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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 Heart Update Edition, Rev. 3
It really is Heart Update number three, I went back in and counted. I’m overjoyed to tell you that we’ve got nothing but good news this time. I had an echocardiogram in August and although I’d read the results on MyChart (a blessing and a curse, if there ever was one!), it was good to see Doc B and hear her reaction to what I’d seen there. She was all smiles when she came into the exam room, not with balloons and confetti, but perhaps the verbal equivalent. “Wow, great news, huh?” Yup, indeed! The echo showed that my ejection fraction had risen from 37 to 50! (Up is how…
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Sunday Snippet: The Travelogue Edition
Okay, the start of a travelogue. As you’re waking up and reading this, I’m on a plane with Son headed to Hawaii. Seriously. He’s going for a work thing, I’m tagging along because when your 40-something kid invites you to go along with him to Hawaii for a week, you get the okay from your cardiologist and then you say, “you betcha!” (I actually did that the other way around, but our secret, okay?) Darling Husband (who is no traveler by choice) will stay home and hold down the fort, and DIL and Grandboy have work and school, plus they’ve already been to Hawaii, so this was a perfect opportunity…
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Sunday Snippet: The On Our Way Edition
Today’s snippet is necessarily short because I’m meeting Liz in a couple of hours and we’ll be on our way to Michigan for our fall writing retreat. If I could be any more excited, I promise you I don’t know how. I’ll be doing revisions on this trip with probably a little bit of new writing tossed in–I need to get started on Book 3 in the Weaver Sisters trilogy. Liz will be working on her new project, which isn’t mine to tell about, but I’m really excited about it! We’ll wander the west coast of Michigan, checking out lighthouses, wineries, beaches, and great restaurants, but mostly, we’ll be in…
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Sunday Snippet: The Loving My Own Words Edition
When Liz and I were on retreat earlier this month, we spent a lot of time discussing our WIPs. At one point she read me something she’d just written and said, “I really love it. That’s so nice when you like your own stuff.” I had to agree. I have to confess, I am one of those writers who needs to do that—read what I wrote previously in order to get into writing mode. I sometimes wonder if that’s because I’m an editor in my heart (and in my day job), but I don’t think I’m the only writer who works this way. I’ve tried just picking up where I…
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Day 15: Gratitude and We’re on Retreat!
It’s been a great day! Liz and I set off this morning in the rain, which, while dampening our hair did not dampen our spirits! Although the rain made Liz’s hair get big and mine to droop, like the ears of a basset hound. However, that’s why God made hair clips, right? We meandered up to Grand Haven. Took our time traveling through the the corn fields of Indiana and enjoyed a tour of the campus at Notre Dame in South Bend, which has changed a lot since the last time we were through. We took the back roads into Benton Harbor and realized that, even though lunch sounded good,…
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Retreat!
It’s Sunday morning and I’m still covered up with work, but I can see the light at the top of the heap finally. I’ve been focusing on editing gigs and packing up the house, so I haven’t written a word on Aidan’s book yet. However, I’m in full discovery mode and have even written a synopsis for the story, so I’m already ahead of the game on the book. Now it’s just down to writing, which will begin tomorrow when Liz and I get to our retreat. So, here are my new characters–hold a good thought for the story, which will be a Christmas book and even includes a young…
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Still Rollin’ Along
Liz and Nan’s big Madison adventure continued today, but our adventurousness sorta stayed in the fiction realm. We went to breakfast, then came back to the hotel and set up in the lobby to write. We stayed put there, each of us writing and occasionally stopping to share a paragraph or ask one anothers’ opinion or discuss a word choice. Or even, ask for a word! We ended up skipping lunch and writing from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. It was amazing–I got a fabulous start on novel 1 for Tule and Liz–ta da!! Liz finished her book that is due to Harlequin Heartwarming on December 1!! YAY! At 4,…
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Rollin’ . . . Um, Writin’ on the River
Hey, it’s Liz and I just took over Nan’s computer! It’s Wednesday, and I gotta say, we have written a ton of words here on the river. This afternoon, we came down to the dining area of the hotel lobby and have been here for a couple of hours. Nan’s talking about thousands of words and I’m saying “yeah, yeah, yeah….” We’ve been winerying, coffeeing, and writing. It is fun. There is homesickness around the edges of the fun, always, and it’s kind of like the best of two worlds. It’s a good time traveling with a good friend and eating at all different kinds of restaurants that wouldn’t thrill…
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On the Road
We had a great day in Madison! Spent the day wandering around–fun late lunch at a coffee shop in town and then two wineries for tasting. Loved, loved The Ridge–a little winery tasting room right on the Ohio River. Delish wine, lovely hostess, and beautiful view of the river. The Ridge is actually the winery I was thinking of as I imagined the Flaherty brothers’ tasting room on the river. It lived up to all my expectations. I’m excited to use this little river town as the basis for my stories. Liz says it’s been a fine day and she is so right. Somehow, we are the best of traveling…