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It’s not everyday that our little county makes the news, but it happens occasionally. Today, however Caroline County was in the news in a big way, and not for anything that anyone who lives here did. You might have heard by now that Tamerlan Tsarnaev has been buried in Doswell, VA which is in the southern part of Caroline, about 10 miles from my house.  Personally, I don’t think it matters where he’s buried and I don’t really think it should matter to anyone but his family. The most important thing about Tsarnaev’s death isn’t where he’s buried. It’s that there is one less terrorist plotting to hurt innocent people. And by terrorist I mean a person who hurts or kills innocent people, causing mass terror to make...

Now that the bombers have been caught and America (especially those of us who live and/or work near target cities like D.C.) can let out that breath we were collectively holding through most of last week, I can get to that blog post that I had been planning before last week’s tragedy. I didn’t so much make a New Year’s resolution for 2013 as a sort of pledge to myself at the beginning of the year to step out of my comfort zone. If left to my own devices, I would be a hermit and by hermit, I mean never picking up the phone, only communicating through email and only going to the store to buy food and craft supplies. I am by nature and introvert with a capital I. This is one of the reasons that being a writer is a good fit for me. It’s also...

I am a plotter. I think I’ve mentioned this before. I’m always amazed when I hear people say they just write by the seat of their pants. I can’t even conceive of the idea of writing without knowing how something is going to end. Maybe it’s my non-fiction background, or my academic bent, but for anything larger than flash fiction I have to have an outline. I think it was probably said best by those wise writing gurus Strunk & White. “Writing, to be effective, must follow closely the thoughts of the writer, but not necessarily in the order in which those thoughts occur.” This is not to say that I’m never carried away by a scene or character into something that I hadn’t foreseen or planned. Much of the Alex Budge...

One of the things I love best about writing is research. I’m a naturally curious person, so it’s just the way I operate. It’s one of the reasons that I fell into training in my corporate life. I just wanted to know how things worked and I didn’t mind explaining what I learned to other people. It struck me the other day when I caught myself reading up on the parking brake of a 1990 Honda Civic, that I’ve learned some unexpected things on my way to finishing this novel. There are the obvious things; Celtic lore, Appalachian culture and off the grid living. Naturally,  my Gaelic vocabulary has increased about ten fold.  there are also some unlikely things. These are things that I wouldn’t have thought of until I got to that...

Shortly after I graduated from college, I stopped by my paternal grandmother’s house on my way to the beach and she asked me when I was going to cut my hair short, not if but when. The implication was that all grown women had to cut their hair short as some final rite of passage. Seeing as I inherited my curly hair from the woman asking the question, I thought it was kind of odd. At the time it just seemed a shame to me to cut those curls. They were part of who I was. I was Meredith, the one with the curly hair (I went to college with more than a few Merediths.) There was absolutely no question in my mind of ever cutting my hair short.  Flash forward 17 years and my attitude was very much the same. Sure I had cut it up to my shoulders occasionally, but when...

Over the summer like many moms, I read the entire 50 Shades Trilogy. Yes, all three books because, a) I’m a sucker for a series and b) I love writers and always want to give them a chance to redeem themselves. Sadly, I don’t feel like E. L. James or her characters redeemed themselves by the end of these books. In true Film Sack style, (I think there should be a similar BookSack podcast.) here’s my twitter post (spoiler alert): Insecure virgin college student w/ a burgeoning eating disorder is stalked by emotionally stunted billionaire w/ serious Oedipus issues. Whew! 4 character to spare;) Despite appearances, this is NOT a book review. I’m not going to comment on the level of writing or storytelling skills of Ms. James nor am I going to sneer jealously at...