Author: Krista Tibbs

Krista Tibbs studied neuroscience at MIT. She once had a job that involved transplanting pig cells into live human brains. She had another job that gave her clearance to the White House. Her books, The Neurology of Angels and Reflections and Tails, are mostly not about those things. Learn more about Krista from her blog, and her Amazon author page.

Being Merely a Reader

Conventional wisdom says that as soon as you publish one book you should write the next. The point of this advice is understandable: don’t obsess about who’s buying your work, don’t rest on your laurels, build your backlog, be professional and proliferative. To tell you the truth, though, the idea of diving into another novel right now makes me want to cry. I’m exhausted. I imagine it’s like being in a delivery room after a natural childbirth while the goo is still being sucked from the nose of your newborn and before the endorphins have kicked in, hearing your husband say, “Let’s have another one. Or two. Or ten.” People have been murdered for less.

I don’t really want to commit a capital crime, so I’ve decided to ignore conventional wisdom for a while and shut off the stories in my head to go back to something I used to love: reading. For pleasure. Switching off the computer and all of the lights and curling up to spend half the night turning the pages to find out what happens or just to be wrapped in the atmosphere of the words. Continue reading “Being Merely a Reader”

If someone you care about just wrote a book….

I have never been comfortable sounding my own horn, so my first two books slipped into the world with minimal fanfare. But for my third book, I have a list of a hundred rooftops from which I plan to shout, because it took many years and tears to write (and rewrite), and I want my characters to find the people who will love their story like I do.

For that and other reasons, I considered launching the book with an actual, in-person event. The problem was that when I mentioned the idea of throwing a party to a couple of people close to me, they said, “What for?” Of course, I thought it would be a fun way to thank everyone who has encouraged me and to introduce them to my new story at the same time. However, that question clarified something I hadn’t realized: Writing a book isn’t considered a life event. After all, it’s not like I had a baby or got married or bought a house or lived another decade. Continue reading “If someone you care about just wrote a book….”

Possibilities

A short story
by Krista Tibbs

Some might say it is cowardly to want to hold onto your dreams, but Jefferson Roosevelt Jones disagreed. Dreams are like hope, as long as you appreciate them for what they are and don’t let them take over your life. As long as you never let them sour.

So Jefferson lived alone, because no relationship was as good as his imagination. He did his work and collected his paycheck and went home, never expecting anything more. He carved his chess sets as if for royalty, but he never let them leave the hobby room where they were shielded from the light of reality. Then he allowed himself a few hours a week to indulge in thinking If Only. Continue reading “Possibilities”

Online Editing Tools: Can They Fix Your Grammarly?

Since half of writing is editing, there is a definite appeal to the idea of online tools that can help with the process. But no matter how good a computer algorithm is, it cannot write a novel. Call me master of the obvious, but based on anecdotes I have heard recently, the obvious needed to be stated. Apparently, some folks expect the sophistication of an online program to be on par with Jeopardy!’s Watson so they can sit back and drink margaritas while the program automatically fixes everything that doesn’t conform to the Chicago Manual of Style–and all for the low, low price of $29.95. Continue reading “Online Editing Tools: Can They Fix Your Grammarly?”