Writer's moments
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Sunday (Whoops, Thursday) Snippet: The Happy New Year Edition
Today is the first day of 2026, and frankly, I’m skipping resolutions and a word for the year and planning all the ways I’m going to succeed and be amazing this year. My plan for 2026 is to simply survive another year of this regime. Well, okay, not simply survive, I also intend to do what I can do to resist and get educated on how I can best fight for our Constitution and the rule of law. That might mean donating to causes, marching in protests, and voting in important elections, but it won’t mean posting and reposting that resistance on Facebook. On Facebook, I’m preaching to the choir.…
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Sunday Snippet: The December Mourning to Joy Edition
Yesterday was the 11-year anniversary of my sister, Kate’s, death. On December 19, 2014, cancer stole Kate from me. It’s always a hard day, but this year felt harder … weepier than usual. Not sure why. Maybe because the state of the world has left my emotions raw and simmering close to the edge since last Christmas. I’m exhausted with worry and fear and cringing at whatever’s next. But Kate’s was a quiet, peaceful passing. She had dealt with health issues for some time, but by the time we discovered what was happening, the cancer had spread and her body had no more fight in it. Three months after the…
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Author Spotlight: Bestie Liz Flaherty Joins Me Today–Always a Pleasure!
I’m so glad to welcome my writing bestie, author Liz Flaherty to the Spotlight today. I stole her bio right off her website because it charms the socks off me. She wanted to shake the dust of central Indiana farm country and move to the city, get rich, wear designer clothes, and write books. Well, she writes books. Liz Flaherty lives five miles from where she grew up, only now she relishes the sights and sounds and scents of the fields around her, doesn’t care much about clothes, and thinks being rich would probably have been overrated anyway. She’s spent the past several years enjoying not working a day job,…
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Petticoats & Pistols Authors Are Doing Up the Holidays with Panache!
Hey, Mes Amis, happy holidays! I am a new author with Petticoats & Pistols–a blog that has been around for longer than I’ve been published. I was so delighted when they asked me to join them because they are a fun group of great writers! Becoming a part of their circle was another lovely perk of switching up my setting to Marietta, Montana. These gals–the fillies–are so active all over social media, and full of great ideas for promotion. Here’s what we’re doing for the holidays this year! For the holidays, we’re all sharing some news about our holiday romances, so stop by and find some new holiday reads. In…
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Sunday Snippet: The Author Life Edition (There’s a Giveaway!)
We have a winner! Linda May, you are the randomly selected winner of the holiday book bundle. I’ll be in touch! Thanks to everyone who stopped by to chat with me! So, it’s Sunday morning and Husband and I will be heading home in a couple of hours. We’ve been up at the lake, staying with pal Mo because our cottage is closed up and winterized, but I had a book signing at the winery here in town yesterday, so we needed to be up here. The event was such fun and I got to spend some time with my author friend, J.C. Kenney and his wife, Nancy, who is…
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Sunday Snippet: The Thanksgiving Break Edition
Très Chers Amis, I’m taking a break from posting this Sunday to spend time with Husband decorating our Christmas tree, eating leftover turkey and pie ,and just breathing… see you next week! ~~Nan~~
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Author Spotlight: Elsa Winckler Is Here with Christmas Joy!
I love hearing about how other author’s minds work as they’re writing and how sometimes we are surprised by what happens in our own books. The characters take over and we’re left with, “Really? That’s where you’re going?” It happened to my friend, Elsa Winckler as she wrote her newest holiday romance, which released on November 11, and she’s here to tell us all about it. Elsa has been reading love stories for as long as she can remember and when she ‘met’ the classic authors like Jane Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell, Henry James, the Brontë sisters, etc. during her Honors studies, she was hooked for life. Although her three gown-up…
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Sunday Snippet: The Writing a Book Is Hard Edition
Writing a book is hard. A few days ago, as Liz and I had our usual morning g-Chat she said, okay, she typed, those words. Simple as the words are, the idea is huge because of the truth of it. In these days of indie publishing, where anyone can put a book up on Amazon, those words need to be said. To repeat: Writing a book is hard. I’m not going to rant about the folks who put up the books that haven’t seen an editor, the books that are full of misspellings and bad punctuation and lousy story structure. The folks who read a book, think well, I can…
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Sunday Snippet: The Little Pieces of Words that Wander Through My Mind Edition
This is a repeat of a post that I wrote for Petticoats & Pistols last week. I really loved thinking about this, so I thought I’d share it here with ya’ll and get your ideas and thoughts. I was on a writer retreat with my bestie, Liz Flaherty last month. It was fabulous. We wrote, we drank wine, we ate chocolate, we talked, we processed her book and mine. Our retreats are always as Liz puts it so eloquently, “… harbors, as in they are places of refuge and safety, places for gathering, resting, and repairing. They are narrow and small and contained and when we are finished in them,…
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Author Spotlight: Leigh Ann Edwards Is Here with a Word about Her Upcoming Series and a Giveaway!
Latesha B, congratulations! You are Leigh Ann’s giveaway winner! She will be in touch with you! Thanks to everyone who stopped by! We love, love talking to our readers! It’s always fun to welcome fellow Tule Publishing author, Leigh Ann Edwards to the Spotlight. Her books are filled with paranormal wonder and such fabulous romantic fantasy. She’s here with a sample of her current WIP–you’re gonna be hooked! Leigh Ann writes smoking hot romantic fantasy with badass heroines, alpha heroes, history, castles, and magic. She believes love is love, that villains should get their comeuppance (sometimes with a stake through the heart), that pleasure is NOT a four-letter word, and…