The other day I received a rejection email that hurt. It was from a small publishing company that liked my story, requested more chapters, and said they would work with me to publish. It wasn’t my ideal choice for a publisher, but I thought it would be a good one. I know people who have published through them. After weeks of back and forth emails getting them more chapters to read, they sent an email that sent a shiver down my spine.

I submitted Boundless, my memoir, to a handful of literary agents and small publishers. I spent quite a while looking though QueryTracker to find agents who could possibly be interested in it.

While researching for a historical novel based on Beatrice Warde, I have found that using technology to find and understand first-hand documents to be essential.

This short memoir caught my attention while I was putting my daughter to sleep. I needed something quick to read on my kindle. Reading it while feeling the weight of my three-year-old in my lap, her long legs draped over the edge of the arm chair and wisps of her hair tickling my nose, made it more appealing.

There is a smiley face drawn on the road. It’s about a half mile from my house and the tar stands out dark against the faded asphalt. I see it on the walk I go on every morning. Well, not every morning. In fact, I have only gone a few mornings since we moved here. But my daughter just started preschool so I think I will go every morning. Positive thinking.

When the editor told me that she loved the memoir but it wasn’t what she expected, I knew something fundamental was wrong. I went through her notes, changing small things here and there, but her words kept coming back to me. It wasn’t what I expected.

As a writer and a web developer with a basic understanding of artificial intelligence (AI), I am interested in the release of Chat GPT and other AI tools. We are on the verge of a whole new world.

Follow me in my journey to becoming a better writer and a published author while also being a mother.

Writers are encouraged to find their voice — or not, if you’re asking Noah Berlatsky, who wrote 'Voice' Isn't the Point of Writing published in The Atlantic. He claimed that writers get paid to write ‘flat and factual’.

I recently read the article We’ve always been distracted or at least worried that we are by Joe Stadolnik about how humans have always been worried that new technologies will keep us from learning.

Dialogue can make or break a story. I’ve read books that had dialogue that bogged the story down so much it was painful to read. “Good dialogue… is a delight to read; bad dialogue is deadly.”

Showing instead of telling is like breathing life into your story. This is how I edited my memoir to show more. Included is a sneak peak of the memoir.