The Anxious Author

        There's a quote that all writers know but seldom are aware of who coined it. The phrase has been contributed to so many authors at this point that I'm not even going to try to credit the original sayer. However, Stephen King once said, "Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric scribbler's heart, kill your darlings".      Kill your darlings...Ouch...     Seems harsh, right?     I loathe killing darlings. In case you are new to the writing scene and are unaware of what darlings refer to, darlings are the small, insignificant, beautifully written scenes that writers ultimately fall in love with despite them having no real effect on their story. Some might call these fillers. As popular killing darlings are, I'm almost ashamed to admit that I love them so much.     Darlings, to me, are like the little moments in life. They may seem inconsequential, but they have the power to lift or c...

 Greetings, souls. Happy Independence Day to those of you in America. I'm giggling over here at some of the memes I've seen this year about our beloved day of all things red, white, and blue. I've been enjoying all the book stacks I've seen too, and the shelves reorganized to look like the American flag. Very clever.     I'm spending the Fourth of July with my parents. Partially by choice but partially because I don't have a working AC in my apartment and they can't get it fixed for at least two weeks. It's been alright, but I've now been crashing with my parents for two weeks and sometimes I remember why I love having my own space. Big families are great but noisy and I feel like I'm in the way most of the time.      Anyway, it's 3:07 in the afternoon right now and my nephew has confiscated my phone to play PBS Kids while his brother takes a nap, so I thought I'd take this time to write an update.      I've been keeping track of all ...