I thought long and hard about a flamboyant catchphrase to open this post with, but the truth is, my sarcasm tank is empty and I find myself lacking the words to begin. What do you say when you've been gone for a year, when everything has changed but nothing is different, when the familiarity of [...]
The Five Stages of Grief // writer edition
A Cup of Chaos // life updates + library stories + a cursed banana
Hello, my friends! My presence hasn't cursed your Thursday in several weeks! The reason for this absence is fairly simple: I've been slowly crushed beneath the inexorable weight of the universe and the relentless pressure of deadlines busy. Apart from taking on some new projects and plowing through the old ones, my library job invaded [...]
Stranded In Ohio // everyone’s worst nightmare
We Barans have a problem with road trips. Not that we don't like them -- the opposite, really -- but whenever we set off on a journey of significant length, a world-threatening disaster somehow befalls us. To be fair, my sister was the cause of 83% of these disasters. You don't want to know the [...]
Consorting With Wild Youth// how sarah became friends with the local delinquents
As a general rule, homeschoolers are good kids. (I say this with trepidation, waiting for the comments telling me I'm wrong because their brother's best friend's cousin's homeschooled neighbor became a serial killer.) But as a general rule, homeschoolers don't leave a path of destruction in their wake. They're more prone to correcting your Silmarillion [...]
Single Line Story Challenge // flash-fiction + chaos + a broken printer
Good morning, minions! Featured on today's smorgasbord of randomness is an assorted selection of PRETTY WORDS!!! Hannah Gaudette extended an invitation to participate in the single-line story challenge, which is, in essence, a glorified flash fiction dump. Flash fiction is fun. Thus, here I am. The idea is to choose 5 out of 13 genres [...]
This is a Terrible Blog Post
I Read Dearest Josephine So You Don’t Have To // book roasts, vol. 2
I have a personal grudge against the romance genre. To be fair, the romance genre never did anything to me, besides being a constant disappointment and a blight against humanity. I promised myself long ago that I would never, under any circumstance, stoop to the level of reading romance. Any other genre, sure, I'll try [...]
Project Caribou // writing news + unrelated whining
I wrote a book about caribou and death. (Literally.) I wanted it to be a fun, romping story about a Christmas world. Somewhere along the line those intentions went horribly awry, and became what I have now: 90,000 words of heavy prose and sad characters. Periodically I’ll hear things like “Your blog is hilarious, so [...]
Infiltrating Story Embers
Well friends, I did a thing. Back in January, Story Embers opened applications for a staff writer internship -- AKA killing brain cells and writing articles on a monthly basis. I saw the announcement email, thought, “hey, that's cool!” and promptly forgot about it. An hour later, one of my friends on the writing team [...]