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For 35 Years

August 20, 2020 by Emily Dill Leave a Comment

For 35 years, I had all the time – and sleep – in the world

For 35 years, I had a clean house and an empty car.

For 35 years, I had a pelvis without a scar on it.

For 35 years, I had to only feed myself.

For 35 years, I had to just walk outside and listen to the rain for as long as I wanted, with no concern about who was left inside.

For 35 years, I had the ability to go out of town anytime I wanted, and I could stay for hours, or days.

For 35 years, I had plenty of money to spend on eating out, tickets, entertainment, trips, and anything random or stupid that I wanted.

For 35 years, I had the chance to take a bath, read a book, eat lunch, walk at the park, get some sun, or go to the library, anytime the urge struck.

For 35 years, I didn’t have someone that smiled and went “Ahhh” when my face was the first thing they saw when they woke up.

For 35 years, I didn’t have tiny clothes and burp cloths on every surface of my house.

For 35 years, I didn’t have to go down the baby clothes aisle every time I was at Target, “just to look”.

For 35 years, I didn’t have a clue what it was like to cry – hard – every time I heard about a mother losing her child.

For 35 years, I didn’t have a little round face looking back at me in my rearview mirror while I was driving.

For 35 years, I didn’t have a tiny warm body curled up asleep on my chest.

For 35 years, I didn’t have any idea what it felt like to have someone kick and nudge you from the inside.

For 35 years, I didn’t have mugs in my cabinet that said ambitious things like “Super Mom” or “Best Mom Ever”.

And for 35 years, I didn’t have to change diapers, worry about the consistency of baby poop, wash bottles and bassinet sheets every 24 hours, constantly feed a little 10 pound creature, run on 2 hours of sleep, carry a car seat, recover from a delivery, plan things around a nap schedule, fret nonstop about germs and viruses, and do research about babies until 3 in the morning.

For 35 years, I didn’t have you.

And boy, was I missing out.

My 2016 Writing Resolutions!

January 2, 2016 by Emily Dill Leave a Comment

Welcome to the New Year, my friendlings! I know, some people don’t get as excited about new years/resolutions/fresh starts/goals as I do (I have a list for pretty much aspect of my life). But I personally love the whole restart/refocus thing that comes with new months and years (or weeks – sometimes I legit have to refocus myself weekly, or ummm daily).

I have a lot of personal resolutions, but I also made some specifically for writing. Here are my main ones:

1. Newsletter for my blog This one is probably the second easiest on my list, but for some reason I’ve put it off for about a year. I definitely want to start a newsletter this year – that way, I can get news about my books/collections immediately to the people who want to know about them! Plus I think agents really like to see the author platform/newsletter in place, so it’s kind of important.

2. Finish my novel/send it out on submission This was also on last year’s resolution list haha – oops. I don’t think I realized then exactly how long the revising process can be. I wrote a large chunk of the book in 4 weeks, and then have spent over a year revising, editing, and staring at it. Ahhhh, the writing life. I do fully intend to finish it this year though, hopefully in the next 2-3 months, and send out my query letter in the spring!

3. Collection of Poems I’ve finally gained enough confidence in my poetry to put them out into the world, and I’d love to publish a book of my poems this coming year, probably in ebook format on Amazon, although I know some poets have been successful at self-publishing pretty books of their poetry then selling them on Etsy.

4. Short Story Collection I’ve been meaning to do this for months – I have written several short stories (and have 3 or 4 more in the process) and want to start publishing an annual collection of creepy short stories.

5. Hit 1,000 followers on Twitter This is the easiest resolution, considering I’m only about 25 followers away. I’ve been creeping up on this number for a while, so it’s going to feel good to finally get there.
UPDATE 1/10/16: Done! See? That didn’t take long. Thank you, Twitterlings. 🙂

6. Win a Writing Contest (or two, or three..) I’ve been wanting to win a writing contest since the beginning of 2015, when I first started looking in to entering them. I think I’m pretty close to winning one this coming week – I’ll keep you posted. 😉
UPDATE 1/4/16: Done! That resolution was completed fast – if only they all could be that quick haha. But I won a weekly contest Prose held this past week + $100. I’m REALLY excited about this. Here is the link to the winning details, and here is the link to my winning poem, Tales. 🙂

7. Read 50 books this year And this isn’t about my writing necessarily, but I firmly believe that good writers read. I read 44 books last year, and I’d like to top that this year. (My favorite person to compete with? Myself.)

I’d love to hear your own writing/reading resolutions – leave them in the comments below or shoot me a message. Let’s crush this year, people! 🙂

Writing Wednesday: Short Story Excerpt and Updates

December 9, 2015 by Emily Dill Leave a Comment

Hey, you. And you. And even you.

I’ve gotten behind on some of my Writing Wednesdays, so I’ve decided to aim for every other Wednesday. (Set the bar low, friends.) I’ll talk a little bit in these posts about where I am in my writing, maybe share some excerpts, or give you some tips I’ve picked up on.

In today’s post I wanted to share news about my short story, Seeking Spirits. I’ve finally completed/edited it, and my plan right now is to release it digitally on Amazon on New Year’s Day. Right now Seeking Spirits: A Paranormal Short Story is sitting at 11,500 words and I’ll be selling it for 99 cents. I can’t wait to finally get my writing on Amazon and to hear what you all think of it. 🙂 Here’s my blurb about the story:

Elizabeth Harding contacts the crew of cable TV’s smash hit ghost-hunting show, Seeking Sprits. She has a major problem with her new house – it seems to be haunted by a jealous, territorial male spirit who won’t let her entertain any male guests. The crew heads to her house to shoot an episode, expecting to hear maybe a few bumps in the night and see a shadow or two. What they don’t expect is to be locked in overnight with an angry, vengeful spirit who doesn’t like even one male visitor, let alone four.

Alsooooo, here is the intro section:

The television crew had finally arrived.Elizabeth had been nervously fluffing couch pillows when she heard their van doors slamming from outside.

She peeked through her living room blinds and saw the huge van sitting in her driveway. She watched four men pile out of the vehicle, stretch, laugh, and push each other around, then open the back of the van to start unloading equipment.

Elizabeth closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and opened her front door, letting the four men into her house, and into what had recently become her nightmare.

Make sure to follow me on social media for updates about when my story will be available for purchase!

I’m also in the process of working on two other short stories (one is supernatural, the other is about a psychotic truck stop waitress), and those will be available on Amazon as well, although I haven’t decided if they’ll be sold separately or as part of a short story collection. Exciting stuff!

Speaking of exciting, this month I saw my name in Writer’s Digest for the first time. (Yes, I said first time. I’m an optimist. That glass is freaking full, people.)

Lastly, I’ll be sending my query letter (and hopefully manuscript) to agents early in the coming year. Send good thoughts and prayers my way, por favor! I hope you all have a wonderful week and enjoy the heck out of the season. 🙂

Three Changes I Make When My Novel Writing Is Stuck (We Won’t Say Writer’s Block)

September 20, 2015 by Emily Dill Leave a Comment

If I’ve learned anything in my 30 years of life (besides the fact that baking soda can clean anything), it’s that people believe that giving something a name gives it power. Why else don’t we say Voldemort? (By the way, did you read that JK Rowling said that the ‘t’ is actually silent in his name? Blasphemy!) So I won’t say *whispers* writer’s block.

What I will say is that sometimes, things just aren’t working. And this period of things not working can seem to go on for days. Or, um, weeks. Or longer? Maybe.

I don’t have an official scientific remedy for you – you can find plenty of advice other places on the Internet or at the library. But I do have three tricks I’ve started using when I’m stuck with my novel, and honestly? They work for me like gangbusters. (Can anyone explain to me exactly what that phrase means?)

1) The first things I do when I’m stuck in my novel writing or revisions? Start writing anything that’s not part of a novel. You don’t have to stop writing just because your novel isn’t flowing. I would actually advise against that. So open the notebook where you keep that wonderful poetry of yours. Or open a new Word document and start a short story. I know you’ve got some killer ideas for a little flash fiction. Compose a haiku, especially if you’ve never tried it before. Trying new things is great for your mind. Not only will you end up with new writing projects to build your platform, put in a portfolio, or just share with your friends, but something about moving to a different writing method (or even genre) helps to slowly and quietly unlock that closed door you keep beating against in your novel.

2) The second thing I do when I’m stuck? Switch to a different physical writing method. And by that, I mean write on paper if you normally use your laptop. Or jump over to the laptop if you’re a longhander. Or you could move to Word if you use Scrivener, and vice versa. You may not think this will help, and maybe it won’t for you, but ooh boy, I tried this on a whim a few weeks ago, and I was very pleased. When I was in my teens, I did all my writing in notebooks. At some point in the past few years, I moved over to my laptop for writing. I found myself majorly stuck over the summer, so I pulled out one of my notebooks for the heck of it, and the poetry started flowing. So did the dialogue for my novel, as well as a lot of short story ideas. Plus, it felt really nice to see my words in my own handwriting again. 🙂

3) The last thing you can try? Move your writing location. And how far you move it is up to you. I wrote almost my entire novel in my kitchen at our bar, and lately that spot feels tired to me. So I’ve started writing in bed, in the tub, and outside, and it feels fresher and fun again. You could also move outside the home, if you don’t normally write on the run. Check out a coffee shop, write at a friend’s house, or jot down some ideas in the car before running in for groceries.

These are three ways I’ve tricked myself lately into upping my writing output, but by no means is this an exhaustive list of hacks. Do you have any ideas for getting out a writing rut? How do you deal with getting stuck? Let me know, and have a wonderful week!

13 Personal Questions :)

September 10, 2015 by Emily Dill Leave a Comment

So I was browsing online the other day (bulk-stalking certain blogs, in other words), and I found this cool post on the gorgeous Anna Saccone’s blog: 13 Personal Questions Tag. I liked the questions, so I decided to answer them on here for fun. 🙂 And one of the questions asks about a YouTube community (I guess the tag was for YouTubers), but I’ve changed that part of the question to “writing community”. And if anyone wants to copy/answer on their own blog or in the comments, I’d absolutely love to read that!

1. What do you order at Starbucks? Unless the weather is unbearably hot, I go with coffee (sometimes with milk) or a hot tea. Their passion tea and peach tea are sooo good hot. If the day is a scorcher, give me an iced passion tea or a green tea frapp.

2. What’s one thing in your closet you can’t live without? Jeans. Shirts and shoes come and go, but a pair of jeans is forever. Or until you get that heartbreaking hole that you just can’t pretend isn’t there anymore.

3. What’s one thing that most people don’t know about you? I’m related to President James Madison on my mom’s side and the real-life Braveheart (William Wallace) on my dad’s side. No pressure, or anything.

4. What’s one thing you want to do before you die? See freaking Disney World. Publish a book. Run a 5k. Don’t get me started, I’m a sucker for life goals.

5. What’s one food you can’t live without? Probably eggs? I consume them in some form pretty much every day haha. Eggs on eggs on eggs!

6. What’s one quote that you live your life by? I love “knowledge is power”. When I’m reading and come upon something I don’t know much about, I hit Google. When I’m diagnosed with something (like gluten intolerance or Barrett’s Esophagus), I want to learn everything about it to treat it best I can. When someone mentions going somewhere or doing something I’m not familiar with, I research the heck out of it.

7. What do you like and dislike about the writing community? I like pretty much everything about it! Seriously, the writers on Twitter and Instagram are some of the most encouraging and inspirational people ever, with their positive words and “you got this” attitudes. I love the writing community on social media. I can’t think of anything I dislike about it!

8. What’s your number 1 song on your iPod/iTunes? Probably my favorite song, “Make Damn Sure”, by Taking Back Sunday.

9. What kind of style would you describe yourself as having? Pretty casual and classic right now. I definitely have a lot more nerdy influences than I used to haha, like Star Wars and superhero shirts and shoes. But I have a lot of basic, understated things, like jeans, one-color flats, black cardigans, statement necklaces, hoop earrings, and v-necks.

10. Favorite number? 33

11. Two hobbies? Writing and reading, obviously haha. To not be so obvious, I also love exercise, especially walking/sprinting or hiking, and traveling.

12. Two pet peeves? PDA, man. PD freaking A. It’s the worst. May God separate the next two PDA’ing people I see with a lightning bolt. Not enough to hurt them, just something to scare them and make them think twice next time. The other pet peeve is probably pitiful-acting people, the ones always feeling sorry for themselves or guilting others. Get a life, homes.

13. Your guilty pleasure? Chocolate or french fries. Give me all of it. Even chocolate-covered fries. I wants it. (No I don’t.)

The Power of Prayer

August 30, 2015 by Emily Dill 4 Comments

If you know me at all, it should come as no surprise that I’m a Christian. I mean, check my menu bar: there’s my testimony. While that’s not the only thing I talk about on this blog, I’m certainly not ashamed of it and am more than happy to talk about God with anyone, anytime. He’s my everything.

I wanted to dedicate a post to the amazing power of prayer, and the fantastic feeling of knowing that you’re being prayed for. Obviously, I can’t cover all of the emotions and details of prayer and what it means to me, but I just wanted to share a sweet story from about two weeks ago.

For the past year – off and on but lately ON – I’ve had pretty bad pain accompanying my four impacted wisdom teeth. Why yes, to the 100% of people that ask in disbelief, I did indeed reach the age of 30 with my four wisdom teeth still in place.

Two weeks ago, I was suffering badly, as in the worst dental pain I had ever felt. I was scheduled for surgery a week out, but I had no idea how I was going to get through the long days ahead of me – each hour feels like a day when you’re dealing with dental pain, am I right? *The crowd makes appropriate bemoaning noises*

On Sunday morning two weeks ago, eight days before my surgery, I woke up with the worst pain yet. I didn’t want to get out of bed or talk or do anything except sleep away the coming week. But as I lay there miserable, all I could hear in my head was, “You’re going to hurt whether you’re home or not. Get up and go to church.” I quickly shot down the idea and got up and made some iced coffee. As I was doing it, I heard that voice in my head again, saying the same thing. “Just go to church.” BAH, I thought, I’m not leaving this house. And then as I ate the softest, least-offensive breakfast I could find, I heard that head-voice one more time. And I finally gave in. “Screw it,” I thought, “might as well hurt among God’s people.”

Thirty minutes later I was at church, but hoping I didn’t see anyone I know, because the left side of my mouth was swollen shut from the impacted teeth and possible infection setting in, and the pain radiated up to my ear and down to my neck. I sat in my seat, glad to be at church and glad I had come, but also glad the lights were going down and no one would see me or try to talk to me.

The service opened like it always did with singing and praise, and I got so lost in the music and the praise team that I barely noticed the pain. “Ahh, this is why I needed to come,” I thought. “This is an amazing distraction.”

But then, when the band was through, the pastor did something he hadn’t done in any of the services I’d ever been to. (I’ve been going almost regularly to this church for about 6-7 months). He held up his hand and said, “Before we go any further, there’s something I want to do today, if you don’t mind. I want you all to bow your heads for a minute, and I’m going to say a prayer for every out there who’s sick or hurting.” He proceeded to pray for every person at the service who was in pain, hurting, sick, upset, etc. He prayed specifically and he blessed us all and he called on Jesus to help every single one of us who needed it. While he prayed, I also prayed, not only to be able to get through the next week, but for everyone else out there at the service who needed help.

Within an hour, my pain was almost completely gone and I could not only open my mouth all the way, I could eat and drink and talk just like normal. I even went by my mom and dad’s after the service and showed my mom. I probably looked like a dog that had learned a new trick: “Look,” I said excitedly, opening my mouth all the way. “This doesn’t hurt!”

Here’s the best part: the pain stayed gone for the rest of that week, up to the moment of surgery. That week was the most pain-free one my teeth have had in months.

Do I believe that the pastor of my church prayed that prayer only for me? No. I’m sure there were countless people out there who needed his prayer as much as I did, and probably a lot more. But is it a competition? Nope. Not at all. That prayer was for anyone who needed it, and I did. I know that God was probably figuratively wringing my neck that whole morning when He kept pushing me to go to that service and I was like, “Nahhh, I’m good.” But now I know why God didn’t take no for an answer and why He made sure I went to that service. And I absolutely believe that because of me and many others in pain in the congregation, God probably weighed on the pastor’s heart to pray that prayer that I had never heard him pray until that day.

Do you know how it feels to know that people are praying for you? It’s unreal. Whether you’re a strong Christian or someone who has gotten away from God or someone that doesn’t even believe, it’s still amazing to know you’re loved enough that someone would pray for you. I honestly can’t even count all the times in my life where prayer has led to exactly what I needed, whether I knew it at the time or not.

I also want any of you out there, believer or not, to know that if you ever need a prayer warrior – if you ever need prayer for any reason, private or public, I’m here. Just shoot me a comment or an e-mail or tweet me, and let me know you need to be prayed for. I’ll be all over it, no questions asked.

Look, I get that you may not believe me. You may not believe that this happened, and you may not believe in the power of prayer. And I get that you may not believe in my God. That’s your right.

But, man, you’re really missing out.

Five Tips to Jump Start Your Writing Session

August 17, 2015 by Emily Dill 2 Comments

[Me sitting in front of my laptop a few months ago and looking super writer-ly. I was probably actually on Facebook.]

Can we be real for a second?

Sometimes it’s more fun to talk about writing than to do the actual writing itself.

Don’t get me wrong, there are times when the words are flowing and you feel like a genius and you think, “Look out, Hollywood, you have no idea what’s coming your way, this is sooo gonna lead to a seven-movie deal and a house on an island.” And then other times, you’d rather clean a 400-foot litter box than write one more word.

Oh, it’s fun to talk about the book you’ll write some day. It’s fun to call ourselves writers and talk about our story ideas, that’s for sure. But there are times when you sit down to write…and then jump up and do about 80 things besides putting words on the digital (or literal) page.

But here’s the secret: once you start the writing process, you’re almost guaranteed to keep writing until something decent appears. And even if the words don’t come out looking decent (even if they come out looking so ugly, you’re scared that looking at them will turn you to stone), hey, that’s where editing comes galloping in.

So the trick is to just do it to it, right? To just start the darn thing?

Correct.

But sometimes that’s the biggest hurdle. So I trick myself occasionally into starting. (I’m way too naive to realize I’m being tricked, even by myself.)

Here are five things I do to jump start my day’s writing process, and maybe one or two of them will work for you. Sometimes doing just one gets me going, and some days I’m a complete monster and have to try almost all five.

1) Make your bed. Look, I know there are some of you out there that have your bed made before your feet even hit the floor in the morning. (The Army called – they miss your work ethic.) And there are some of you who probably haven’t made your bed since you were 7. No judgments either way. But I’ve noticed something interesting: the second I get my bed made in the morning (or afternoon, sometimes coffee and Twitter come first), I feel different. Just looking at that newly-made bed gives me energy and I kind of want to do other productive things. Just try it.

2) Brew up your favorite drink. Or pop open a can, or open the bottle (again, no judgments on this blog). Whatever you love to drink, drink it while you work. For instance, before starting this blog post, I made a pourover cup of strong black coffee and brewed two mugs of hot tea. As soon as I sat all three of those delectable drinks beside my laptop, I was good to go.

3) Plan rewards for reaching certain goals. This may sound crazy, but sometimes I won’t let myself do certain fun things until I’ve accomplished at least something writing-related that day. Like right now, for instance. There’s an Xbox One game I’d really like to be playing – it’s poetry/fairytale-centered and I have a little tutorial pulled up on my phone to help me get all the achievements as I go along. I’d also like to put on Bob’s Burgers for a little while because something is wrong with me lately where I can’t stop watching that show. But, strict dictator that I am, I’m not going to do either of those things until I finish this blog post and then edit the first two chapters of my novel. Whatever works, right?

4) Look at fun ways to spend authorly riches. Hey, we can dream right? We all know that writing isn’t actually a get-rick-quick sort of deal, but the more books/stories you put out there, and the better they are, the better your chances of making a good living from this hobby/torture we all love. My personal favorite indulgence is travel, but you can pick anything you want, you grown-up person, you. There is nothing that makes me want money more than getting online and looking at beach condos, cabins in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, Broadway shows in NYC, and so on. There are so many wonderful things out there that I want to see and do, but it’s up to me to go see/do them. And first, I have to make the money to go. Trust me, ten minutes on Priceline and I’m full of inspiration and energy to polish up my book and make it agent-ready.

5) Tell someone you’re working on your book/blog/whatever you’re writing. This is the meanest thing I do to myself, because I know that once I tell someone that I’m editing/writing, I’ll feel enormous amounts of self-hating guilt until I actually break down and, yep, edit and write. It’s the same trick people advise you to use when losing weight – if you tell your Facebook friends, co-workers, whoever that you’re planning to lose 20 pounds in 6 months, then you’d best get moving buddy, because they’re expecting you to be looking fine in half a year.

Those are just a few ways I motivate myself to start writing, but I’m sure there are hundreds more I’ve never even thought about. I’m always looking for new ways to force myself into being a functional human being, so I’d love for any of you to share any of your tricks with me. Do you try any of these things on yourself? Do you go gentler on yourself? Tougher? Let me know!

Writing Update: What I’m Up To…

August 11, 2015 by Emily Dill 2 Comments

[Oh, how hilarious. This is me totally ignoring my writing projects and reading instead. Ooops, how did that happen.]

I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.

Actually no, I’m behaving myself, thank you very much. My main project, the work-in-progress, is still, well, in progress. I haven’t added much to it lately but have been re-reading early parts and editing a little. I’m pretty sure that’s a terrible idea, but alas, it’s where I’m at right now. I’m less than 10k words from my goal word count, and I almost feel like I have a mental block and refuse to add any more words and risk finishing the dang thing. Any advice for plowing through those last 10,000 words would be much welcomed if you want to heave some my way.

I have two short stories totally completed/edited/revised and ready to be read by an unsuspecting audience. I’ve also randomly started a third one even though AHEM Emily, shouldn’t you finish your novel before starting yet another short story? Pshhhh.

I had the crazy idea the other day to apply for a series on Channillo, and I got accepted yesterday, so that’s something that will be coming from me in a few months (possibly sooner). Click the link and read up on Channillo – it sounds like a wonderful idea, and I’m excited to be a part of it.

I’ve also started sharing some prose/poetry on Prose. You should also click that link and check it out – another great writing site that I’m pretty excited about. They also sent me interview questions a few weeks ago, and I’ll soon appear as one of their Feature Friday spotlights – I’ll let you know when that’s up.

As I’ve mentioned on here before (I think? I don’t know, I’m old), two months ago I left our local school system after working there for 8 years. I decided that it was time for me to work full-time on my writing, but I’ve been struggling with that decision for several weeks now – I kept thinking, UGH I’m not ready, I need to work another year outside the home. But, you’ll be happy (or not, I don’t know your life) to know that I resisted the siren call and stuck to my guns, and am still working only from home on my writing.

And, oh yeah, I’m a top-10 finalist in a Writer’s Digest picture-prompt contest. The winner gets into the magazine early next year, so I’d love if any of you voted for my sentence – it’s letter H, and you just have to say that you’re voting for entry H in the comments or in an e-mail to them. The instructions are on the page, and voting closes August 28th. Thanks so much! So many hugs are coming your way right now. 🙂

And that’s where I’m at with my writing projects right now – Lord willing, my novel will be complete in 4-6 weeks, and I’ll update you every step of the way through the query process. I’ll also share on here as soon as my Channillo series chapters are available or when my short stories are ready to read or download. I hope you all have a wonderful week – do one totally fun and unproductive thing tonight. And if anyone yells at you about it, blame me.

Adventures in Gluten-Free Baking! (This should scare you.)

August 5, 2015 by Emily Dill 2 Comments

All right, people.

I warned you that there would be more coming to this blog besides just writing about writing about writing…and so on. I’m going to start blogging about other things in my life, like travels we go merrily on and food we eat and other things that I promise won’t be as boring as they sound.

As you may or may not know (how dare you not know everything about me), I’ve had to eat totally gluten-free for about a year and a half now. Something happened to my insides when I had my gallbladder removed, which I realize sounds super scientific. But the fact is, after saying bye to that organ, I said hello to rashes, allergies, hives, stomach pain, and lots more every time I ate anything with wheat in it. So after some pretty intense experimenting (which involved me clinging tearfully to donuts yelling YOU CAN’T HAVE THEM), I’ve figured out what works for me. And gluten does not.

It’s not that big of a deal except for the high cost of certain gluten-free foods, but one of the only problems I still deal with is dessert. It’s really, really, REALLY hard to find a cookie or donut or cupcake that tastes the same without gluten. But believe me, I try.

This particular adventure in *drum roll* Gluten-Free Baking! involves a chocolate-chip cookie mix from Immaculate (Honestly Delicious). That’s not my commentary, per se, it’s written on the box. Anyway, the week before this particular adventure, I had tried Immaculate’s sugar cookie mix and the result was nothing less than little pellets of chalk. I’m quite serious. You couldn’t take a bite without little chalky tidits attacking your chin and mouth and shirt and the floor. It was a disaster. Never to be deterred for long, I decided to try the company’s other mix I found, the chocolate-chip cookie mix. As in, regular cookie dough with little chips of chocolate scattered throughout. Right?

[Wah-wahhhhh. Or however one would type that noise that signals defeat.]

*Serious face.* Okay, so this mix INSTANTLY turned to pure chocolate. As in, there weren’t any chips in the mix, just little dustings of brown sugary looking things that instantly exploded as soon as the wet ingredients were added. And here’s what the mix looked like going onto the cookie sheet:

[Momma's little turd nuggets.] — [Momma’s little turd nuggets.]

As someone that does NOT specialize in cooking or baking in any way, I would not blame you if you instantly assumed it was operator error. But I can assure you, shockingly enough, that I did nothing wrong. I’ve made cookies dozens of times in my life, and the directions were extremely simple, and I can’t take the blame for these cookies being 100% chocolate and 0% chip.

[In front of the box so that you can see what a lie the picture in the illustration is. LIES.]

However, I’m a complete optimist, so I said sure, why not, let’s bake these suckers and maybe something mind-blowingly awesome will happen when the heat hits them and they’ll come out in perfect little cookie/chip ratios.

Ahem, cough, where are the chips, cough cough.

Or not. But you know what, they tasted great. And super chocolatey. Like, if these had been billed and sold as double-chocolate or double-fudge cookies as they should have been, I would have been ecstatic. Because as chocolate cookies, they killed the game.

So no, they weren’t chocolate chip (or even close, like does this company know what chocolate chip is supposed to be even?), but guess what, I ate the dang things and they satisfied my chocolate craving, so I still give them much higher marks than the company’s sugar cookie mix.

[Last picture - me just saying, you know what, screw it, these will do.] — [Last picture – me just saying, you know what, screw it, these will do.]

And so, until the next time we go adventuring in gluten-free baking – stay awesome! (And also, maybe don’t lie to me about cookies because I know my chocolate chips, man, and those aren’t chocolate chip cookies. They just aren’t.)

Guess Who’s Back, Back Again..

July 20, 2015 by Emily Dill 2 Comments

HAHA.

Sorry, I had to laugh.

You know how last month I posted about how crazy life has been and that I haven’t had time to update but that I would start posting again soon, etc etc?

Apparently life took that as a challenge, because three weeks ago my husband was driving my car (my beloved 2010 Nissan Altima) and he was T-boned by an uninsured driver. The main thing is that he walked away fine except for a sore side/bruises from a side airbag, but the car was demolished. So we said, wow, that stinks, but at least we have Jason’s (my husband) 15-year-old BMW as a backup until insurance settles this.

And again, haha.

The very next day (oh yes, the day after the wreck), his BMW died on one of the busiest roads in our town, and it took a week to fix and over $1200. So for about a week we were carless, which can make settling things with insurance, car shopping, and running errands quite interesting. Thankfully, my mom let us borrow her vehicle any time we wanted, and within two weeks, we had his BMW back and a beautiful 2013 Hyundai Sonata for me. (It’s divine. And the gas efficiency? Squuuueal.)

BUT. I come to you again, on my knees, begging forgiveness (and trying not to tempt life into smacking me in the head again).

Life is almost back to normal now, and after 4-5 weeks away, I’m almost ready to finish my novel. I’d gotten up to 76k words before all of this happened, and I haven’t felt like writing one single word in about a month and a half. But after much-needed time away, I’m ready to spend August and September completing the draft and finishing all revisions. And then? *whispers* Submission time.

I’ve also decided that since I don’t have much to post on here regarding my writing, I’m going to treat this blog not only as an aspiring writer’s blog, but also as a personal blog, where I can ramble about amazing trips we’ve taken, go off on tangents about my sports teams, give advice on the things I actually consider myself a semi-expert on (gluten-free eating and reading fall pretty high on that list), and ask for your opinions.

So thanks for sticking with me through this crazy year, and I can’t wait to put my book in your hands one day. 🙂 (And in the creepiest way, too. Like, you’re going to wake up some night and I’ll be smiling at you from your bedside and I’ll slowly place my book into your hands then back away. You’ve been warned.)