Max Brooks' World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War is one of my favorite books. I've read it three times and I'm sure I'll read it three more times. It chronicles the global invasion of zombies and how each country responds to the crisis. Each of the book's...
You can now follow me on Twitter: @ChicanaOnEdge Welcome to even more of my inner life!
Failure gets such bad press, but it really doesn't deserve it. Who cares if you fail? It doesn't mean your life is over (unless your failure causes your death). I'm a big failure and I'll tell you all about it. My first failure was leaving Cornell University in 1993...
Ozzie's a 50-pound pit bull mix with crazy ears. We've had Ozzie for a year and a half now and he's probably about 5 years old at this point (not sure because we got him from a shelter and they weren't sure of his age). For the first full year that we had him, I...
Cliteracy: 100 Natural Laws by Sophia Wallace states plainly a lot of things that women, especially straight women, think, but don't say. Her art installation doesn't so much celebrate the clitoris as much as it demands equal attention for it. In this video she says...
http://writeclubrules.com The first rule of Write Club is to tell five to seven other people about Write Club, so here I go. Write Club takes two writers and gives them opposing themes to write an essay about. They prepare this essay ahead of time and it must take no...
I'm proud of myself for finishing the first (very) rough draft of my book about what it's been like to own my first dog. I have no delusions about finding an agent, but will publish it myself as an ebook that the whole world can read. If it wants...
I just completed the 30-day, 50,000-word NaNoWriMo challenge! I'm so excited. It's over! It's over! Now I order my NaNoWriMo winner's t-shirt and watch tv for a month. (Yes, I'll get back to turning it into a real ebook, but first I take a break from brilliance.)
National Novel Writing Month 2012 is almost over. This has been my first time doing it and in just a few more days of wild-eyed typing, I'll hit the 50,000-word goal which will make me a winner. What do I win? It's kind of like a marathon: if you complete the...
We are now ten days into National Novel Writing Month, also called NaNoWriMo. Each year during this month, thousands of people from all over the world take a stab at producing a 50,000-word draft of a novel in just four weeks. Since November has 30 days, that means...
November is National Novel Writing Month (commonly called NaNoWriMo). Each year thousands of people take a shot at producing 50,000 words between November 1st and 30th. This year I'm joining in. What do you do when you find yourself the owner of a dog who does such...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Xanfn1tozo&feature=youtu.be I DID IT! I was in my first flash mob ever! On Sunday morning I did the Thriller dance sequence at the Glenwood Farmer's Market (in Chicago, IL USA) with about 25 other people who did this for...
Yesterday my friend Gina (the one who gave me the great advice on the wedding I'm going to) had a graduation party. Gina, congratulations on joining the ranks of the masters degree holders (ahem). I enjoyed making her graduation cake. She likes different kinds of...
I started my blog in June 2004 because I read an article on blogging and discovered that I fit the criteria of a good blogger: I spent hours in front of a computer every day and liked to write. It was probably presumptuous to think that my blog would be interesting to...
Back when I decided to get serious about music, I hired someone to build a website that told people my music. I carefully wrote the copy and gave him the photographs and lyrics to publish. It was 2001 so I didn't really know what I was doing. As early websites often...