RIDING BITCH

It’s been forever. Well, a little over a year. A lot has happened, some good, some not so good. I’ve thought about writing here many times during the past year but for various reasons didn’t. Time, motivation, maybe a little fear… always got in the way. The longer you stay away from writing – any kind of writing, but especially this kind of personal writing – the harder it is to come back. It’s…

Congratulations, (25 Signs That) You’re “Grown”

Serious question. How do you know when you’ve grown up? And what does that even mean – to be “grown”? We’re always growing and maturing… what I’m talking about is that point in your life when you start feeling like a grown up. I’ve been thinking about this lately because my birthday is tomorrow, and I always get a little introspective around this time of year. This year in particular, I feel…

Slaying the Dragon of Fear

I had a crisis of faith the other day (actually, it lasted 3 days). It was triggered by someone offering me an opportunity of a lifetime, and me answering, YES. As soon as I hung up the phone, I thought, “Oh shit.” I spent the rest of that day and the next two days questioning whether I had made the right decision. What had it meant to say YES? What had I gotten myself into? Was I really ready…

Hurry Up and Wait

For anyone still reading this ridiculously inconsistent blog, the writer’s residency in April was fantastic all around – great people, beautiful setting, comfortable, and super productive. The biggest accomplishment from the four weeks was that I “finished” a feature screenplay that I’ve been working on for years. It’s now being “packaged” by a big agency with a producer and me attached. I put…

It’s the weekend before leaving for the writer’s residency and I’m starting to feel both excited and nervous. It’s been 9 years since I attended my first (and only, until now) residency. I went to the Vermont Studio Center for the month of January 2013. Ruby was a six-month old puppy back then and I’d only owned her for a few months, so I decided to bring her with me and put her up at a local…

Writing on (Self-Imposed) Deadline

Last year I had an epiphany about a spec script that I’ve been writing for a while. I decided to change half of the story’s setting and delve deeper with the main character’s arc. This meant a complete rewrite and restructuring. Which I knew would take a while. So, I applied to a bunch of writer residencies for this year. I explained in the applications that my goal was to come out of the…

Single + Happy = Superpower

Funny how lately my (very intermittent) posts are all about relationships, because today I want to talk about being single. The topic came up yesterday when I had coffee with a relatively new widow (her husband died 2 years ago) who admitted that, while she misses her husband, she’s adjusting to her new life just fine, thank you very much. Not surprisingly, she is also an artist. So she was was…

Can One Have a Family Without Drama?

There’s no other time of year that reminds you just how single and childless you are than the Holidays. Everybody else spends the Holidays with their partner, children, parents, siblings, grandparents, and/or in-laws. Single people like myself spend the Holidays with families too, just not our own families. Oh, we might be related to the people seated next to us at dinner, but we enter these…

In my last post, I mentioned feeling invisible sometimes. How and why does this happen? To start with, I am the youngest of three in my nuclear family (five, including the siblings I didn’t grow up with). Apart from my mother and I, everyone else was a Leo: strong, bossy personalities. Being the youngest meant that I often wasn’t old enough to engage in the many serious conversations my family…

I was really triggered this recent Thanksgiving holiday. I spent the week with family and found myself in the middle of an emotional storm. None of the family drama was aimed directly toward me, but it still brought up feelings of loneliness, lack of self-worth, loss, and sadness. There were moments of levity, camaraderie, laughter. But underlying it all, for me at least, was tension, a forced…

I recently watched the Amazon series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. It’s about a 1950s housewife and mother who decides to try and make it as a comedian in an extremely male-dominated field. It took me a little time to get into it, but the show’s endearing quality grew on me. And I love its style. Mrs. Maisel’s parents (the Weissmans) live in a beautiful Upper West Side apartment with multiple…

Knowing Yourself as a Writer

Last week was interesting. On Tuesday, I received notes from my managers on a television pilot that I’ve been writing for several months. At the end of the meeting, they asked me if I could turn the script around by Friday. “Next Friday?” I asked. “No, this Friday.” I said Yes, even though Friday was only three days later, and I was supposed to drive to NYC on Wednesday and return on Friday. I…

Introducing… Nellie

Hello, people! I took a semi-break from social media in order to concentrate on writing. But I’m back now and want to introduce you to someone. We’ve actually known each other for as long as I can remember, but lately, we’ve became reacquainted. Her name is Nellie. As in Negative Nellie, and she’s the voice in my head that tells me I’m terrible! Let’s back up a sec. First of all, I’m pretty…

So much of how we deal with these crazy times depends on our circumstances: where we live, whether we’re employed or not, essential or working from home, and what our family structure is, whether we’re partnered, single, with or without kids.

I happen to be single, without children. I own a house and live alone in a small upstate NY town. When the pandemic hit in full force back in March, I was…

A couple of weeks ago, I was walking with a new writer friend who is disillusioned with her day job. When she said she’s craving a literary life, I responded with an enthusiastic YES! And we mused on what that would actually look like.

My definition of a literary life is one where you make a living as a writer. Perhaps I’m a romantic, but a true literary life also means you’re writing projects…

What to Write About

First of all, Hello. I am happy to report that I am still alive, living in upstate New York with my dog Ruby, and both of us are healthy (knock on wood). I do feel slightly mortified that it took an actual Apocalypse to get me blogging again, but here we are… at home for the indefinite future, trying not to go insane, ie. the perfect time to dust off this old WordPress site and hit “new post.”

No…

A New Lens on Life

Earlier this year I bought a used Canon 5D MII. Best decision ever. I’ve actually never owned a *real* camera, one that takes super nice photos, where you can control things. There are obviously more advanced cameras than this one out there, but the Canon 5D MII is a Very Good Camera.

Not only does it take gorgeous photos, but it also shoots beautiful video. When I lived in Los Angeles, I worked…