A Fresh Coat of Paint

Earlier this year, I delivered my latest draft to my beta readers. And I exhaled. The pressure of the edit was over. My words in someone else’s hands. The stress was still there, don’t get me wrong. My words were in someone else’s hands. Ack! But I had no control over those words anymore. And

The Story of the Shells

On the left hand corner of my desk in a small, glossy, eggshell-colored bowl, rest a pile of shells. These shells are remnants, pieces of larger shells, worn down fragments that tumbled and swirled along the ocean floor for months, years, decades maybe. They are flattened like Play-Doh, smooth like stones. They are striped in

The End

I typed the words “The End” in the middle of a page with blank space below it. No new chapters. The words were done. The story complete. Well, complete for now. Step one, rough draft? Check. Notice I call it a rough draft, not even a first draft yet (not even close). Now the hard