Happy Monday Everyone, The newest news for me is that after 10 years, 2 months, I left Romance Writers of America. It wasn't an easy decision and I didn't make it lightly at all. I won't get into the reasons or any of the recent events. I made a decision I thought was the right one for me. I plan to keep the good relationships/friendships I made while a member of the organization and continue to learn and grow the best I can with the many other resources available to me. I'm grateful to the organization for the experiences that I treasure and for the connections I did make because of being a part of it. I plan to continue writing Romance, just not being a member of RWA. I'm working on several projects--some are books, and some are book-related but not writing or critiquing. I like keeping busy and I like the different ideas and things coming my way. Under my Jeannie Averie pseudonym, I've been querying agents and participating in Twitter Pitch parties. I...

Happy Monday One and All! Yikes! It's been a month since I wrote on this blog. I'm sorry! If it's any consolation, I did update the Jeannie Averie blog. This post is one that I started thinking about last week. I did some talking about this on Twitter (under both names) but I haven't actually written it all out in a more cohesive format. First and foremost: this is not a pity party. I hate throwing myself pity parties. Please, don't pity me. Don't feel sorry for me. My life has had ups and downs like everyone else's and I'm not looking for special treatment. In fact, I hate being patronized, too. The only special treatment I ever got out of this was having a laptop to take notes in high school and untimed standardized testing days. For the rest, I've worked hard. Oftentimes, swallowing my nerves and asking for help. Sometimes facing less-than-understanding teachers, but never felt entitled to anything except for the help I needed...and even the...