I am envious of other writers. I am envious of their success and their ability to connect with readers.  I am envious of those people who can step into a crowd and walk away with a gaggle of new friends.  I am envious of you. Envy is that green-eyed, nine-armed monster who menaces us all, […]

Woo Hoo!  I just finished the draft of my novel Half-hand.  This one has been on and off the backburner for a couple of years while I worked on other things.  The time finally came to get it done, and here it is.  Time for my happy dance (You don’t want to see this).  Also, […]

When I joined Goodreads a few years ago, I felt like I should write reviews for the books I read. After doing this for a month or two, I changed my mind.  I still will rate a book (as long as I finished reading it, and if I liked it enough to read it then […]

Favorite Book – Pueblos, Spaniards, and the Kingdom of New Mexico by John L. Kessell. I typically read more fantasy and historical fiction than anything else, but I do enjoy an occasional historical text. With my recent interest in genealogy, this book hit the spot.   My family originally settled in New Mexico during the Spanish […]

I finished the draft of my novel tentatively titled Lion’s Pride on Christmas day.  It ended up at 108,208 words.  I still don’t like the title much, but it is the best I’ve come up with so far.  This is the final novel in my Kingdom of Haven trilogy.  I sent it out to a […]

I started out NaNoWriMo with high hopes, and was not disappointed.  No, I didn’t make 50,000 words, but I did kick my latest project back into high gear.  To do this, I started tracking my word count at the beginning of November.  Seeing this progress helped me to push forward.  From then until now, I’ve […]

It never fails: when I choose to do NaNoWriMo my schedule gets squirrelly.  So far this month I’ve had four actual writing days for a total of 2835 words.  So I’m averaging about 700 words a day on those days (which is about my normal daily word count).  I have a rule that I do […]

National Novel Writing Month is upon us.  I participated for the first time in 2011 and hit my 50,000 word goal with a novel titled Half-hand.  I never quite finished that novel because I decided to complete a trilogy I was working on first.  In 2012 I participated with the second book in my Kingdom […]

How often should you write?  Everyone has a different writing process.  Some people write for a living and others squeeze in a half-hour of writing time during their lunch break.  My philosophy on writing is the same as it is for most other endeavors:  Make forward progress. Your idea of progress probably depends on your […]

So I’m taking this grammar class. . . How’s that for an opening?  I imagine it would be the beginning of a horror story with grammar Nazi’s chasing you with red pens in hand.  Okay, I went to Catholic school, so it would be grammar Nazi nuns chasing me with a ruler in one hand and a […]