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Sunday Snippet: The Writing in the Information Age Edition
It’s been a week, mes amis. I’m working hard on my current WIP–the first book in the Dykemans of River’s Edge series. Liz and I went on a very fruitful, if extremely chilly, writer retreat, where both of us wrote words and did a lot processing. Even more of “what’s the word for this” along with a gesture or a motion. We do that a lot when we’re writing together. Liz is an invaluable resource and I can’t imagine writing a book without her input. We ate some good food, drank a little less wine than usual, and found a fab little place for breakfast right near our hotel. Otherwise,…
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Sunday Snippet: The Words Sometimes Come Hard Edition
I’m in a weird place with this new work-in-progress. I like the story, I like the characters, but somehow I’m having a problem getting them to move along. I have more notes about this first story in my new series than I did starting out any other River’s Edge series, mostly because a lot of this story happens away from River’s Edge. But I also have more word notes, more conversation notes, more scene notes than any book I’ve ever written. It’s almost as if I’m writing the book in my notes, but when I get to the computer, the words are coming hard. Funny thing is, I know this…
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Author Spotlight: It’s Me with Some Fun Stuff for You
Congratulations, Debra and Linda, you two are my winners of a $5 Amazon gift card and a free e-book ARC of Made to Love You. I’ll get those right out to you! Yup, today I’m in my own Spotlight, which happens now and again. I hope you forgive my shameless self-promotion, but I confess this blog sometimes does that. It is snowy here in the Midwest, which is okay by me. The world is white and quiet and the snow sparkles in the sunlight. The brisk cold sorta takes your breath away, but it’s wondrous to watch from inside my warm cozy house. Here’s a little something to warm your…
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Sunday Snippet: The Post-Retreat Musings Edition
I’m in a post-retreat haze. It happens every year after Liz and I get back from our semiannual (it means twice a year, I looked it up!) writing retreat. We do one in January in a little town in the hills of Southern Indiana and we do one in October, usually somewhere in Michigan. At every retreat, we write and talk and eat and drink wine and write and process and talk endlessly and write… Oh, and did I mention that there’s always great wine and chocolate and lots of good food? (I think I might have, but it bears repeating.) We don’t do restaurants quite as much as we…
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Author Spotlight: Bestie Liz Flaherty has a New Book Coming Soon!
We have a winner! Cheri J, you are Liz’s winner. Liz will be in touch! What’s more fun than shouting out my bestie’s new book? Not much! Today I’m welcoming Liz Flaherty to the Spotlight with pre-order info for her newest novel, Pieces of Blue. I’ve read this one because, you know, besties… and it is purely Liz’s gorgeous storytelling! She’s here to tell us about it and she has a fun giveaway, too, so read on! Liz Flaherty has spent the past several years enjoying not working a day job, making terrible crafts, and writing stories in which the people aren’t young, brilliant, or even beautiful. She’s decided (and…
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Sunday Snippet: The Validation Edition, II
You know who I envy? Writers who have complete faith in their work and themselves. The ones who write a book and always know immediately that it’s great stuff and is going to sell like hotcakes. Or the ones who may know their work needs help, but believe so strongly in their own stories that they push on, striving to make them better. They never doubt their abilities or spend days wondering what they’re doing trying to write a novel, for Pete’s sake. They don’t wonder if they’re fooling everyone, including themselves, with this whole author thing. Sometimes, I can be that writer. When a scene works perfectly, when I’ve…
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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 Eeek, I Need a Break Edition and a Question
I’ve been working and writing pretty much nonstop for… well, for the last five years for sure and probably longer and I need a break. That’s not a whine…well, okay, maybe a little bit of a whine, but the fact is, I need to get away. Thankfully, I am getting away in about about a week! YAY! Liz and I are going on retreat for four days and I can’t wait. Retreat doesn’t mean I’ll stop writing. As a matter of fact our retreats are all about writing, but it does mean I’ll set my editing gigs aside for four days and focus entirely on the current WIP. Plus I…
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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 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,…