gazebo. I want to test out how much we’ll use the outdoor living space first to see if it’s worth it. So far, it’s a hit.

My aunt visited from Maine and gifted me a mini-greenhouse that I decided to use as a cold frame.

I squeezed in as many containers I could and started a bunch of seeds. I took this picture to remember what I planted where since I didn’t have plant tags—like the top of a box of chocolates that labels the flavors of each square.

And look! By the end of the week, I already had seedlings sprouting.

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I planted an old packet of beans in my garden bed. No sign of life yet, but I thought I’d give it a shot.

I read somewhere that if dandelions are popping up, the soil is warm enough to plant. Is that true? Well, I spotted some dandelions in my lawn, so I’m testing that theory.

I bought some plants at a local market to start.

Rosemary, which I haven’t found a recipe that I like it in yet. (Nope, I don’t like it on chicken. Maybe bread?) I love the scent of it throughout the season, though, brushing my fingers through it each time I pass by.

Tomato and marigolds—classic pairing. I’ve never tried a Cherokee Purple tomato before, so that’s exciting.

Do marigolds really keep pests away? Guess we’ll see. Last year, my tomatoes and peppers were decimated by bunnies; squirrels, and other critters.

Green peppers and mint—don’t worry, I put the mint in a separate clay pot on the concrete patio. (Mint is invasive, if you didn’t know. Keep it in pots and away from any ground soil. It can root over the side or through the drain hole.)

I love adding mint to my iced tea and lemonade in the summer. One of those little summer luxuries I look forward to every year.

The rest of the garden is beginning to bloom. By next week, it’ll be glorious, but I’ll be back in my windowless classroom. Welp, at least I get to come home to this.

Getting to see the sun again after a rainy winter and watch life reemerge is so good for the creative soul. A new novel idea popped into my brain this week (adult space opera), and I jotted down a bunch of notes, planetary systems, and family trees. Of course, that makes four possible projects in the works, and two finished manuscripts in my agent’s hands.

One thing you can say about me, I’m full of ideas. Ideas are like seeds to me—exciting growth potential, high possibility of failure, but under the right circumstances, so worth the time, energy, and risk.

Oh, by the way, I decided to change the official title of my Substack blog to Where Stories Grow. It feels more inspiring and accurate to me, and I hope it resonates with you.

Are you ready for spring? What are you planning and planting?

Follow me on my journey as an author, high school English teacher, and backyard gardener. Every time something inspires me, you’ll be the first to know.

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My spring break is the fourth week of April, a week later than usual this year. I am impatient since I need the rest. I’ve been having nightmares about teaching, including one dream where I was locked in my classroom after school, and my bed lowered from the wall on a hinge. Then the room turned into a haunted house where I had to live. Welp, if that ain’t the truth! I spend more waking hours in my windowless classroom than I do at home.

In other annoying news, I’ve reached that age where my eyesight is finally slowing me down. I got the tiniest splinter in the tip of my pointer finger while I was mulching a garden bed, and I couldn’t see it clearly enough—even with my reading glasses on and using a magnifying glass—to remove it.

For days, I left it there, convincing myself that it would fall out eventually. But no, a tiny sharp pain jabbed me every time I typed at work or at home. Finally, I had to rely on younger eyes to get rid of it.

Sometimes, it’s those tiny little things that are the last straw, or in this case, the last splinter.

Yesterday, my husband came home super frustrated. While he was driving, a seagull shit so much on the windshield, he could barely see. But when he turned on the wiper blades, there wasn’t enough fluid, so the blades just smudged it even worse. Eww! It was so bad, he had to pull over and walk to a store. His dramatic rendition of the event had me dying laughing.

This is the second annoying thing to happen to him in twenty-four hours. The other one was at an AT&T store, where our twenty-year cell phone account was flagged as fraudulent, and they refused to let him access our account. They claimed they couldn’t tell him the reason because that would reveal their security secrets. After hours of back and forth, and returning to the store three times, he finally realized they were calling my phone instead of his to verify our account, and I wasn’t answering since unknown numbers on my line are sent straight to voicemail.

I told my husband he must be ready to level up spiritually/emotionally because the universe likes to test us beforehand to see how we handle it, to see if we are ready to evolve.

We are here to learn, after all.

Have you ever noticed that in your life? I’ve seen that pattern in mine too many times to count.

A friend gifted me a hardcover garden book, Bringing Nature Home, with simple yet stunning displays of cut flowers brought indoors throughout each season by photographer Ngoc Minh Ngo and floral designer Nicolette Owen.

In the “Foreword” by editor Deborah Needleman, she writes that “a room is never at its best without flowers. Flowers show that a home is cared for and truly lived in. While furniture can remain the same for years, flowers speak to the present moment. And yet they are a talisman, a reminder of the world beyond our doors, of growth and change, and the passage of time.”

For the first time, I brought a forsythia branch inside to bloom early in my writing office, and it worked!

That golden hue inspired me to add small bouquets to every room in my home.

Every time I enter a room with cut flowers, my eyes instinctively focus on them for a tiny moment of joy. They ground me into the space like nothing else can. In the deep recesses of my brain and soul, something metaphysical awakens. It draws me to the soft petals and whispers, This is alchemy. Only magic could create this.

You know what else is a form of alchemy?

Empathy.

We need to hold on tight right now to what it means to be human. What it means to be humane.

What it means to be keepers of democracy. Keepers of this planet.

We can do this together.

The universe is testing us. Have we learned old lessons yet? Is it time to evolve?

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One more thing to brighten your day: this is Atlas, the bearded dragon who lives at my local library. He’s getting so big!

Libraries are such important public spaces to support democratic values. With federal funding on the chopping block, please make a habit of visiting a library in your area on a weekly or monthly basis to show that you value its resources.

And join the Reading Revolution—let’s make reading visible again.

Follow me on my journey as an author, high school English teacher, and backyard gardener. Every time something inspires me, you’ll be the first to know.

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I found my creative joy again, or rather, it found me.

Last weekend, I attended the Kindling Words East retreat in Providence, Rhode Island for the first time. It’s a special retreat for published kidlit authors, illustrators, and editors to connect and rekindle the love of their craft in a business that can be rough on the creative soul.

The retreat was like living inside a joyful bubble, surrounded by kind, creative folk at various levels in the industry, all wanting to connect and raise each other up with wisdom and inspiration.

I cannot share many specific details in this post. What happens at Kindling Words stays at Kindling Words…

No, really.

That’s one of the pledges we make as attendees. There’s also no pitching ideas allowed, and no photos posted online unless we get explicit permission—which was a joy in itself not to feel obligated to post on social media. In fact, my phone was in my bag most of the day except at night when I checked in with my husband. Getting off my phone while the U.S. political chaos unfolded in real time was a gift to my mental health. Instead, I had the luxury of three glorious days to unplug, refuel, and celebrate my creative muse again.

The retreat had an open, flexible schedule that changed each day based on attendees’ wants and needs. Regardless of their current career path in the industry, everyone was expected to be treated as equals. It was so refreshing to be in a non-competitive environment with other people who loved creating stories. I could ask any questions to any other published authors, illustrators, and editors and get answers, and they could do the same. We ate meals together in a ballroom, and I broke bread with so many amazing, down-to-earth, talented, accepting, kind, funny people.

My people. And I’ve missed that sense of community in my writing life since covid.

The retreat opened with a slideshow of attendees and their most recently published work, plus a photo of family or pets, whatever we wanted to share. It was incredible to realize that every single person in the room had created something cool and shared it with the world, including me.

The magical part of the retreat was the format. It was conversational, with everyone sharing and learning and giving advice at the same time. We were a bunch of creatives nerding out on creativity without judgment.

And there was a lot of play, including a quick game where illustrators and authors would get together and one would provide words and the illustrator would draw in one minute, and then the paper would be passed to the next group to continue the story. So I wrote:

And the illustrator drew (keeping their name anonymous):

Too adorable not to take a picture as a keepsake.

I will admit, it was really loud at times, and I have hearing loss that makes it difficult to understand conversations with a lot of background noise. Teaching has taught me to socialize, but as an introvert, I was struggling to maintain conversations without a timeout. Often, I retreated to my room to reset for a bit.

But even that was a joy.

Then on Saturday night in the ballroom, forty of us had the opportunity (first come, first serve out of 200 people?) to read up to 250 words from an unpublished work-in-progress or present 10 slides of artwork. As I listened to authors read future works, and viewed portfolio illustrations to grace future picture books, there was a growing sense of awe that the moment was sacred. It became the room where it happened, so to speak.

At the nudge of a friend, I secured a spot and nervously read from the opening of THE DIGITAL OATH manuscript, since that opening was the easiest to adapt to their word count limit. My raw story had tension and momentum, and it called me back to the page. By reading it aloud, it ignited a spark. I stayed up late typing in my room, and in corners of the hotel the next day.

Something else rekindled inside me that weekend. Being with other creative people reminded me how to play and let joy back in.

I’ve been the responsible one since childhood, so it’s often hard for me to turn that off and let myself play without worrying. I tend to keep my guard up. If I’m irresponsible, even for a second, the world might come crashing down.

I had forgotten that joy doesn’t automatically lead to chaos, that the shoe doesn’t drop just because you celebrate. Play leads to joy, which leads to a sense of inner peace.

We need to honor the kid in us a little more and drop some of the baggage of adulthood.

Back at school on Monday felt surreal, though. It was a struggle to hold on to that newfound creative joy and softened outlook when confronted with the hardened real world.

But as I walked down the hallway that morning, I overheard a security team member mutter to herself, “I’m not gonna let them steal my smile.”

Her defiant tone surrounded my inspired energy like a force field.

After work, I bought myself a $10 bouquet of bright flowers and graced the center of my round kitchen table. A reminder that the present moment is sacred, and it should be celebrated.

I can fight to defend students, to defend books, and to defend democracy, but part of that fight as an author is also to cultivate and protect my creative joy.

Thanks for reading! Keep spreading the word about The Reading Revolution—small things can have major long-term impact on future generations.

Are you ready?

It’s time for a reading revolution.

We have a literacy crisis, and fascists hate books because reading creates free thinkers. We need to make America read again.

Oh, you are already a reader? Fabulous. I’d like to recruit you. Yes, YOU. You are now a reading role model. Congrats! It looks really good on you.

Fallen into a reading slump? Time to get back on the horse, soldier!

We need to make reading cool again. Visible. Sexy. Smart. Adventurous. Comforting.

I remember growing up and seeing adults read the daily newspaper at least. How often do you think children see people in public reading these days compared to how often they see people on cell phones?

RIGHT. That’s our wake up call as a literary community. (Yes, people might be reading on their devices, but that is not what kids are seeing.)

If we want a culture shift, we need to create reading visibility in mass. Reading can no longer be a solo act. It’s a critical, revolutionary one. We have to start planting those seeds now.

Here’s the long game:

1. All I’m asking you is to make your reading habits more visible to the public.

   Leaving the house? Always have a book on hand.

   Read at a coffee shop. At McDonalds. At your kid’s soccer game, in the school cafeteria, at the doctor’s office, on the subway, etc.

2. Do you use social media? Go a step further and post a weekly photo or video of you and/or others actively reading under the hashtag #ReadTogether.

   Show the comfort of reading. Make it glamorous, soft, smart, relaxing, special, emotional, fun, quiet, social, family-centered, etc.

   I plan to post pics on Sundays, but choose whatever day works for you. Can’t manage it weekly? Please do it as often as you can.

Why is this important?

I’ve spoken to kindergarten teachers who have watched children tap the cover of a book like it’s a tech device. (Ugh, my heart.) They don’t even know how to turn pages, never mind practice reading. Instead, they imitate adult behavior, and again, all they see around them are adults tapping and scrolling on phones.

I hate to say it, but by the time students get to my English class at 17-18 years old, it’s so much harder to turn a non-reader into a reader at that point. Not only are they convinced that they hate reading because it’s boring and hard for them, but they are busier with school, activities, and often part-time jobs.

Unfortunately, non-readers tend to fall for fake news and propaganda far more than others because readers understand nuance, tone, spin, word choice, history, context, correlation, causation, cause, effect, empathy, parallels, patterns, and consequences…the list is endless. And reading in real life can get people off screens, into their bodies and minds, and help manage stress.

I’m asking you to spend the next few years being as visible and open as possible with your reading habits. Booktok and Bookstagram changed the game by promoting books and reading. But now the key is to showcase the lifestyle of actually reading to all ages—the textures, the sounds, the comfort, the love.

We need to capture and harness our love of reading to pass it down to future generations.

Can’t afford books? Please visit your local public library and give them love. As an English teacher and young adult author, I grew up in a family of non-readers. The reason I fell in love with books and writing was because my mentor brought me to the public library every week. In case you haven’t been to the library in years, did you know most don’t charge late fees anymore? It’s free, it’s all free. (They have Wifi and DVDs and CDs there too if you are cutting some of your streaming expenses.) We are so lucky libraries exist in a capitalist world. We need to protect public institutions that provide free community services to enhance people’s lives by utilizing those services.

So remember, whenever you leave your home, please take a book with you. It’s your new weapon against fascism. And if you’re brave, let those “smart”phones spread the word.

#ReadTogether

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I love coffee, and I love sleep.

My husband jokes that as soon as I lay on a pillow, I’m out cold for 8-10 hours. I can also drink coffee at 7pm and still fall asleep no problem. It’s a blessing and a curse when you have a job that requires you to be fully alert before the crack of dawn.

For 2025, I have all these intentions of following a calm morning routine, writing routine, and night routine. But after reflecting on it by mentally tracing my steps through each routine, one thing really stood in my way.

The Snooze Button.

My fucking nemesis.

For the past 25 years, waking up at 5 a.m. to teach high school English at 7:30 has been painful and elusive. Each morning, I’d hit that lovely, convenient friend on my glowing phone screen—Snooze—over and over and over again until in a panic I would jump out of bed at the last minute, blood pounding in my temples, put on whatever clothes were clean enough and not too wrinkled, wrap my hair in a messy bun, and run out the door—no breakfast, no coffee, no lunch, no plan other than to grab something on the drive and get to my classroom by 7:15 to set up.

As a veteran English teacher, this is completely possible. I know what I’m doing. My classes are prepped with organized systems in place. I’ve convinced myself over the years that the only thing I needed in my mornings was more sleep to be happy.

After some soul searching, I decided if this was the year to root out foundational issues, I had to break up with the SNOOZE button in order to fit in a morning routine.

First, I removed the button from my alarm screen. (Yes, this is easy to do. Why didn’t I do it sooner?) Then, my reward. If I wake up at 5 am, I get to relax in my fuzzy bathrobe, enjoy coffee and breakfast at home, and watch my favorite garden shows for 45 glorious minutes, allowing myself to wake up slowly like I love to do on weekends. Basically, I earn a quiet, slow morning caring about myself.

It’s been 10 workdays without hitting SNOOZE.

This is what happened.

Days 1-3: I woke up thinking, “No! Already? You gotta be kidding me…”
I wanted to chuck my phone across the room but warned myself, “You promised!”

“Fine,” I thought. “Whatever.”

I stumbled in the dark and wrapped myself in my fuzzy bathrobe for comfort.

An undercurrent of rage erupted from me, like a latent volcano that I had been appeasing for years. By hitting snooze, I had been stuffing that rage into my subconscious dream state and letting it fester into chaos and stress in my waking life. But by not hitting snooze, it unleashed.

I thought, “Why is the entire educational system out to get me? Why did I pick a career at age 18 that would start before the crack of dawn? Why am I so tired and broke after so many years of giving my all to students? They don’t care anyway. No one cares. Why should I sacrifice more on top of it? Why do I always come last? Why is it all so damn unfair?”

Then I sat in the living room and watched YouTube garden shows on TV, had coffee and breakfast.

And then, something magical happened.

The rage…released.

As I allowed myself to slowly wake up, a sense of peace and energy began to flow through me, the energy that I usually only have on weekends. I got dressed in a much cuter outfit. Several people at work even complimented me more.

Hmm…

Day 4: I fell asleep on the couch watching garden shows, then woke up in a panic that I was late for work. Thankfully, only 10 minutes had gone by. The last thing I wanted to do was replace rage with anxiety, so I set two more alarms with different ring tones, one that signaled when it was time to get dressed, and one that signaled when it was time to leave the house.

Day 5: I woke up, grabbed my robe, washed my face, and no longer felt any rage or pressure to scramble.

What is this version of my life?

Now on Day 10: The rage is gone. Some days I’m more tired than others, and a little sad that I can’t sleep in, but my muscles feel less tense. I also haven’t spent money on coffee shop breakfasts in two weeks. I am falling asleep at night earlier, which kind of sucks, but overall, a major improvement.

It’s funny how sometimes to make a major change, you only need to figure out the SABOTAGE BUTTON moment.

What is one small thing that creates a negative domino effect in your life?

What reward system could you create that is more powerful than your sabotage button?

Follow me on my journey as an author, high school English teacher, and backyard gardener. Every time something inspires me, you’ll be the first to know.

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When my youngest was in elementary school, she gave me a little rock as a gift. On it she drew a heart on one side in red marker, and on the other side she wrote the words ”Create BIG things.” Elizabeth Gilbert would be proud.

At the time I was writing the manuscript of THE WARNING, what would eventually become my debut novel, in a cramped two-bedroom basement apartment.

The rock now sits in my writing office in a dish of beach stones and sea glass collected over the years, in a creative space that I still can’t believe is mine.

I love how she capitalized the word BIG. How often do we need to give ourselves permission to dream at all, never mind to dream BIG? Especially as women. Especially while working paycheck to paycheck.

Holding such a small stone made by my child years ago feels powerful. There’s so much understanding and acceptance and love and childhood joy harnessed in that moment of time.

It reminds me that it’s never a waste of time to create. It reminds me that simple things can be profound.

But let’s be honest— the creative life is a joy until it’s not.

Until it becomes a second job, and the words no longer flow. Sometimes the real world and stress infiltrates our creative mental space. When that happens, I like to practice a new writing ritual to get back on track.

There are two ways to motivate yourself: a push or a pull.

A push is like setting an alarm or having an accountability partner or deadline.

A pull is an enticement, something to draw you in.

Over the past few years, I’ve tried various things to inspire and motivate me to write. During winter, some of those tricks don’t work as well, like showering mid-afternoon or going on a long walk (too cold in Massachusetts).

I need my writing ritual to be a magical pull into the creative flow. I need to escape the stress of teaching and the world and enter a sacred space. I need it to be simple and special.

So here’s what has been working for me to get back into the flow state.

My current writing ritual:

1. Light a candle.

2. Lay the rock near the candle as a reminder. You could use any special object that inspires you.

3. Stretch and breathe intentionally for 2-5 minutes. Basically, do my favorite yoga poses to get circulation going, loosen up my shoulders and hips, whatever feels good in the moment, to ground myself into the present. I sigh audibly a few times, letting out stress and inner frustrations.

4. Enjoy a guided meditation designed for creativity for 10-15 minutes. There are plenty online (check YouTube). I like guided meditations because they aren’t silent. The voiceover helps me to focus on my physical form, and then activates my imagination.

5. Ask the universe for guidance.

6. Write for an hour. Use a timer. Music is optional.

7. Stretch and breathe intentionally for 2 minutes. Thank the universe for the guidance.

8. Blow out the candle.

The first time I went through this ritual, I felt slightly uncomfortable and began judging myself. Why was I trying to make my writing time so high maintenance? Why was I wasting more time?

But it wasn’t true. I deserve to come to the page with my heart open. What was keeping me stuck was this inner, judgmental voice not letting me do whatever the fuck I want in my creative space. So I lit my candle, did my routine, and voila! The words have been pouring out of me. It’s nice when the universe takes the wheel.

How do you prime yourself to create big things? How do you get unstuck?

Follow me on my journey as an author, high school English teacher, and backyard gardener. Every time something inspires me, you’ll be the first to know.

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I hope you are having a wonderful holiday season. Holidays are always a mixed bag for me, dredging up the good and the not-so-great moments of my childhood Christmases past. This year, though, both my adult kids are here for the holidays! My eldest hasn’t been back for two years. So if I’ve disappeared for a while online, it’s because I’ve been loading up on lots of quality time with the family. What a joy!

It’s made me realize how much has changed in one year. Last year at this time, I was still worried about one daughter’s health after major surgery (she’s excellent now) and the other’s first semester of college. I didn’t know how to deal with the sudden emptiness of the house, the loneliness that things were over, and the constant worry that they wouldn’t be okay since they are my favorite people.

But throughout the year, I rediscovered my time, my space, my pace. I was dreading empty nesting, but it’s been amazing, actually, to allow that extra mothering energy to nurture myself.

With 2025 around the corner, I’ve been thinking about my word of the year.

For 2024, my word was SHINE, and I pushed myself to seek the spotlight more. However, with the looming political strife, education worries with AI encroaching on student learning, and finally enjoying empty nesting, I want to go back to basics and focus on grounding myself and protecting my inner creative life.

Instead of seeking outward, I’d like to focus inward. I almost chose GROUNDED as my word, but it has too many negative connotations (like being grounded or dirty).

So I’ve chosen ROOT as my word of 2025.

This might seem counterintuitive after a year of SHINE, but if (when) my writing career begins to take off, I’d like to be ready internally for that kind of success and not let it affect my creative self. The word ROOT feels expansive still, like SHINE did, but it’s a deeper expansion focusing on strengthening my foundation by digging deep and cultivating the life I want to bring forward.

I plan to examine my life and establish simple rituals and routines that respect my needs and my schedule, while keeping me motivated, grounded, and inspired. I’ll share some of those rituals and routines that work for me to see if they will work for you as well.

Recently, I read a question in a reflection journal that asked, “Where in your life do you feel graceful?”

I want to cultivate more graceful moments in my life. I’m tired of being sold things to destress and make my life easier. I can make my life easier by slowing the fuck down and getting off tech. (Psst, you can too.)

My garden makes me feel strong and graceful, as does writing in my office and reading novels. So does walking along the ocean shore, sleeping on crisp white sheets, dancing to music while cooking, walking around barefoot, and pouring hot coffee (Okay, I admit that’s a weird one, but I really like coffee).

Feeling graceful to me encompasses a sense of freedom, physical and mental presence, connection to the natural world, and romancing the ordinary.

Curious—what makes you feel graceful and grounded, more rooted? I’d love to read your thoughts in the comments.