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Backstories
Read more: BackstoriesI learned an important lesson at a writer’s conference recently while consulting with a publisher’s editor. She looked at me with incredulous eyes and asked me why she should care about a rich woman whose husband stole half a million dollars from her. And here was the kicker: she couldn’t relate because she, the editor,…
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Mayday, Mayday, Mayday
Read more: Mayday, Mayday, MaydayMay Day, typically observed on May 1, is perhaps best known as a European festival with ancient origins that celebrates the beginning of summer. I was first introduced to these rites of summer at the private girls’ school I attended from sixth to twelfth grade, where our headmistress was admittedly a bit of an Anglophile. Much…
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Semana Santa
Read more: Semana SantaGrowing up in the Midwest, Easter Sunday was a one-day celebration full of hidden Easter baskets, chocolate bunnies and colored eggs made the day before. In the “good” ole days, we dipped hard-boiled eggs into water and vinegar that was splashed with a few drops of food coloring, then scooped the eggs out with one…
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Keep Hope Alive
Read more: Keep Hope AliveWatching the memorial for Jesse Jackson yesterday inspired me to remember—and heed—his rousing words: KEEP HOPE ALIVE! When our country went to war with Iran a week ago, hope seemed like a light about to be extinguished, caught between battling factions mirroring their respective intolerances. This cannot end well. After spending my entire adult life…
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Hyperempathy
Read more: HyperempathyYes, it really is a thing—a syndrome—and I am afflicted. In clinical terms, it’s a state of experiencing others’ emotions with such extreme intensity that it causes personal distress and blurs boundaries between self and others. K is well aware of my condition, and commiserates with me often. It’s an affliction that manifests with anxiety,…
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Pickled, Gessoed & Socialized
Read more: Pickled, Gessoed & SocializedThere have been many times in my adult life when I have set intentions—sometimes even creating visually elaborate intention boards—to attract the energies I need to intiate positive productivity. Not always successful to the naked eye, to be sure. But this year is turning out to be a banner year for generating immediate gratification, both…
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Aesop’s Foolish Farmer
Read more: Aesop’s Foolish FarmerAs the calendar flips to a new year, I find myself desperately clinging to the many positive intentions I’d set for myself as they get sucked, one by one, into a vortex of volatility. I thought I was doing pretty well this holiday season, for a change. All the ghosts of Christmases past weren’t exactly…
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Gaslighting 101
Read more: Gaslighting 101Okay, I’m now working on a final (yeah, right) deep dive to enrich and layer my characters even more (gasp), so now I’m working on my antagonist in Pura Vida. He’s gotta be a really bad dude dressed in celestial clothing. But authentic, right? Otherwise, my protagonist would have been a fool to marry the…
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With Friends Like You…
Read more: With Friends Like You…Depending on how that sentence is finished will convey a sense of rosy euphoria or, at the other end of the spectrum, a sense of doom and gloom. Writing engaging characters and their relationships with others is a complex, often rugged odyssey. Perfect friends, those true-blue-to-the-bitter-end friends, are not very interesting, as far as storytelling…
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6.1 On the Richter Scale!
Read more: 6.1 On the Richter Scale!For Costa Rica, that’s a temblor gigante! A 6.1 magnitude earthquake is categorized as “strong”, which K and I can attest to after we were jolted out of a dead sleep last night. We gathered the dogs, poised to execute our evac plan to run out front and avoid falling trees and outbuildings until the…
Judy Richter
Author and Blogger
Judy Richter 