Here we go again. High school reunion time. This year is a milestone reunion—number 50. Okay, I’ll admit it. What the heck, you only have to do the math from the essay below, and you’ll figure it out. I’m not old! Sixty is the new forty—I think. So, my classmates are getting together this coming […]
It’s that time again – high school reunion Read More »
This blog was first posted on the Gems in the Attic blog, November 10, 2017. I found an audio diskette from the 1996 Romance Writers of America (RWA) convention in Dallas, Texas. I was younger then. Eager. Unpublished. I remember rooming with a couple of ladies whom I met on the Internet. The Internet? eMail?
Time Travel: How times have changed! Read More »
I’m taking an online class on writing conflict in novels. Begin each novel with conflict. Period. That’s the advice we were given in lecture 8. If we have no trouble in the first sentence, paragraph, or page, the reader might put down the book and never read another word. As a multi-published author said in
First Lines of my Novels Read More »
So, the young guy at work looked at my website on his cell phone. He said it needed to be bootstrapped. Bootstrap? “A loop of leather or cloth sewn at the top rear, or sometimes on each side, of a boot to facilitate pulling it on.” Dictionary.com Huh? I’ve heard the idiom: “Pull (oneself) up
Introducing my updated website Read More »
My non-writing goal for 2018 is to clean out each drawer and closet in my house. Ambitious, I know. Starting the project this weekend, I sorted through stuff in a small drawer by my bed. There I found an audio diskette entitled “In-Depth Look at the Contemporary Market” from the 1996 Romance Writers of America
Spring cleaning—to toss or keep? That is the question. Read More »
Season 3 of Outlander picks up with Jamie and Claire separated by continents and centuries. I’ve especially enjoyed the scenes with Claire and Brianna in 1968. Why? Because that’s the year I graduated from high school. And yes, we dressed like that. We had big hair or straight hair like Brianna. We wore textured stockings,
Outlander on Starz 1968 brings back memories Read More »
I’m watching both series now. Outlander is currently running on STARZ on Sunday nights, and so is the PBS series Poldark. Both heroes are hunks. I’m sure that’s not the most current word to describe a handsome, sexy man, but – hey – I’m old school. To me they are BOTH hunks. I love both
Ross Poldark or Jamie Fraser? Read More »
At my volunteer gig yesterday, I was talking to another volunteer about piano lessons. She gave me advice, and then said to demonstrate her qualifications for that advice—I’m a musician. Wait a minute. I’m a writer—a technical writer by day and a romance writer by night. But how often do I proclaim to others that
After I write “the end” on the last page of a manuscript and then send it off to my editor, it’s time to do a bit of spring-cleaning—specifically tossing out all my notes from the current book. The third book of my Bluegrass Homecoming series, Nom de Plume, comes out in July (I hope). It
Spring cleaning and finishing a novel Read More »
Writing my medieval and bringing it to publication has been quite a process. I started in 1995 with an idea. The first chapter won the Wisconsin Romance Writers’ historical contest in 1997 where it garnered this quote from editor Micki Nuding, “The clean writing was a pure pleasure!” In 1999, I queried Kensington editors, hoping
My Lord Raven has a long backstory Read More »
