This morning was the Christmas brunch with five other women I’ve been getting together with for 34 to 39 years. Always fun and this one for no particular reason was particularly so. This time instead of getting each other bath products, etcetera, we each gave some money to some good cause. Mine was to pay […] Read More

I’ve been posting less the last few weeks because I’ve been working extremely hard. Didn’t want you to think it was because my boldness was flagging. I grew up in a retailing family, and December was the time of most intense work; so that feels normal. As a writer/editor/critiquer/consultant, I’ve found that December is either […] Read More

The New York Times City Room blog is carrying a story on Dickens’ handwritten revisions of “A Christmas Carol.” This post “A Christmas Rewrite” by Alison Leigh Cowan is a companionable reminder that we all have to revise–and Dickens made at least one major after the copy had gone to the printer. I was mainly […] Read More

My friend Carrie throws more parties in a year than the total number I attend in the same period. (She’s the same one who started an international music festival in Raleigh.) This afternoon I’m popping in at an affair in which she has long been a/the major sponsor: the 17th annual Boylan Heights Arts Walk. […] Read More

I was slow to go to see Julie and Julia. I’m not a cook. And the movie is, as you likely know, about a blogger named Julie who spends a year cooking every recipe in Julia Child’s grand-opus cookbook. But last night it was on at the $1.50 theatre, and Husband Bob (who is a […] Read More

I just wrote a perfectly nice post on this subject with lots of links, hit Publish, and the text disappeared totally, nowhere to be found. Here’s roughly what it said. The Dallas Morning News has a story today that says: Wanna feel rich? Give. The story cited the book I co-authored with Allan Luks: The […] Read More

I didn’t even blog during the second half of my week at Rancho La Puerta. That’s how engaged I was in what was going on right there. Now I’m back at my desk in Raleigh, reorienting. Feels a bit strange not to be spending the day in yoga clothes. More later. Add to del.icio.us - Stumble It! - Subscribe […] Read More

It’s midweek here in my term as novelist-in-residence in heaven (Rancho La Puerta spa in Tecate, Mexico)and I’ve had several bits of personal enlightenment. *A few months ago I posted about having a contrarian tendency, so often wanting to play the wrong card for a situation, taking some perverse delight in that. Sometime yesterday, I […] Read More

This morning I went to three exercise classes: one working out with a heavy bar, next circuit training, then an hour and a half of Iyengar yoga. This afternooon,as novelist-in-residence for the week at Rancho La Puerta spa in Tecate, Mexico, I taught my writing class. Teaching the class took more out of me than […] Read More

First full day at Rancho La Puerta in Mexico, the spa where I’m teaching writing this week. Yesterday after leaving leafy North Carolina in the morning, I was on a bus by early afternoon from the San Diego airport to the Mexican town of Tecate (yes, they make Tecate beer here) Suddenly in sun and […] Read More