This summer has been a tough one. My mom was first diagnosed with breast cancer sixteen years ago and twice since then, the family has made a collective sigh of relief when she passed the statistically significant milestones of 5 years as a survivor. This summer we were cheated again when doctors determined that the lump she found in her armpit was malignant. They also discovered a tumor in her spine. I guess after a full mastectomy and more than seven years of lying dormant, the cancer decided to rear its ugly head again. We went through a couple of …

I just finished Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild and am trying to figure out why the book didn’t grab me as hard as it has some of my friends. I read the original story that Krakauer wrote for Outside Magazine back in 1993 (http://outside.away.com/outside/features/1993/1993_into_the_wild_1.html) and the letters from readers who accused the author of glorifying Chris McCandless when he was nothing but a another dumb kid from the lower 48’s that was unprepared for Alaska’s harsh conditions. At the time I didn’t have much of an opinion, but wondered why McCandless was worth so much attention. A few years later, …

Wow! Why is it that computer things that we estimate to take a few hours usually ends up taking a few days? I’ve been immersed in HTML and PHP code for several days now. My hosting company moved to new servers and offers lots of new bells and whistles for their customers, including Word Press Blog support. So, I decided I was clever enough to figure out how to customize the Word Press themes to work with my site and manipulate the PHP code to do what I wanted it to do. Well, after several days, I now know more about PHP and CSS than …

How about that? Two posts in one day! I just had to tell ya’ll about my friend Patrice Moore being interviewed at Allie’s Musings. Patrice is a member of my local Romance Writers of America (RWA) chapter and such an inspiration to my writing. Go read the interview and you’ll see why: http://allieboniface.blogspot.com/2008/03/writers-wednesday-interview-with.html  Chief constituents of Musli cheap viagra 100mg check for info Kaunch capsules are Musli Sya, Semal Musli, Safed Musli and kaunch. Q- What are the symptoms of prostate enlargement, perform by restraining the action of the enzyme 5-alpha-reductase, the enzyme in sildenafil buy in canada charge for …

Haven’t been posting for a while, but that’s because I’ve been busy with new and wonderful things. My friend Jere and I traveled to the beautiful Whidbey Island for their writers’ association’s annual conference—and what a great conference it was. The fantastic nature, the excellent volunteers, and the intimate and casual atmosphere made this my favorite conference ever. One of the reasons I’m so partial to it is because while pitching for an agent, I got my first FULL MANUSCRIPT REQUEST ever for Paved Paradise. So, that’s what I’ve been working on. Even though the manuscript was completed and reviewed …

I haven’t been here for a while, mostly because I decided to set up a blog on my own web server rather than using the blogger site. Then I looked at different free blogging software and although they are all great, there’s some work involved with setup and maintenance. So, I decided to just keep this one. Quick updates: The Chad Little article was well received by the magazine editor. She asked me to do another profile on someone I had pitched to her a while back. The new article is almost written and the Chad Little profile will be …

Am on my second day of no work because of too much snow. This is the first time in something like ten years that the campus has closed. I think the only times before this was when St. Helen blew and Spokane was covered in ash, and maybe when the terrible ice storm blew through town. Both of these events are before I became a Spokanite, so I don’t have very good details. Between shoveling snow–it takes about 2 hrs to clear our drive way–and staying warm, I’m actually getting quite a bit of writing done. I’ve done some shorts …

Actually, I did get paid for another article. It was a book review for a local bookstore’s newsletter. My reward was in used book credit. I spent it right away. This gig is for a small local magazine and it involves interviewing a former NASCAR driver who grew up in our town. I’ve never written a profile before, so I’m a little scared–but kind of in a good way. I’ve talked to the guy already, but our time was cut short due to his family obligations. We’ll continue tomorrow again. I was really nervous and had tons of questions prepared, …