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...

  Happy New Year Everybody! I hope you're having a wonderful 2021 thus far and that it's full of blessings, health, and happy moments to make it a special year. On New Year's Eve at 2:26 a.m. Central Time, I finished the WIP (Work In Progress) I'd been working on most of the year. I had wanted to finish it a month or so BEFORE December 31st, but life happens. So now it's written! The next step is to edit and then I'll query it out to agents. The Author Encounter has many events planned for 2021 and starting off great with D.C. Gomez's "New Year, New Mindset". While this workshop is mostly professional development for authors, you do not have to be an author to attend it. We're going to get into the harder parts of being an author: Imposter Syndrome, Rejection, Professional Jealousy, and More. It'll be about working through these feelings to a positive end. I've been impressed with what I've learned about D.C. in the time I've go...