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...