“Family Recipe” — a good Mother’s Day present
If you’re looking for a small Mother’s Day present, try my book “Family Recipe: Sweet and saucy stories, essays, and poems about family life.” Click here for links to where you can buy it. Enjoy! And Happy Mother’s Day.
Take the Plunge! Start a Journal
“The only way to start is just to start – take the plunge.” With these words, I started keeping a journal ten years ago this spring. I’d had a diary when I was a girl, one of those pink books with the gilt edges and cheap metal lock. But I was too afraid of my […]
Jumping Off to the Unknown
Part of my horoscope on my birthday this year read “Develop a way of handling the unexpected, as it will become a regular occurrence for you.” But isn’t this true for everyone? The unexpected becomes expected, because change comes to all of us. Sometimes we seek the change, other times it is foisted upon us. […]
Guest Blogpost on Write Brain Trust: How to Format Your Book for E-Publishing
This week I have a guest post on Write Brain Trust that discusses how I formatted my ebook Family Recipe. Write Brain Trust is a group of writers who help each other with creativity, publishing and marketing issues. We have been exploring the brave new world of e-publishing, and several of us have published digital books […]
Tasting Your Memories
Later this year my husband and I will celebrate our 35th anniversary. We started dating, got serious, and were married all in 1977, so I’ll be celebrating 35th anniversaries of major events in our relationship all year. Last month was the 35th anniversary of our first date. No one remembered it but me. My husband […]
A Six Month Journey in One Day
As I write this, I am visiting family in Washington State, not too far from the end point of the Oregon Trail. I left my home in Kansas City, Missouri, very near Independence – one of several jumping off points for the early emigrants. The rainy spring weather in the Pacific Northwest reminds me of […]
“Family Recipe” anthology now available!
My book Family Recipe: Sweet and saucy stories, essays and poems about family life has now been published by Rickover Publishing. The paperback is available through CreateSpace Amazon And the ebook is available in two formats: Kindle (MOBI) Nook (EPUB) This book would make a wonderful accompaniment to an Easter basket or Mother’s Day present. I […]
Achieving our Dreams by Telling Our Stories . . . to Ourselves and Our Loved Ones
I’ve recently read two articles that made me think about the importance of telling our stories to ourselves and to our close family members. If we don’t talk about our dreams, how can our loved ones support us? The first article I saw was a blogpost by Mary Jo Asmus of Aspire Collaborative Services, entitled “A […]
Four Tips for Writing Scenes with Many Characters
On a LinkedIn writing group board recently, someone asked how to write a scene in a novel with many characters arguing about an emotional business decision. I’ve been in meetings like that, so I understood the problem both as a participant and as a writer. It is difficult to write scenes with groups of people […]
Tools for Writing Historical Fiction
Writing descriptions is not something that comes naturally to me. I much prefer writing dialogue. But when writing historical fiction, writing about place is critical. In my historical novels, I have to recreate a world that disappeared long before the lifetimes of my readers. How have I found information about what life was like along […]