Lately, I've been finding packaging really challenging. I'm only 33 -- surely it's not me getting old? I think things are severely overpackaged these days. If I didn't have fingernails, I'd never get the little plastic seals off the top of my soymilk. And I nearly cut myself trying to get the plastic off the new toothpaste cap. Don't even get me started on clamshell packaging that's melted shut -- that shit could be a weapon, yo.

Hi!

I walk around all the time composing journal entries in my head. And then I never write them down. That happens sometimes with fiction, too.

Recently, I began a collab with Tim and Greg -- a collection of short shorts, or story bombs or what-have-you -- and so far this week I've written one every day. This feels really awesome, honestly -- one of my favorite feelings in the world is to have just written something I like. But it's also nice to have a place to jot down the random things that flit through my head. Everything is fair game, and since I have this deadline of one short-short fiction piece a day, I'm finding things turn into story ideas really quickly. An anecdote about my nephew becomes the beginning to a fantasy story. Every little thing seems to spark a chain of thought that ends up in some sort of plot.

I love this. I should make myself write like this all the time, not just when I'm doing a collab. Of course, short-shorts are easier than longer stories or novels, but I'm getting the itch to write longer stuff because of doing these, too. I have a story idea that is probably novelette length. I have a novel I want to draft. Of course, I should probably revise the two stories I've already drafted, finish typing in and revise my YA novel and finish the short story I started a few months ago, but I'm not sure if any of that is going to happen anytime soon. I mean, these new ideas are so *shiny*!

Anyhoo, hi!