Latest News

When I became pregnant with my daughter, I realized that not only was I, in essence, giving life to another person, but I would also be giving this person their first however many firsts. There are a lot of things that we do so often, even unthinkingly, that we may forget that there was once a time that we were trying it for the first time. My first breath, my first experience of the sun, my first step, my first wound, my first haircut, and the list goes on and on.

The older I become, there seem to be fewer moments of experiencing things for the first time. So, I made a promise to myself that every year, I would deliberately set out to try at least one fun/good/interesting thing for the first time.

Since then, I have experienced my first rodeo, my first drive-through car wash, my first taste of Lebanese breakfast, among others. To be fair, I also experienced some not-so-fun firsts such as my first ride in an ambulance.

At the beginning of 2020, my husband and I both took the Jeopardy! online test. It was the last of their scheduled tests (right before they launched the Jeopardy! Anytime test). I only took it because my husband said he wouldn’t take it otherwise, and I really wanted him to be on Jeopardy. We’d been fans of the show for a very long time (my daughter loves the Jeopardy! final question music), so it was also something fun to do together, a date night of sorts.

Months later, I get an email inviting me back for an audition, and long story short, I was able to add “being a Jeopardy! contestant” to my list of firsts for 2020. The whole process was a really interesting experience (especially in the midst of the COVID pandemic).

What does any of this have to do with writing? It’s not like you’re only allowed to write what you know, right? Yes, however, instead of breadth, I would say that new experiences give more depth to my writing in the following ways:

Read More »Jeopardy!, and what new experiences bring to writing