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Sunday Snippet: The And We’re Off… Edition
…like a herd of turtles. Yup, we are! Liz and I are headed for a writing retreat this morning, so this is a necessarily quick post. We booked a VRBO in, of all places, Bardstown, Kentucky. No idea why we chose that place except that we’d never been there and it looked charming, so we thought, why not? The plan is to write, write, write–I need to get words in on the second book in my Walkers of River’s Edge series. Joey and Kara’s story is percolating away in my head, it just needs to come out the ends of my fingers! Liz is working on a women’s fiction story,…
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Sunday Snippet: The Wow, What a Week Edition
And it was indeed, mes amies, quite a week! Author Nan has had a pretty cool time this past week. Right off, the story for Joey and Kara–book 2 in the Walkers of River Edge series is underway and so far, I’m liking it. Right now, the best part is researching garden shops and nurseries and plants. Wow. So much to learn to write these two characters. It’s a shame I don’t retain too much of what I learn in this research, isn’t it? Next, the Authors Over 50 podcast I did with Julia Daily ,back in April, dropped on Thursday and I sound halfway intelligent, which is always a…
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Sunday Snippet: The What the Heck Happened to Summer? Edition
Seriously… how is it already August 6? I mean, wasn’t it just May and Husband and I were looking forward to our 50th anniversary trip to Oregon and I was busy making plans with my writer pal Carol Light for our trip to San Juan Capistrano and the Tule Author Retreat and checking with my sibs for a visit to my brother’s in Woodland Hills? I’m sure that was just a week ago… Yikes! Oregon is a fond, wistful memory now. The Tule Author Retreat remains ingrained in my heart and mind as a wondrous time with fellow authors and editors and the Tule team, as well as a fun…
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Sunday Snippet: The I’m Really Tired and I Got Nothin’ Edition
I’m not going to whine, even though I feel like I could. Isn’t it funny, though, how you can’t seem to catch up on sleep? Why, do you suppose? I mean, it makes sense to me that if you miss some sleeping time, then sleeping more later should fix it. But things don’t seem to work out like that. Right now, I feel like I could sleep for a week, but I can’t do that, so here I am. On the upside, I’m at the lake, I’ve gotten to swim several times this week with friend Moe and Grandboy and Son, and we had time with our kids up here.…
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Sunday Snippet: The How Does It Happen Edition
It’s July. How did that happen? I’ve been married for 50 years! How did that happen? Grandboy is 11. How did that happen? I’ve got 14 published novels and another two on the way in 2023, plus I’m contracted to write four more books for Tule. Whew–how did that happen? I’ll be 70 in two months, how the hell did that happen? Can you tell I’m a little overwhelmed with… well, life stuff and work stuff at the moment? I am, yet I go on ahead and do what needs doing because don’t we all? Right now, it’s all about the writing… People ask me all the time, “How do…
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Sunday Snippet: The Whine, Then Find the Sunshine Edition
It’s been a tough week. My shoulder hurts, really aches, from spending so much time in front of my computer, working on editing gigs and writing Jack and Maddie’s story. Son is dealing with a lot of stuff that I wish so much I could take off his plate, but I can’t. I can only listen. (Even when they’re in their forties, your mom instincts kick in.) We’re doing work on the lake cottage, making choices about where we want to spend refurbishing dollars this year, except that those dollars now have to be shared with medicine expenses because I hit the damn doughnut hole with my heart meds this…
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Sunday Snippet: The No Thanks to Aging Edition
Been thinking about aging, particularly after the neighborhood yard sale we had this weekend. So many of the folks participating were our age or older and as anxious as us to purge some of the stuff they’d had in their homes forever and a day. Ironically, a lot of the people wandering the ‘hood buying the stuff the rest of us were getting rid of were… wait for it… people our age. Go figure, right? A few years ago, when Husband and I moved from our home of 37 years to our new place here in the ‘hood, we did a major purge. Like truly big. A wonderful group of…
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Sunday Snippet: The Spring Fever Edition
Mushy mind—it’s a thing and wow, do I have it right now. I have a very bad case of mind mush—my ability to focus and function is seriously out of whack. I’m not sure if it’s spring fever or what, but fact is, I’m just not able to focus on much of anything right now. I think I’ve mentioned before, probably in the spring, that my grandmother used to say she was muzzy—isn’t that a great word? I’m muzzy. I’ve got four books to write for Tule Publishing in the next two years and my heart frequently stops (not really!) at the thought. I’m about 15K words into Jack Walker’s…
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Sunday Snippet: The I’m Dawdling Edition
And so I am…it’s been a lazy Sunday so far, to the extent that I’m just now writing my Sunday Snippet for this week. Truthfully, the week has been… well… busy, so a dawdle or two is in order today. Right off, happy birthday to darling Husband, who turned 74 last week and is still the hottest guy I know. We celebrated with the neighbors on Wednesday night with spice cake and wine and then again on Thursday with the kiddos. I made beef stew and we had the best Italian bread and more spice cake and wine. All in all, turning another year older was mostly painless for him,…
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Sunday Snippet: The Whoo-Hoo! Edition
Yup, I’m doing a happy dance! [Imagine Snoopy here–I don’t feel like looking for a free meme.] This week I received a new four-book (4 books!!) contract from my amazing publisher, Tule Publishing and I can’t find words big enough to express my excitement. I love working with Tule, both as author and as a copy editor. The folks at Tule are the absolute best friend an author (or a CE) can have–supportive, giving, kind, generous with their thoughts and ideas–all the things an author could want in a publisher. So… I’m ecstatic and can’t wait for y’all to meet the Walkers. The guys first showed up in The Valentine…