Tag: angst

5 Tips for Turning Your Teen Turmoil Into a Novel

February 7, 2016
Writing

HarperCollins Canada asked me to write a post for their official YA Blog, HCC Frenzy. Here’s a short except, followed by a link where you can read the whole article. There’s no way around it: high school hurts. The good news? Pain is precious to writers. It motivates us, inspires us, fuels...

RILEY’S MIX TAPE (AKA PLAYLIST)

February 5, 2016
Fiction, Music, Personal

Music was an essential part of my teenage experience. When I liked somebody, I made them a mix tape of songs that would [hopefully] make my feelings obvious so I didn’t have to admit them. When someone broke my heart, I made a mix tape of breakup songs. When I graduated, I made a mix tape of...

How and Why I Started Writing

February 16, 2015
Personal, Writing

HOW I scrawled my first lyric—a future hit entitled “Dart Heart”—into my Hello Kitty Diary at age eight-and-a-half. There were photos of me at a younger age that foretold my becoming a musician (see above), but I think “Dart Hart” was the first evidence that I might end up a writer. At eight-and-a-half,...

On Doubt, Fear, and Being a Professional Artist

November 29, 2014
Personal, Writing

ON GOOD DAYS AND BAD DAYS During a writing day, I inevitably hit a point of diminishing returns. A point where any work I do will likely have to be redone the next day–because I’m too mentally, spiritually, or intellectually tired to continue doing good work. Usually it happens around 3PM–but...

Who You Are

September 20, 2013
Personal, Writing

Image: “Lost” by AikaXx from deviantART WHO YOU ARE You’re not a fraud. You’re not a fake. You’re who you say you are. You’re too dynamic for labels, too mobile for coordinates. You’re a shooting star, an ephemeral isotope, a thing that was, and shall be, but never quite is. You...

Mercy Killing

March 6, 2013
Personal, Writing

One summer during high school I took a job that required me to trap rats. The bank my mom worked for hired my sister, my best friend Dan, and me to clean up one of their foreclosure properties before they put it up for sale. The house was enormous and tacky, a sort of Floridian nightmare with semi-gloss...