Map of Knownearth, the setting of Amanda’s first novel, Blade of Amber, and its reboot version, A Wizard’s Forge.

Roadmap to Change

October 8, 2015

As regular readers know, the One Year of Letters contributors have been commemorating the first anniversary of this blog by reflecting on our lives and work over the past year. Ever-gracious Kerry expressed her enthusiasm for the OYOL team’s introspections and observations. Elaina heroically looked back at her demons and once again stared them down. Colleen analyzed trends in our work and explored where this blog might go in the future. And our resident Picasso of words, Sigurd, took us on another journey through his thoughts and memories, each of which is a treasure. And Mary and Tatyana will be posting their one-year reflections soon, so be sure to come back for their wisdom and and insights.

The past week, I’ve looked over my old…

I am currently reading Kate White’s I Shouldn’t Be Telling You This: Success Secrets Every Gutsy Girl Should Know. There are bad books, okay books, good books and great books. But there is another kind of book and it’s the rarest.

The game-changer.

White has a witty, sassy style. She is seamlessly intelligent and down-to-earth in her fiction. And guess what? Her nonfiction delivers more of the same.

I’ve never recommended a book I haven’t finished, but this one has me far too excited. Even if Ms. White devolves into dirty limericks for the rest of the book? I still feel I have spent my money well. There are some points she makes which I feel are especially poignant and applicable to writers.

Part of the reason I’m referring to her book in this blog (even though I’m not yet finished) is that I might just chicken out unless I…

Tears, Fears, and Gears

September 24, 2015

The last time I cried at a birthday party was when I was nine or ten. A friend invited a dozen or so girls to a roller rink, and I was the only one who’d never skated before. Game to try, I giggled with the other girls as we shuffled across the thin carpeting of the shoe-changing area. The friction slowed down the skate wheels, providing me with a false sense of “this is easy!” Then I stepped onto the rink. The skates whizzed over the glass-smooth concrete but failed to bring me along and I fell splat onto my rear. I struggled up and slipped slowly around the rink, clinging to the wall. I don’t remember how many circuits I hugged that wall—I probably struggled through at least two before giving up. I spent most of the party sitting by myself, quietly…

Lost and Found 

September 9th, 2015

Dear Reader,

I love movies that make you think, and I saw one over the weekend:All Is Lost.Thisseafaring adventure is as tense and suspenseful as a thriller and has a knockout solo performance by Robert Redford. It’s also a fable about our world as we have made it. After thinking about it a lot, I decided the ultimate message is even the most competent, self-reliant person cannot succeed without help.

This message resonates in our current, highly divided political climate. I don’t know about you, but an awful lot of hate fills my Facebook feed. I’d planned to list some examples, but as I started to write them down, I stopped, because we all see it every day. We’ve also talked a lot about the hate here on OYOL. Colleen, Elaina…

Honor and the Cheating Heart

August 26, 2105

Dear Reader,

All right, I’m fessin’ up. I signed up for Ashley Madison, and my email is probably on that list.

Now that you’ve climbed back into your chair, I’ll tell you I signed up with full knowledge of my husband, and I did so to research the site for a friend. No, really, I did it for my friend. I never went past the free trial and never provided a credit card, and I closed my account after a single day and several emails from some desperate dudes.

The desperation made me sad, that these folks would reach out to a faceless stranger (I didn’t post a picture). The messages also skeeved me out, but they didn’t anger me. Who am I to judge these guys? As Glenn Greenwald has written, how can we judge people whose private lives and…

Ambition Makes Me Tired

August 12, 2015

The blank page. A field of white, unsullied and wholesome, unexplored and terrifying. There’s a reason you don’t see a blog from me every week here on OYOL. When Colleen and Elaina asked me recently if I could step up my frequency and submit every week, I cringed and begged off. Oh, no, I’m far too busy to commit. I have the family and the day job, not to mention two works in progress that need to be finished. One is a heavy rewrite of the third book in my fantasy/scifi series, the other my foray into literary fiction. Progress on the one is slow, while I haven’t worked on the other in years. Years.

If I applied myself, I could finish the one and get the other back on track. But the blank page stands in the way. To some writers, the…

When the Hunter Became the Hunted

July 29, 2015

Dear Reader,

Wow! The wrath of the Internet has descended full-force on Walter Palmer, the Minnesota dentist who killed Cecil the Lion, a beloved inhabitant of Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe. Palmer and his guides lured Cecil from the preserve and wounded him with an arrow. The lion fled, and the hunters killed him two days later when they finally tracked him down. Then the hunters had their oops moment: they found a GPS collar on Cecil, and then they tried and failed to destroy it, suggesting they knew they done wrong.

Palmer, an experienced big game hunter (who’s also had previous run-ins with the law), does not deny killing Cecil. He released a statement saying he regrets killing the pride leader, not because he was a magnificent animal (which, one presumes, is exactly why Palmer wanted the lion’s head…

Warning: Despite this blog post’s length, it doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of the rampant increase of police brutality and blatant racism that is spreading not only all over the United States of America, but also the rest of our precious world. So, make yourself a cup of tea. Pop some popcorn. It’s going to be a long read.

I had considered posting this long blog post in one hefty steak-and-potatoes meal, but I’ve chosen to have my readers read it in bite-size, healthy chunks so that they can digest it, reflect on it, mediate on it, and then act. This is a serious post and even though I may dash a few humorous rainbow sprinkles in it to ease discomfort, it is of dire importance to our ever-changing world. Change is uncomfortable. And yes, change can be good. But the changes that are taking place in the…

Dream House – Amanda (AM) Justice

July 15, 2015

Dear A,

The husband is making plans for the future, looking ten years ahead to the daughter’s high school graduation and his retirement. He’s fixing to make a liar out of you, because you’ve been telling people he wants to live in your current apartment for the rest of his life. Turns out that’s not the case: he wants a house in the countryside, far enough from city light pollution to have his backyard observatory, but close enough to cultural comforts like movie theaters and museums. Living near like-minded folk is important too—he doesn’t want his blood pressure to skyrocket every time he drops by the post office or buys a cup of coffee.

You agree with these criteria for contentment, but everywhere the husband listed as a potential new community is hours inland. Meanwhile your dream house sits on a…