It takes a village. A common phrase when speaking of raising kids. I believe it also applies to nursing. Nurses have many roles in healthcare. More than the departments that they work in: emergency room, ICU, home health. Hospital workers have unique personalities that join together and create a community. There is no one-size-fits-all for ...

When does a grown-up learn to express themselves in a manner acceptable to society? Imagine me, a 33-year-old, enters a coffee shop, and screams, “I WANT COFFEE.” I continue to shout, “I WANT COFFEE” for 15 minutes. Fellow coffee drinkers scoot further away from me, in case I am mentally insane. Others stare, mouth agape, ...

Kids seem to have a bottomless pit of questions.  “Mommy, do you like it?” “Daddy, look! Is it beautiful?” “Did I do a good job?” “I made it for you.” Youngsters seek positive affirmation from their parents starting from the moment they are born. Erik Erikson, a renowned psychologist, identifies eight stages of psychosocial development ...

One of the classes I took during undergrad was Censorship. The purpose of the seminar was to overcome the hesitation of writing about topics that each writer avoided out of fear and judgment. It influenced me so much that I took it twice. The program was taught by Don De Grazia. He wrote a book ...

I grew up in a household with a lot of yelling. My dad shouted at me. My siblings and I screamed at each other. We were raised with loud words as our primary method of communication during conflict. Our family had no tools to maintain calm. This made us feel scared. We feared our dad ...

Dreams are wonderful. They motivate people to accomplish things they never considered before. A person can stay on course if they continue to chase a goal. People with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often tend to get into new hobbies or activities for a while and then drop them. This is known as hyperfocus. Ever ...

The past few months have been an intense period of self-reflection. World events force people to have an opinion on something that takes the brain a while to fully understand. It makes one question their values. Personally, I am left with a few realizations about my career and the type of author I want to ...

February is the month of gray and the month of love all wrapped up into one. Did someone plan this phenomenon? I believe it is all a plan to get us through the last cold, gray month of winter before the promise of spring lies before us. Some may call it a capitalist ploy to ...

Sometimes, when I write, I get nervous about what my readers will think if I decide to change the course of the story. They won’t know what changes were made unless I tell them. The draft may not convey the same story. Why concern yourself with future opinions? These are reasons you can’t write. Comparison  ...

New story ideas are one of the best moments in a writer’s life. It’s a new adventure to take, new lessons to learn, and new characters to meet. You feel alive, like you can’t wait to see how the story will unfold. Where do you start? Here are a few places that are fun to ...