Book Review: You Are a Writer (So Start Acting Like One)

I downloaded You Are a Writer (So Start Acting Like One) by Jeff Goins on Audible the other day while battling a cold. Topics covered in the book include the motivational (picking yourself and not waiting for someone's permission to call yourself a writer) to the practical (the importance of building a platform and a brand). While I admit some of this was just common sense, some of it was genuinely new and helpful information for a self-publishing newbie like myself. And even the parts which weren't particularly revelatory, were still important on the level of reinforcement. Sometimes it helps just to be given that "just do it" pep talk one more time. I can't say that I would turn evangelist over this book, but I would definitely recommend it.

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I Made the Mistake of Reading the Comments

I live in southern Arizona. There was a shooting here this morning by Border Patrol. Local. Immediate. I clicked on a news article trying to understand what happened — and then I made the mistake of reading the comments. It didn’t take long before reality dissolved completely. People were saying ICE makes them feel safer. Not cautiously. Not with qualifiers. With chest-out confidence. From there, the conversation slid — predictably, inevitably — into a Fox News–approved rerun of the Alex Pretti shooting. Not because it was relevant. Not because it clarified anything about what happened here. But because it’s now a talisman. A loyalty test. A script. One guy even posted the photo of Pretti being disarmed and claimed the agent walking away with the gun was actually Pretti approaching ICE with his weapon drawn. That’s not an interpretation. That’s a complete inversion of what’s visible to the human eye. This is how it works now: One angle. One story. Nothing else allowed. How can you...

My Word of the Year for 2026: FlowWard

Every December, I start thinking about the year ahead - not in terms of rigid goals or impossible resolutions, but in terms of how I want the year to feel . For 2026, my word of the year is FlowWard . OK, I know it's not a real word - but I wanted something that embodies both going with the flow but still going forward. Not forward in the hustle-y, grind-yourself-into-dust sense. And not flow as in drifting aimlessly and hoping things work out. FlowWard is about moving ahead gently, deliberately, and sustainably; making progress without forcing it. Why “FlowWard”? For a long time, productivity felt like pressure to me. Do more. Be faster. Push harder. Keep up. Somewhere along the way, that mindset stopped working. It led to burnout, stalled projects, and the constant feeling that I was behind—even when I was doing a lot. And that's all before crashing into heap physically and literally getting behind. FlowWard is my rejection of my previous approach. It’s the idea...

Planner Freebies - Temp and Period Tracker

So, probably in order to try to tame the chaos of my life, I have been diving deep into the planning world lately. I've been planning for years, eons even, but it used to be strictly functional (which is a polite way of saying my planners were ugly - not that all functional planning is ugly, but MINE WAS). I would quickly scribble down stuff to be done, with any implement I had on hand, and cross things out and move them around to the point of being indecipherable by anyone but (hopefully) me. All with the no nonsense goal to get it down, get it done, and move on. I never decorated any of them, nor did I keep them for any reason - at the end of the year they went in the trash. But I never found the perfect planner - one that could accommodate every area of my life. And I still have not, so far. Though I am starting to decorate it, journal in it, and plan to keep them from now on. I would love to have a gorgeous BuJo, but I cannot manage to force myself to keep one due to the time ...

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