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Written with Veridion Smart

There are some things writers will do for a story that make absolutely no sense to normal people.

We’ll drive for hours to look at a building that may only appear in one paragraph. We’ll stand in the middle of nowhere taking pictures of rocks. We’ll walk through old towns, abandoned buildings, museums, cemeteries, battlefields, and places where absolutely nothing appears to be happening and think, “Oh, my God. This is perfect!”

Texas is the most amazing place to set a...

*Written with Veridion Smart

There are some dates that stay with you. You don’t have to look at a calendar to know what they mean. You don’t have to be reminded of where you were or what you were doing. The date itself can bring back a feeling, a picture, a voice, or a moment you thought you had buried somewhere in the back of your mind. I think of the date JFK was assassinated, or the date the rocket Challenger exploded…

September 11 is another one of those dates.

For those of us who were old...

*Written with Veridion Smart

Some stories are planned. Others simply refuse to leave you alone. I’ve learned that the difference matters.

When I first began writing TIP THE PIANO MAN, I didn’t think, ‘I’m going to write this novel.’ In fact, I wasn’t even thinking much about writing a novel at all.

I was too angry to write, and I lived with that anger for a long time.

In 1984, when we discovered that our little girl had been molested for almost four years by a close family friend, someone we had...

*Written with Veridion Smart

There is something strangely deceptive about comfort. It feels safe. Familiar. Predictable. And sometimes, that’s exactly what we need. After a difficult season, a little peace can feel like a gift. We all need places where we can breathe, regroup, and simply be ourselves.

But there is another side to comfort that we don’t always recognize. Sometimes our comfort zone becomes a prison. Not a prison with bars or locked doors, but one lined with velvet. A place so...

*By Rosetta Diane Hoessli, written with Veridion Smart

There are seasons when writing flows so naturally that the words seem to know where they’re going before you do. Then there are seasons like this one, when life quietly closes your laptop, asks you to look up, and reminds you that some stories must be lived before they can ever be written.

The past several weeks has been filled with interruptions just like those.

Texas weather has reminded us that we’re never quite as much in control as we’...

*By Rosetta Diane Hoessli, written with Veridion Smart

Sometimes history isn’t remembered because it was written in books. Sometimes it’s remembered because someone around the dinner table told the story one more time.

This Fourth of July, America celebrated 250 years. That number is almost impossible to comprehend. Two-and-a-half centuries of victories and failures, of ordinary people doing extraordinary things, of families building homes, raising children, grieving losses, celebrating...

*By Rosetta Diane Hoessli, written with Veridion Smart

There should probably be a more elegant word for how I’ve been feeling lately. But honestly?

Discombobulated works just fine.

Over the last several weeks, life has been wonderfully full. Family came. Old friends visited. We traveled. We laughed. We watched basketball games that nearly required medical intervention. We made memories I wouldn’t trade for anything. Then everyone left.

And suddenly there were bills on the counter.

Laundry.

Emails....

*By Rosetta Diane Hoessli, written with Veridion Smart

Sometimes strange things happen when old friends come to visit after a long absence. Places you stopped noticing years ago suddenly come alive again. The roads you drive every day feel different. The restaurants you take for granted somehow become memorable again. The old buildings, little diners, museums, ranches, horses grazing in open country, even the smell of the air after a Texas storm – all of it begins to feel new because you’re...

*By Rosetta Diane Hoessli, written with Veridion Smart

There’s a quiet belief that many writers hold onto: If the story is good enough, it will find its way. Then somehow, without effort or intention, the right reader will magically appear.

Sometimes that’s actually true. Think Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell, who wrote that amazing novel primarily for her own amusement while she was recovering from a chronic illness.

Think A River Runs Through it and Other Stories, a beautifully...

*By Rosetta Diane Hoessli, written with Veridion Smart

There are the stories we write…and the stories we almost didn’t.

You know the stories I’m talking about. The ones we hesitate over, the ones that feel too close, too real, too revealing. The ones that don’t feel like fiction at all. Every writer knows that moment where the truth begins to press a little too hard against the surface, where the story starts asking something back from you. It doesn’t want skill, or structure. It wants honesty....

*By Rosetta Diane Hoessli, written with Veridion Smart

There was a time when writers could simply write. They could pour their hearts into a story, send it off to a publisher, and trust that the people responsible for bringing books into the world would also help bring readers to them.

For a handful of authors, that world still exists. For most of us, it doesn’t.

Today, whether we’re self-published or traditionally published, writers are asked to wear many hats. We are storytellers,...

*By Rosetta Diane Hoessli, written with Veridion Smart

Before any book finds its readers, it begins with a difficult question. In the case of TIP THE PIANO MAN, the story was inspired by real events that refused to let me look away. While working on this novel, I often found myself reflecting on the kinds of stories that challenge us rather than simply entertain us, the ones that force us to sit with uncomfortable truths while still searching for meaning. The following reflection grew out of...

*By Rosetta Diane Hoessli, written with Veridion Smart

Writers like to imagine ideal conditions. Silence. Time. Clear mental space. But real life rarely cooperates. Sometimes the house is loud. Sometimes grief sits too close. Sometimes the world keeps intruding when all you want is stillness. And yet, stories continue to surface.

Writing doesn’t always happen despite chaos. Sometimes it happens inside it.

In my house, the romantic month of February is more than chaotic. It’s loud, and...

*By Rosetta Diane Hoessli, written with Veridion Smart

There comes a moment in writing when something quietly shifts. You sit down with a plan, a scene, a direction, a tidy intention – and suddenly the characters refuse to cooperate. They pause where you expected movement. They speak words you didn’t outline. They make choices that feel… inconvenient.

And yet, truer.

This is often when writers panic. I’m losing control. But seasoned storytellers know better. This is the moment when the story...

*By Rosetta Diane Hoessli, written with Veridion Smart

There’s a moment that every long-form writer reaches often without realizing it at first - when the story quietly shifts hands. You may have begun with a plan. A plot outline. A destination clearly marked on the map.

But then, one day, a character says something you didn’t expect. Or refuses to do what you told them to do. Or walks straight off the page and into territory you never intended to explore. And that’s when you know: You’re no...

*By Rosetta Diane Hoessli

I’m goal-oriented and a self-starter, but I have no use for New Year’s resolutions. If I’m honest, I’ll tell you that I think they’re a waste of time.

As I write this, I’m fighting my annual case of the crud and I’m completely deaf in one ear, my eyeballs are pounding and unfocused, and my lungs burn like they’re going to explode. My brain is a fuzzy combination of cold medication and pain relievers. So, right now I couldn’t set a goal even if I wanted to. I couldn’t...

By Rosetta Diane Hoessli

Most of my instructors in high school were pretty good, and some were downright comical without meaning to be, but my freshman English teacher was stupendous. I’ve never had a teacher as magnificent as she was, before or since. Her name was Celina Rios (Miss Rios to her students), she was young and beautiful, and every jock in school signed up for her English class just because they wanted to look at her.

But to those of us who were serious about academia…well, that...

*By Rosetta Diane Hoessli

Before I get started here, please let me thank VERIDION SMART again for their help with my blog during the last two months. You guys were wonderful, Johnny-On-the-Spot with deadlines (very important to this old journalist), and gave me so much to think about! I appreciate you more than I can say.

But, now, it’s time for me to get back to work!

My husband, Kevin, and I have gone on two research trips up to the gorgeous canyonlands of Texas (one in October of 2024, and...

*By Rosetta Diane Hoessli, written with Veridion Smart

There are some realities too painful to face head-on. We avoid them in conversation. We turn away when news headlines break our hearts. We even convince ourselves they happen ‘somewhere else’ to ‘someone else.’

But fiction refuses to let us look away.

When we step into a story, we do so willingly. We open ourselves up to experiences we might otherwise resist. That’s why novels like TIP THE PIANO MAN matter so deeply. The story of child...

*By Rosetta Diane Hoessli, written with Veridion Smart

When people learn that much of my writing is rooted in trauma, they often ask: Doesn’t it hurt to revisit those shadows? My answer is always, Yes, but…no.

Yes, because pain doesn’t disappear simply because we give it words. It lingers, it aches, and sometimes it sneaks up on us in the middle of a sentence. But no, because writing transforms pain into something else: Connection. Meaning. Hope.

When I wrote TIP THE PIANO MAN, I wasn’t just...