Category: Essays

Acceptances, Books, Essays, Lifelong learning, My Own Personal Weirdness, My Writing, Organizing, poetry, Short Stories, Speaking, What I Love, Writing

November 2025 Stats

In November, I wrote 16,268 words! Yay! Finally a good writing month after months and months of delays, trips, moving kids, etc. I’m so happy I finally got to sit down and just write. Of those words,

  • 409 were for this blog (2 short posts),
    2777 were for my journal,
  • 1234 were the essay for that anthology I talked about last month,
  • 2426 were answering questions to help make my essay for the anthology, many of which did not end up in the anthology because they were excised from the first draft to make way for words that did not sound like they were answering questions,
  • 0 were for handouts, scripts, and slides for lessons (I reused an old one for the Open Door Writing Group),
  • 1572 were on various social media accounts,
  • 3327 were poetry (16 poems – a new record!!),
  • and 1073 were in short stories (2 pieces of flash fiction).


There were only 12 days that I didn’t write anything, but that’s not bad because I wrote A LOT on the days that I did write. I did host part of Thanksgiving and a board games night at my house this month, as well as building shelves and moving my husband’s entire board game collection from The Living Room to The Library.

Another one of the books I beta read for came out this month, so once again I’m feeling that weird sense of accomplishment about that.

As for myself, I had one piece accepted for an anthology that will come out early next year (probably around graduation season, I’m guessing, since the topic of my essay was “advice I’d give a teenager who wants to become a volunteer coordinator for a non-profit organization”).


As for reading, I read parts of:

  • Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer(audiobook; non-fiction)
  • West of Yesterday, East of Summer by Paul Monette (e-book; poetry – I finally got it back on Libby!)
    Memory’s Daughters: The Material Culture of Remembrance in Eighteenth-Century America by Susan M. Stabile (hardcover; non-fiction – written by my Women’s Diaries professor at TAMU while I was taking her class)
  • How to Read Poetry Like a Professor: A Quippy and Sonorous Guide to Verse by Thomas C. Foster (e-book that I have AND trade paperback at my dad’s house; non-fiction)
  • Poetry’s Data: Digital Humanities and the History of Prosody by Meredith Martin (e-book; non-fiction)

…and I finished reading:

  • The Viscount Who Loved Me by Julia Quinn (audiobook; historical romance)
  • Poetry Magazine Jan/Feb 2025 by Poetry.org (paperback; poetry)
  • Let Loose the Dogs by Maureen Jennings (e-book; historical mystery)
  • The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie (e-book; mystery)
  • The Comfort Book by Matt Haig (audiobook; self-help)
  • The Carrying by Ada Limon (e-book; poetry)
  • Stargazy Pie by Victoria Stoddard (e-book; cozy fantasy)

I really am trying to finish most of the unfinished books I started earlier in the year. I have finished 56 books so far this year (and read parts of another 12, again mostly for research, but also a couple of things I’ve had to mark DNF.).

Acceptances, Books, Essays, I Am Traveling, My Own Personal Weirdness, My Writing, Organizing, poetry, The Past Comes Back to Haunt Me, What I Love, Writing

October 2025 Stats

In October, I wrote 3840 words, which is so little that I could cry. But I was busy! More about that later. Of those words,

  • 320 were for this blog (2 short posts),
  • 667 were for my journal,
  • 0 were for handouts, scripts, and slides for lessons (I reused an old one for the Open Door Writing Group),
  • 1204 were on various social media accounts,
  • 1652 were poetry (9 poems),
  • and 376 were in short stories (1 piece of flash fiction).


There were only 12 days that I didn’t write anything. I spent 10 days on vacation, traveling to, then staying in North Carolina, and driving home. I used every morning as a little writer’s retreat and wrote a lot while I was there. I’m still having trouble with my shoulders, so I spent several days either at the doctor, at the physical therapist’s office, or off getting X-rays and a couple of MRIs. I do have an essay that I found out about an anthology for on the last day of October that I’m going to start writing this week (but that counts for November). I still didn’t get any poems or short stories submitted anywhere.


As for reading, I read parts of:

  • Let Loose the Dogs by Maureen Jennings (e-book; historical mystery – I’m having trouble getting this book again through Libby, hence taking a break from it)
  • The Viscount Who Loved Me by Julia Quinn (audiobook; historical romance)
  • Stargazy Pie by Victoria Goddard (e-book; cozy fantasy)
  • The Man with Two Left Feet (e-book; I’m not sure the genre)

…and I finished reading:

  • The Honey Witch by Sydney Shields (trade paperback; cozy fantasy)


So I have finished 49 books so far this year (and read parts of another 18, mostly for research, but also a couple of things I’ve had to mark DNF.).

Essays, Lifelong learning, My Own Personal Weirdness, poetry, Speaking, What I Love, Writing

Today’s Speaking Engagement

Today I’m giving a lesson on Sounds in Poetry over at the Tyler Public Library at 1pm in the Makerspace (behind the computer lab on the third floor). But don’t let that scare you away if you’re not a poet. I’m covering poetry, a little bit about songwriting, and how to use lyricism in your prose as well.

Hope to see you there!

Essays, My Writing, poetry, Short Stories, The Past Comes Back to Haunt Me, What I Love

Two books for sale, one to go!

I honestly wasn’t expecting all the pieces I sold last year to come out all in the same week. They originally had publication dates that gave me a few weeks of breathing room in between each one, but one came out later and another one sooner and BAM, here they all are. So thank you for being patient with all my posts being about these books for sale. And thank you for supporting me and my writing for so long. Y’all are the best!

Now on to the books. One came out earlier last week and one came out today and the last one will be out tomorrow, but I was just too excited to wait. Here are links for the first two, along with a little description of what to expect from my piece in each book:

https://amzn.to/36qEyjY

This book has my poem “Last Family Vacation” on page 116, which is a peek into the heart of a mom with a kid in his senior year of high school. 🙂

https://amzn.to/3OvLLAF

This book has my essay “Revealing Rainbows” on page 74, which is a more in depth personal look at encouraging not just my sons to be themselves, but all the other boys they know as well.