Welcome to Pairings

Like superheroes with super powers, we creatives must use our gift with care — nourish it, tend to it, and practice it.

On This Day: On July 19, 1937, the search for Amelia Earhart's plane ended. "She was in rebellion against a world that had been made, for women, too safe, too confining."

In the 1930s, these women captured Texas on film—the good, the bad, and the truly ugly.

When First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt met a Texas dust storm in 1939, her encounter gave me an idea for my historical novel, Unspoken

There's a Magic to Celebrating Milestones...and It Begins With Champagne (and Books About It)

Just like everyone else, we face choices. But the choices authors face aren't exactly like the ones you're imagining.

Some New Year's Resolutions are so grand they're bound to fail. Before you join the Quitter's Day majority (January 10), try this smoother means to success.

It’s ironic many extra words writers have to cut once they hit the magic length historical novels are: 100,000 - 120,000. Cue the angst.

Henry Miller's own Eleven Commandments of Writing helped him maintain his focus on work in progress. Can they help with yours, too?

Here's how four words that will become your mantra can help to keep you on the writing track.

Knowing when to stop writing is a lot easier than starting to write in the first place. But it's simple: You just have to show up.

Don’t let fear become the biggest influence in your creative life. Find your commitment to painting and writing by delving into your fears.

Don’t fight it. Creativity is a choice. Once you make it, the ups, and the downs, are the fun part.

Life provides obstacles, but you can choose what you focus on

When you let go, you create space for something else to move in to your life, as Holiday Mathis told me in my horoscope.

Embrace your dual gifts: you can inhabit two worlds, and you can slide between them with ease. It’s just what writers do.

In one short paragraph author Flannery O'Connor nails down her work ethic — one that will motivate your creative soul.