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I was cringing to myself just now as I wrote the title to this blog post. I have been a writer since I was six years old and I admit openly that my grammar is atrocious.  I am a 35 year old graduate of New York University. I have completed half of my masters degree in counseling and I still do not know the difference between "affect" and "effect." Some of this can be easily blamed on the New York City public school system circa 1987. I can remember having a handful of spelling tests, but grammar? What's that? In junior high school I remember learning about declarative and interrogative sentences. Other than that, I never learned how to use a comma correctly. I was 25 years old when I was properly introduced to the semicolon. I still have problems with it. We don't get along that well and I pretend I know what I'm doing when I stick it in a sentence, but really I have no fucking idea. I'm hoping, now that my son is in the NYC public school system, that things have changed for the better with regard to grammar instruction. I would like for him [...]

Every single time I enter the Target at Barclay's Center, I have to brace myself. There might be an item I can't find. If this should occur, I won't have anyone to help me. You see, each and every time I've tried to find someone who actually works at this Target location to help me...there is no one wearing a red shirt in sight. In fact, I have mistakenly asked people who were shopping at Target, who were wearing red shirts, to help me find the Soft Soap or a pair of earrings. Today, my friend Erin was visiting New York from Canada. We went to Target on a mission. We were seeking postcards. For some reason, none of the local stores in my neighborhood had any postcards. It was bizarre, but I was convinced that Target had the answer to our postcard shortage. We entered the Brooklyn Target in the Atlantic Center mall and immediately I spotted a man in a red shirt. As soon as he turned around, I recognized him from a previous encounter we'd had. The other day, I bought my six year old, Ari, a giant Lego set. As we were checking out at the register, the [...]

I am the mother of a six year-old child whose favorite foods I can count on one hand. He will not touch oatmeal, he is not interested in steak, he doesn't like mustard, and he cannot be bothered to eat a pea. This is my life, people! I live with a picky eater. When the announcement for Adam Mansbach's new book You Have to F**king Eat came out, I was elated. Finally, someone is telling the truth about what it's like to try to feed small children. I cannot explain how many times I've wanted to throw a bowl of spaghetti across the room because my child refused to eat it due to the fact that it had sauce on it. You see, he only eats pasta with parmesan cheese. Here are some eloquent words from Mansbach's tale of parental truth: The sunrise is golden and lovely, the birds chirp and twitter and tweet You woke me up and asked me for some breakfast, So why the fuck won't you eat? Adam, have you secretly been in my kitchen Sunday mornings? Because my entire life is on this page. This book speaks my truth. Both of my children have said these words [...]

My children don't know what Facebook is; they have no idea. They are currently ages three and six. I'm elated that this is the case. They have no reason to know about Facebook. They are children. I want them to do the things that children do, like draw pictures with crayons, go to the playground, have play dates with friends, sing songs, and dance in the rain, weather-permitting. Facebook is not for children. It is a place where adults can keep in touch with one another. It is a place to share relevant news articles. Facebook is a centralized location on the Internet where we can discuss current events. It is not a place where children should be spending time browsing. This is my personal opinion as a parent. Many people will disagree with me on this. I've seen parents create Facebook profiles for their children. That is their personal preference. I will not do this for my kids, because I do not want them spending time on the Internet when they do not fully comprehend what they are looking at and the implications of it. I do share photographs of my children on Facebook when they do cute things. I share videos of my [...]

Jenni Chiu wrote about taking the word feminist back. She calls it the F-Word. Feminism has become a word that people are afraid to identify with in our society and that is a shame, because being a feminist is a beautiful thing. True feminists believe that men and women are equal. A feminist is someone who subscribes to gender equality. Men and woman should have equal rights. I believe in human rights. I believe that men and woman are equal so therefore, I am a proud feminist. Check out the hashtag #IAmAFeminist on Twitter. Let's reclaim the word feminist as something wonderful.

Doyin Richards is my friend. He's a cool dude who is raising two girls in southern California. In case you were wondering, his name is pronounced Do-ween. On the land known as the Internet, you may recognize him from his blog "Daddy Doin' Work," where I had the pleasure of guest posting. You also might remember the viral photo of him doing his daughter's hair while holding his other baby girl in the Ergo carrier. Doyin is a "Daddy Doin' Work." He believes in being an involved parent, an active role model in his girls' lives and simply doing the work it takes to be a father. Image from Daddy Doin work Facebook Page  He's written a book by the same title: Daddy Doin' Work, where his intention is to empower both mothers and fathers to be better parents. His concept has ruffled a few parental feathers, but I dig what he has to say.According to Doyin, there are three types of dads:1. Daddies Doin Nothing: These are men who literally do nothing in the way of parenting their kids. They are typically unemployed and sit at home all day while their partner is at a full time job busting their ass [...]

You're a writer. You're a writer if your mind feels ignited by an idea and you must find a way to transmit that idea from your brain to paper, notebook, computer. You're a writer if there are words in you that are dying to be heard. These words. You can't stop them. You can't hide them. You need to express these words. That's a writer. A writer doesn't stop thinking. A writer never stops feeling. Writers want to be heard. But... often writers silence themselves. Should I say it? Should I tell that story? Who will it hurt? I don't want my words to hurt the people I love. Words hurt. In the process of self-expression we're releasing emotions. Those emotions are in a protected treasure chest. When the chest is unlocked those emotional gemstones are so bright they hurt the eye to look at them. Look away, I don't want to see that.  I cannot un-see that.  Once the eye adjusts it can see. It hurt at first, but now I see...those stones are beautiful. They are filled with tiny crystals of feeling that sparkle in the daylight. They are grateful to be released. So open your treasure chest. Tell your story. [...]

"Damn girl, is all that yours? Let me get some, just a little bit. I'll marry you!" It was the year 2000. I was 19. I was walking down 4th Avenue in Brooklyn. I was wearing a black shirt and jeans. A man yelled those words at me. He spoke to me as if I were holding a delicious piece of cake in my hands. Only, it wasn't food he was after. He was commenting on my body. As he yelled these words down the city block I was mortified. His two friends that were standing next to him slapped him five while they laughed and whistled at me. I folded my arms over my breasts to try (unsuccessfully) to cover them. I can still hear the words in my mind. Let me get some, just a little bit. I felt my face become hot with embarrassment. I've heard the argument that women should be "flattered" when men yell these sorts of compliments at them as they're walking down a city street. Personally, I just wanted to get to the store and buy a coffee. I wasn't looking for unsolicited comments on my body. When I saw the viral video where a woman [...]

J.C. Hannigan is a novelist that writes plot driven romance and suspense novels. Collide is her first novel. Tell us about Collide. Collide is about a broken girl who has closed herself off from the world around her...until she falls hard for her 12th grade English teacher. He is drawn to her too, and they embark on a forbidden pathway...a relationship with one another. Harlow finds herself in a situation where she has to decide whether to risk it all to do the right thing, or keep silent to protect her relationship. What inspired you to write Collide? This is a tough question to answer...the essence of a broken girl and a forbidden relationship. I was inspired by secrets and pain and learning to love and let people in.  Describe Harlow in one sentence. Harlow is reactive and guarded, but she is also compassionate and brave...she isn't a doormat and she won't let corrupt police scare her away from doing the right thing, even if it puts her relationship and creditability at risk. Describe Iain in three words. Delicious. Conflicted. Caring. You meet Harlow in a cafe. What is she drinking and why? Coffee. Harlow suffers from insomnia and is [...]

This morning my 3 and 3/4 year old daughter and I were about to leave the house to get on New Jersey Transit for visit a dear friend of mine. She came racing down the hallway with a giant pink suitcase. "You can't take that with you. It's too big for the bus." I told her. "We're only going for one day. "I want to take Ana." She whined referring to her doll from the Disney smash hit, Frozen. I took a deep breath in and told her "you can take Ana, but put her in your backpack instead." She cried and stomped her feet. "No! I want this!" She insisted pointing to the gigantic suitcase. I continued to breathe and repeated myself: "You can take Ana in your backpack." She whined and cried for a few minutes and then suddenly, she stopped. "Where's my backpack?" She inquired with a pouted lip. My muscles relaxed, and I sighed with relief. Then it hit me. When she was screaming about the damn pink suitcase I thought it was going to go on forever. She was never going to give it up. We would be standing there for all eternity staring into the [...]

Sunday 2:00pm My six year old son Ari started crying. "What's wrong?" I asked " I really want to see Equestria Girls 2. You said we could see it today." It was true. I did tell him that we would see this My Little Pony based film on a Sunday. Unfortunately, when I searched online for where it was playing near us, I only came up with one movie theater: Bayonne Jersey at 3pm. It was now 2:05pm. We live in Brooklyn and I have no sense of time so I called the movie theater and asked them how long it would take to get to Bayonne. "Hi, how long will it take to get to Bayonne from Brooklyn?" I asked the movie theater person on the other end. "Is there any chance we can make the 3pm show of Equestria Girls 2? Are there still tickets left?" "Oh yeah, you'll probably miss the first 10 minutes but you'll make it. I've only sold a couple of tickets so you're fine." He went on to give me directions to the theater that involved taking the PATH train and some other mysterious train called "the light rail." So at 2:10pm I [...]

A prerequisite to being a writer is this: you must have some significant level of self-doubt or insecurity. You must question your ability to mold words into a thought-provoking sentence. Everything you write is up for criticism by you. I often think to myself: This is crap. What am I writing? That doesn't sound good. No one is going to "get" that. What I am I doing here and where the hell are my pants? Is it necessary to wear pants here? Is there a dress code? Who invited me anyway? It was probably a mistake. I got the invitation by accident. The mail-person put it in the wrong box. It was for apartment #2. Despite the fact that I am painfully insecure and I'm always concerned that you're staring at the yogurt stain on my shirt, I keep writing anyway. I think about the novels I've read with insecure protagonists. There are so many of them. It must be a thing. Writers doubt themselves, their words, their talent, their ability to create a mood, a scene or tell a compelling story. That's me. I'm in the abyss of self-doubt, because I don't know what to say, so I'm saying that. I'm not going to [...]

Faith is jumping before you know if there is soft ground to land on. It's leaping hoping that someone will catch you in their arms. Faith is knowing that ultimately, things are going to be all right. Everything is going to work out. Faith is trusting in yourself. I listened to myself. I trusted my intuition. I jumped. He had faith in me, because I had faith in me. I reached for it. I wanted it. I got it. Today I believe in me. Tomorrow I believe in you.

I'm taking a prompt from Rachel Thompson and I am writing what scares me. Confession: I let other what other people think of me determine my worth. If it seems like someone is angry with me or "doesn't like me" I feel awful inside. I am having a day like that today. Today I am feeling badly about myself because of the way that I believe that other people see me. I'm trying to search for the parts of myself that I like. But I feel like "a failure," and "a burden to others," and "not a great adult," whatever that means. I'm having a rough self-esteem day. I have been called these things by others. The first step to healing from these feelings is to recognize that they are not accurate representations of who I am. In reality, I'm not a failure, a "bad adult" or "a burden." But the feelings surround me like black clouds taunting me. You can't do it. They say. Give up You can't keep a full time job They are pesky mean little trolls that tell me I'm worthless. And these trolls are bouncing around inside my brain. The trolls are laughing at me while they stand [...]