Wow, it’s spring. We’re only ten days away from April. And the Weather War deadline I had set for February 28 is waaaaaaay overdue. I do have some excuses legitimate reasons for being past deadline. I discovered a plot issue that required me to stop writing, outline the rest of the…
I’m a nature nerd. I have been since I was old enough to listen to my Grampa Al when he pointed out animal tracks and different kinds of plants and trees on our walks together. Thanks to him, I got interested in bird-watching. Thanks to him, I’ll never forget that the…
I’m at that point again. The point where I hate my current novel-in-progress. The point where I think almost all of my characters are vapid and the love story won’t sell itself and the plot is pointless and the world-building is too thin. The point where I think, Oh, lord,…
Here’s the blog post you knew was coming. The crazy cat lady is going to try to say writing is like being a crazy cat lady. But hear me out! Every project is different. Strider takes kitty Prozac because he pees in inappropriate places. It’s something that started after I brought in…
Over the past month, I’ve been revisiting a story I wrote several years ago. It has a nice premise, but the story itself was sort of a wreck. There was very little in the way of plot, and no conclusion at all. The characters and setting were both strong, and…
So last night I wrote, edited, formatted, created cover art for, and published an e-book. Well. Last night and this morning, actually. Wednesday at 8:03 p.m. I posted that my social media and email were going dark, because I had an 8-hour challenge to complete. Sometime in the next hour…
It’s summer in Indiana, and along with a ridiculous storm season and a disgusting surge in tick population, that means the garden is at full tilt. Tonight I had peas and radishes from the garden, and in the next several weeks we’ll be getting carrots, green beans, tomatoes, and green…
Prompt: Take a line from a song that you love or connect with. Now forget the song, and turn that line into the title or inspiration for your post. The song in question is U2’s “Unknown Caller”–a song from their No Line On The Horizon album, which constantly amazes me…
The novel revision has been on hold for a couple of weeks as I’ve been working on backstory for several of the characters. Not generic backstory like, “He had four brothers and two of them died and now he’s the heir” or “She grew up north of the mountains and…
When I’m struggling through the nitty-gritty grind of squeezing out word after word, trying to get things just right on the page, it’s really easy to forget there’s a world out there, let alone other people who understand what I’m going through. Then I see a post from someone like…
