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Coping With Your First Child Heading Off To College: A Mother’s Lament
*** This concept of a child going away to study at a university shouldn’t really phase me at all, right? I’m a college professor. I have been for years now. I’m the one smiling at other parents during Open Houses as I say all the right things to them about how their student will love college; how they will grow and flourish; and how they will have the time of their lives. This should be easy for me as I have a son who will start his freshman year at a university in Pennsylvania in a few weeks. I’ve been in this profession since 1993, long enough to know that…
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What It Feels Like to Finish Writing a Novel
* Well, friends, I’m coming down the home stretch. By next week, my novel will be written, if it does not happen sooner than that. People have asked me this question: what does it feel like to finish a novel? As this will be the third one I have published, it feels a little like saying goodbye. What I mean by that is you live and breathe the characters and their situations for so long, that when you’re done writing their story, their story is over, and you have to say farewell. The creative process of actually building and telling the story is my absolute favorite part of novel writing.…