Using Poems in a Novel

A few years ago when I took part in the Maui Writer’s Retreat, I had a one-on-one meeting with my group’s director, Gail Tsukiyama, to go over my opening chapters of Laps, the novel I plan to finish by the end of this year. Ms. Tsukiyama is the well-known author of such novels as Women of [...]

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I Need Not Fear

I finally realized this afternoon that all my questioning about the direction of my second novel was simply a manifestation of my fear. Fear that I can’t finish a novel again and, certainly now, fear that it will not equal or surpass my first, given that The Reckoning has now garnered honors I never anticipated. Fortunately, [...]

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I Won in Multicultural Fiction!!!

I suppose I should have waited (and maybe should still wait) a few more hours to post about the results of the 2009 Next Generation Indie Book Awards… because at 1:14 pm I received a new email congratulating me on WINNING the award for Multicultural Fiction. It’s true that I entered 6 categories, and have [...]

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Mother’s Day and Inadequacy

Synonyms for “inadequacy,” according to the Thesaurus, include the following: incompetence, incapability, unfitness, ineffectiveness, inefficiency, inefficacy, inexpertness, ineptness, uselessness, impotence, powerlessness, inferiority, and mediocrity. Yes, that pretty much sums up how I felt when I held my first-born daughter, Allison, in my arms for the first time… and I felt little better when I held [...]

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More on Thayer

I finished The Tree House by Doug Thayer last night. Very strong, sweet, and powerful. The further I got into the book, the more I saw his writing change, ever so subtly. It was almost as if the narrator was the inner voice of the protagonist (named Harris, by the way). As Harris faced new challenges, [...]

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Steering Our Writing in Small Ways

In my scripture reading yesterday, I came upon that well-known sentence in 1st Nephi, Chapter 16:29–“And thus we see that by small means the Lord can bring about great things.” Cross references led me to another less familiar Biblical scripture: James 3:4–“Behold also the ships, which though they be so great, and are driven of [...]

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The Style of Doug Thayer

While I have always loved reading and writing, I somehow managed to get through my BYU years without ever taking a class from Doug Thayer, the so-called “Mormon Hemingway,” or even reading one of his short stories. I probably would have, had Brother Cracroft’s withering critique of my feeble creative writing attempts not entirely cowed [...]

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Grammar Affects Our Senses

In a fascinating report on Northwest Public Radio today, an Assistant Psychology Professor at Stanford, Lera Boroditsky, demonstrated how the grammar we learn from our parents can often unconsciously affect the way we experience the world. Using something as simple as a bridge as an example, participants in her study were asked to study a [...]

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Craving vs. Hunger

In listening to a General Conference talk by Elder Robert D. Hales on Saturday, I was particularly struck by a comparison he made between “craving” and “hunger,” when speaking of addiction. To paraphrase, he said that addiction is a craving of the natural man and can never be satisfied… but, as children of God, our [...]

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Too Many Blogs

I’m turning the page and condensing my blogs into one, so that I can write with one voice. Having gotten all caught up in the political waves of last year, it’s high time to return to my writer’s self. While I originally set up this blog last November as a catch-all for commentary on everything [...]

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