What’s Nice About Being a Small Town Author
Ugh! In my cleaning out of the newspaper pile yesterday I could not find the one paper I was looking for. It was from a couple of weeks ago, and it featured a pic of my friend Heather Tregaskes and I on the front page (in a tiny “look inside” photo) and then on page […]
Prioritizing as a Writer (and as a Person)
I guess it finally hit that point because I woke up yesterday morning and thought, “We can’t live like this anymore.” The house was just…beyond. I guess it’s because I’ve been so focused on my WIP since my parents left (in March!) that I haven’t really looked around and seen the scary levels things had […]
Traveling Through Time as a Fan of Delicious Flavor
Traveling through time in search of the most delicious food EVER? That’s the plot of EVERTASTER by Adam Sidwell, and it’s definitely a story idea I can get behind. In fact, I could probably daydream about something like that for a good long time! In May, Sidwell came through our cute little community to share […]
Are Flip-Flops Making Women Fat?
A couple of weeks ago my husband brought up flip-flops again. It’s summer, and today at 11 a.m. the thermometer read 98 degrees, but I’m pretty sure it was hotter. I wished I was wearing flip-flops, the shoes that are like a fresh breeze of coolness for the sizzling feet of summer. But I can’t […]
Malibu Chicken at The Sizzler as a Novel Plotting Device
I think it’s time to repost this blog I wrote for Chistopher Loke, the executive editor of my publishing company, last summer. (He assigned the topic, admittedly, as a bit of a joke, but I didn’t know that at the time.) I can’t stop thinking about Malibu Chicken, and it seems maybe it’s a sign. […]
Tips on WorldBuilding from Fantasy Author Terron James
Hey! Exciting day! My good friend Terron James’s book release for his first book INSIGHT is today! Woo hoo! You should see the cover of this baby. It’s truly beautiful and the writing inside is as well. I just read INSIGHT this week. It’s a high fantasy, and it’s 400 pages of awesomeness, the first […]
What to Do with Kids Instead of “Screen” This Summer
Bollywood from Another Room. That could be the title of the movie of my life, if it were based on today only. My husband and kids are on their second Bollywood of the afternoon. Why they jumped straight to New Delhi after a week of “screen-fasting” I don’t know, but the music is fabulous! Screen […]
Getting the Wrong Mail – and Zucchini Enlightenment
Do you ever get the wrong mail delivered to your house? We live in a neighborhood with one of those post boxes that has a bunch of slots all together, and sometimes our postal lady slips up and gives us someone else’s pool maintenance equipment catalog or another neighbor’s DirectTV offers. This week I accidentally […]
Comma Math
First, an announcement. For the next couple of days, BIG IN JAPAN will be on SALE on Amazon and Kindle – $2.99 for the e-book version. That’s $26 off the hardcover list price. Bargain for your beach read, and it IS a great beach read, if I do say so myself. Here’s the link for […]
English Sumo!
So, this week I had an incredible opportunity. I got to sit down with about 120 young people who had spent the last month PEEKING INSIDE MY BRAIN. Yeah, that’s about what it felt like, going to the high school English classes and discussing BIG IN JAPAN with all the students who have read my […]
