Happy Wednesday All, Surprise! I'm actually posting BEFORE the end of the month! Imagine that. 😊 I think my part of Texas is confused about what season it is. We were having some cooler temperatures and then all of a sudden it decided to go up again. Now, that's relatively normal in a sense for us, but what is curious is that the tree in my backyard decided it wasn't winter, but FALL! All these colored leaves are covering my backyard. I looked around and thought "Guess the plants and trees are confused as to what season it is. Can't blame them since the weather is, too!" December is quieter so far than September through November were and I am NOT complaining about that. In September, my father suffered a bad fall and consequently there was a whole lot of stress. October saw my folks move out of their home of over 30 years into Assisted Living. When November came along, me and my family had a stomach bug. The very beginnings of December was the tail-end of m...

 Hi Everyone! Wishing y'all a very happy Thanksgiving week! As I type this the day before I'm going to post it, my nails are currently finishing drying from me painting them red, green, and gold. Yes, I know, Advent hasn't even started, but I felt like doing it. The colors make me happy! I'm not entirely sure what my Thanksgiving plans are. My sister and I talked about getting together for a bit, so we'll probably do that. I'm actually allergic to turkey (it makes me throw up... *insert sad face here*) so I either do ham or something like that. My parents have moved. It's a good move for them. They lived in their previous home for 36-37 years. Me and my siblings have been encouraging them with the move--like I said, it's a good one for them. I don't want to go into detail, but it's been an emotional journey--one that I haven't talked about much publicly and don't intend to because it's something I view as very private. Just know that ...

  Happy Monday All, Also, Happy All Hallow's Eve aka Halloween! I meant to write an October post earlier this month, but there were things going on in my real life that made it so I just didn't get to it. I'm doing okay--just a lot going on in my real life. But doesn't everybody usually? October also means my birthday, which I celebrated by going over to my parents' house. Dad had a fall in September, so it was nice to see him making so much progress and doing so much better. I told them that since they had such an integral part of me coming into existence that it seemed appropriate that I'd come over for a visit. We had a lot of fun. It was simple, small, and just right for me. My parents gave me a beautiful card that touched my heart (I got teary!) and I got some other cards and gifts from my siblings. My husband got me Chinese food for dinner a couple of days before since I was going to be at my folks' house on my actual birthday. I can't complain. It...

  Happy Friday One & All, Today is the last day of September. In some ways this month has felt long to me, in others I'm trying to compute the idea that tomorrow is October 1st.  I do plan on keeping my blog to about 1 post a month, which at this point is what I can handle. My real life has had some big ups and downs lately, and it takes a lot of energy to go through it all. Rest assured, the writing world is still very important to me and I'm not inactive in it, I just can't post on my blog more than about once a month at the moment. So, where can you find me in between posts? Well, normally I'd say Facebook, but I've had a lot of trouble with it, lately. It seems my phone and computer don't like the updates so it's slower than a 2-legged turtle in molasses on my computer and refuses to operate at all on my phone (other than Messenger, which I reserve for those on my friends' list, sorry, I don't do much of communicating with folks I don't k...

Happy Thursday and September! Somehow it feels like the months are going by faster. I'm not sure why I feel that way--maybe I've just been super occupied while things were happening. In my personal life there has been plenty going on--from being a mom, to a wife, to my family-of-origin stuff, there has been several things happening. Some good things, some hard, some okay--basically life. As far as my writing life is concerned, I've formed a private writer's group with 2 other authors. They're super encouraging and it's fun to be a part of a writer's group again. I hadn't decided what I wanted to do as far as joining one, so this is perfect for me at this time. I've been doing some writing (I've got like what is it, 3 WIPs--Works In Progress--right now? I don't work on all of them at the same time--I just go with whatever one I'm in the mood for or have ideas I want to add. Normally I don't work this way, but right now it's working...

  Happy August Everyone! Wow...July went by faster than I expected. Between illness in the family (and again near the end of July and beginning of August), everything feels almost like a blur. I continue writing and querying between all the other real life stuff that has claimed my attention. Life doesn't slow down and neither do the demands of motherhood. I'm ready for all of this to settle down. I turn to my Catholic Christian faith a lot, which has been a source of comfort and help. I've got several WIPs (Works In Progress). I'm hoping to continue with Greek gods and goddesses--but one I'm working on is NOT part of my Immortal Dreams series. I also have some other things in play--fairies/Fae, maybe mermaids? With me, you just never know! The Author Encounter is taking this a bit slower this year--my business partner, Nan Jenkins, is working on her MBA, so we've pulled back on some of the events for this year, but looking to do some of our usual ones in the F...

  Happy Friday Everyone! I'm a little late getting the July post up, but perhaps you can forgive me since I was sick the first week of July. I'm much better, now. I don't recommend being sick, it's really a 1-star or no-star review from me, but it did give me a lot of time to pray, and working on my faith is never a wasted opportunity (when I take the opportunity) so there's that. I couldn't really even read much while I was sick because the screen made me dizzy and I didn't even bother trying with printed books, either. Mostly I either watched videos/movies, or slept. The sleeping was probably a good idea. Now, I've got a plan to work on getting myself stronger and keeping up with my vitamins. Thankfully, I've got a great doctor, so I had good help. Getting well meant I was able to get back to writing again, which has been nice. I don't know what will come of the novel I'm working on. Per usual, I'm going to keep details under wraps (asi...

  Happy June Everyone! I hope your May went well. My husband had to take 4 trips up to Springdale, Arkansas to clean out and sell his father's house, so that was a lot. He's fine now and the papers to sell the house have been signed, so that's good. I've recently pulled up an unfinished manuscript of mine and have been reading through the 80 or 82 pages of what I had already written. I've edited what I've read so far for a preliminary edit, and think there might be something here. We'll see. There are some new releases that have piqued my interest. I don't normally pick up mid-grade novels (although, I have read several over the course of my life) but my author friend, Tom Phillips has his debut coming out on June 7th, so I've been watching the countdown with great interest. Another author friend of mine, Cheyanne Young has a new contemporary YA, releasing, too. Plus, there always seems to be more novels releasing, too. I'm sometimes slow to ge...

  Happy Monday and Happy May! April was full of many things...including going up to Springdale, Arkansas to lay my father-in-law to rest. I didn't know him very well, but being up there with my husband and kids, I got to learn a little more about him. I knew he'd loved his wife to the very end of her life, but what I didn't know was how much. Several pictures had the caption "My beautiful wife..." and then a description of the picture. In the living room and his room, the walls were full of pictures of her and of their wedding. He had several of them framed. In all of them he looked happy (she looked happy, too, just in case y'all wondered). So I got to see more of his devotion to her. My mother-in-law died some years ago from Alzheimer's. By the time I met my husband and we were getting married, she was already pretty far along (although we did talk a tiny bit about her rose garden--which the flowers in their yard were lovely). They're now buried toge...

  Happy Friday! It's April, if you can believe...or even if you can't believe it. Sometimes to me it seems like the year goes slowly and other times it seems fast. Real life has been taking up some of my attention lately, so I forgot to get a post ready ahead of time. Now we're approaching Easter (well, at least it's a little over a week away, but still it's almost here). I've got a story out on query with agents and we'll see how that goes. I participated in the recent Mood Pitch on Twitter and that was an interesting experience. As part of the pitches, participants could share Mood Boards (for those who don't know what a Mood Board is, they're images/words that express either the mood or something about a story--or whatever the person who creates the Mood Board wants to express). It was kind of cool to see pictures with pitches. The Author Encounter keeps moving along. We're having a quieter year due to real life (not bad, just busy). But we...

  Happy Monday Everyone! It's MARCH! Can you believe February is already over? I meant to make this blog post earlier than now, but I was busy with editing, and life, so I had to put the post on hold. Editing is currently done, so I've got some time to post. So let's see... Lent has begun, which was punctuated for me by Ash Wednesday. I like to go to church to receive ashes. It was nice. I had my offspring with me--which meant a bit of adventure, but we managed okay. The Author Encounter is gearing up for its 2nd Annual Authors March Forward events. A little smaller than last year, but still exciting. Watch TAE website and social media for more information. (I'm looking forward to it, as I do all our events because they're informative and fun). I'm not excited about the clocks moving forward on Sunday, March 13th. Losing an hour of sleep, not fun. I'm sure I'll adjust, though. Hopefully I'll have some exciting news in April regarding something that ...

  Happy Friday Everyone! It's February of 2022! February. Let that sink in a moment. February makes me a bit nervous this year. Last year, on February 15th, we lost power and water, got displaced for about 4.5 months (due to water pipe bursting and needing to fix parts of the house). With the talks of winter storms and things, I'm doing a lot of praying for this year not to have another Snowmeggeddon. (Yes, I'm praying for those who DEFINITELY will be dealing with bad parts of the storm, but I'm also praying that we don't have to go through what we did last year). In between all this, I'm editing. My freelance editor, the incredibly helpful Deb Ewing finished all passes on my manuscript and now it's down to me doing the final read-through and little nit-picky things. Deb warned me not to get so hung up that I lose the way my story works, which is a fair point. As a writer, you don't want to poke and prod your work into a oblivion and lose the voice that ...

  Happy January and Happy New Year 2022 one and all! There have been many times that I've said this, and I expect many times to say it again: my observation is that every year brings both good and bad. Some years there's more good, some more bad, some in the middle. I don't know what 2022 will be, but I continue to look for blessings. One of the blessings of 2021, was in spite of Snowmeggeddon (or, rather, because of it) back in February, I got a new kitchen. Now, a storm with broken pipes is not the way I'd PREFER to have gotten this kitchen, but I love it. So, even though the storm sucked and being out of my house for 4 1/2 months wasn't always easy, I got this brand new kitchen that is so much more me and my family than what we moved into when we first got the house. In August, I got a non-displaced fracture in my shoulder. Yeah, I hadn't known silly detergent had spilled and I wasn't looking to perfect my detergent-skating abilities (or, in this case, in...