Why I don’t allow comments

Here’s just a sample of the plethora of ridiculousness I’ve received lately: POSTED COMMENT: Energizer Bunny arrested, charged with battery POSTED BY: http://www.getlaidtonightinfo.com/ MY RESPONSE (in my head of course because I’d never respond to any of these spammers): Check out the URL link. Actually PLEASE don’t. Seriously people. What...

It’s all in the context

I needed to find out which South American country was the hottest, in terms of temperature or climate.  So I went to my favorite search engine, Google, and typed in the following:  hottest South American country Here are my less than helpful results: In case you can’t read the small...

The ever growing TBR pile

Aye!  My TBR pile runneth over.  At the moment – it’s a bit overwhelming.  Here’s the stack of freebies from RWA. And here are two other piles that I haven’t gotten to yet.        That’s a total of thirty books!!  1.7333 books per week if I don’t add any more...

To be…or Not to be

I’ve been figuratively tugging my hair out trying to write a synopsis for THE NOVEL.  I need to condense a four-hundred page novel into two pages.  How in the heck do you do such a thing?  I spent hours Googling and studying resources from various sources.  (BTW - RWA University...

The Great Beta Read – continued

I’m headed to NYC for RWA Nationals. This will be my first conference and I am excited to learn tons from the workshops and get to meet some fabulous like-minded writerly types. I’m also looking forward to putting a face with a lot of folks I’ve met virtually in classes...

Flavoring Dialogue with Authenticity

This is our second week hosting a soccer coach for the Challenger Sports British Soccer Camp. It is one of the most rewarding experiences and tons of fun getting to know someone from another country and sharing a week of our American life with them. Last week we hosted an...

The Great Beta Read

I’ve been MIA trying to finish another round of edits and it was well worth it, as my MS is finally in the hands of my teen betas. I picked three teens that I’m not super close to, hoping they’d feel more comfortable looking at my work with a critical...

Spring Break

I just realized last week flew by and I failed to write a post for the blog.  Time just flies when it’s Spring Break and the weather is absolutely gorgeous.  I’ll be honest, the last place I wanted to be was inside on my computer. Over break, the kids lived...

Why the BIC method of writing is bad for me

I was pondering what to write for this blog post.  Some advice I’d heard when you are unsure what to write -- just put your butt in the chair and write.  There’s a cute acronym that goes along with that mantra – BIC.  But the BIC method is not for...

Fortune Cookies and Writing

fortune cookie n. A cookie made from a thin layer of dough folded and baked around a slip of paper bearing a prediction of fortune or a maxim.  Definition courtesy of The Free Dictionary and The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin...