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Sunday Snippet: The Annnd… We’re Off! Edition
And so we are. Today, Liz and I are headed down to the hills of Southern Indiana for a writing retreat–our annual winter event. This is our third January retreat. We stay in a beautiful and comfortable inn in the center of the cute little town of Nashville. The Artist’s Colony Inn is the perfect place for a winter retreat with large cozy rooms and a fab restaurant, plus breakfast is included with our room. Our first Nashville retreat was in 2022 and we happened upon the Artist’s Colony after our original hotel turned out to be … well, not really prepared for our visit. Anyway, we scooted into town,…
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Sunday Snippet: The Introducing the Walker Family & a Giveaway Edition
Winner!! Sue Farmer, your name was selected from the comments as the recipient of an e-book copy of Home to River’s Edge and a $5 gift Amazon gift card! I’m sending you an email! Wow–I can’t believe January is nearly half over, can you? Or that it’s time to start promotion on the new River’s Edge series The Walkers of River’s Edge. Y’all know the Walkers, they’ve been around in other stories, including Home to River’s Edge. Jazz Weaver fell in love with Eli Walker, and at the end of Christmas in River’s Edge, Jenny and Gabe attended Jazz and Eli’s wedding on New Year’s Day. The other Walkers have…
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Sunday Snippet: The I Shall Thole Edition
It’s here. The New Year. It snowed yesterday and I opened the front door to take a picture and to inhale the crisp, cold scent of it. Snow brings a hush to the world and peace to my heart. So many people my age leave the state for warmer climes and I totally don’t get it. I like the change of seasons here in the Midwest, I don’t mind the snow–I don’t even mind being stuck inside if the snow makes travel hazardous. I’m writing the third book in The Walkers of River’s Edge series. It’s Cameron and Harper’s story and it’s coming hard, I confess. I’m not sure why…
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Sunday Snippet: The Merry Christmas Edition
Mes Amis, it’s Christmas Eve. I’m all ready for the holiday except for Husband making his famous cranberry Christmas cake for tomorrow’s celebration at Son and DIL’s house. Tonight Sister PJ and BIL will be here with us for our traditional chicken-and-noodles Christmas Eve supper. We’ll go to candlelight service after supper and then come back here for presents and dessert. It’s been a pretty low-key holiday season so far, and you know, I’m fine with that. 2023 is almost over and I’m fine with that, too. It’s been a busy year; 2024 is probably going to be busy as well. I don’t do resolutions anymore. I don’t like that…
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Sunday Snippet: The Holiday Reprise Edition
Mes, Amies, it’s been a long week and I didn’t get to writing my snippet this week, so you get a repeat. It’s one of my personal favorites, so I hope you enjoy… Despite struggling financially, my mom always made the holidays a treat for me and my sibs. We always had a Christmas tree, the house was always filled with the scent of cookies baking and there was always, always music. Oh, the music of it all! Mom would go to the Firestone store or to the Marathon gas station every year and pick up their annual Christmas album to play on our old console stereo. Remember when a…
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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…