Back in 2010 I started writing my very first book. I revised it a few times, tried to get an agent with it and got nowhere. Out of frustration, I shelved it. A few months later, the idea for The Broken Trail came to me and I got to work on what would be my … Continue reading Introducing The Davies – A Serialized Novel

It's New Year's Eve and I have a stomach bug so the festivities are off. I was poking about on the internet and reminded that I blogged exactly 0 times this month. Not okay. I want 2024 to be the year I managed to post all 12 months. This year was a doozy. I feel … Continue reading 2024 – Loss and Hope

Check out my guest post at Inkslinger with a Turkey Chili Recipe (It's so good) and signed book giveaway. I know the Texans will take one look and let me know that this is not real chili, but I can promise it's good!

I thought I'd use this week's blog to recommend some of the tips, tricks, and aids I use in writing. I'm not talking about development edits etc. Those you gotta shell out some serious cash for. Instead, these are accessible, easy ways to boost your ability to get thoughts out of your head and into … Continue reading Tools for writing

I decided to stop counting the weeks. I've managed to do better than my original goal of blogging at least monthly. It seems the object of that project is achieved, I now spend time writing daily. Even if it's hard, unproductive or a bit demoralizing, I still sit at the keyboard every night with my … Continue reading Words on the Page

The book is up to 31k words. Phew. Last week was rough so this week I focused on cutting a scene I knew wasn't working and starting over with a new point of view. Sometimes a scene is a mess because I'm writing from the wrong person's head. Switching POV changes the voice and can … Continue reading Week Eleven: The Way Forward

I added net 0 words this past week. I edited so much that my word count didn't increase. I'm not sure they were even necessary edits. This isn't really writing, it's more fussing with the text than anything else. It's procrasti-writing: going back over what I've already finished and cleaning it up when I have … Continue reading Week Ten: It Is What It Is

I made it to 28k this week which is not bad, but it's not great either. My writing sessions are still productive, but it's harder work. I've been here before. We're in the middle bit now where things start slowing down and you have to push harder to get the words on the page. I'm … Continue reading Week Nine: One Step in Front of the Other

I have nothing witty to say, but I did get to 25k words. So there's that. Short post since my brain is fried. Life is...complex right now. Lots of difficulty for friends and family and trying to find the balance between helping and maintaining my peace is getting hard. Good thing I have a God … Continue reading Week Eight: 25k

I added a grand total of 2k words this week to my work in progress. Not great. I sat down about every night as usual, but ended up scrolling social media or staring at my Pinterest pages hoping for the ideas to flow. The only times they were flowing this week were when I was … Continue reading Week Seven: In The Weeds

5 K words in one week is not bad. And they're words I liked. I had to stop tonight to write this blog, but lately the flow has been flowing. I don't want to jinx it, but it's going well. At least writing has been going well. Life overall is as complicated as always. The … Continue reading WEEK SIX: Brewing up 18K

The words continue to flow and this week I reached 13,000 in my work in progress. I was shocked when I saw the count because it didn’t feel like it at all. I think that’s because this time, I’m not fighting for every sentence. I finally know my characters well enough to write their scenes … Continue reading Week Five: 13k Words

At Christmas I got Covid followed by Paxlovid rebound. Round two was rough.And then came tonsillitis as in my doctor's words "with tonsils like yoursit's sort of expected" which meant a round of antibiotics and finally,Prednisone to clear up the laryngitis all that left me with. Winter reallyneeds to be over. I'm wearing a mask … Continue reading Week Four: Vitamin P

For a while I’ve been struggling with my female main character. I didn’t ‘get’ her. That sounds kind of nutty since I made her up, but in the past, I’ve had characters come to me fully formed or from a previous book, so it was easy. This time, I was making her up out of … Continue reading Week Three: Breakthrough

Taika Waititi once said of screenwriting “Sometimes writing is opening up your laptop, looking at a blank page on Final Draft for about 8 hours, and then feeling sad, and then closing it. That’s still classified as writing.” And that’s a pretty accurate statement on my current efforts. I sit at the keyboard, stare at … Continue reading Week Two: It’s a hard slog.

I made it a goal to write more consistently this year and here's the update on how it's going. Week one is in the can. Here's how it went: Discipline is training yourself to do something and a habit is when a behavior becomes routine and automatic.  A task formed through discipline that becomes a … Continue reading Week One: Forming a Habit

I’m not one for New year’s resolutions, but I do love setting goals. For 2024 my goals are to eat right, exercise, and finally finish my book. I’ve been working on this for years. After my last book, I took a break to focus on my family and day job, but when I started to … Continue reading 2024: Goals

most of us understand that this world is not a safe place. That was a hard lesson for me. But in it, I also learned that forgiveness frees, love is an action verb, and mercy and grace, when applied liberally, will save relationships. Hate builds nothing, it only consumes you.