This month I’m celebrating the beginning of Summer.   Quick!  Name ten things that remind you of summer — warmer weather, school’s out, family reunions, great vacations, graduations and weddings, baseball, outdoor barbeques, long days in the sun and nights under a sparkling-star studded sky.  Did I hit a few of yours?
When I was growing up, my mother always set a time limit on the television and took the cards and games out of the cupboard.  She’d organize tournaments with prizes.  We’d put together plays and perform them for the neighbor kids.  …

Yesterday morning, I got up, started a pot of coffee (God’s gift to deep sleepers), settled in to read my emails and promptly rushed to…well, I don’t want to offend any delicate senses, so I’ll just say it wasn’t pretty. My gut was churning acid. And no, I didn’t have the flu. Or food poisoning. I had a looming speaking engagement. What had I done? I don’t DO public speaking. Not even in front of my own family. What gremlin had possessed me to think I could stand up in …

I always get excited when I have a new story idea. How about you?  This month I’m going to talk about my character building procedure.  For me, building the hero and heroine from the nebulous idea to full-fledged on a sheet of paper, well golly gee whiz, there really is nothing more fascinating and fun than that.  Pardon me while I take a trip down memory lane for a moment.  When I first started writing, building my character involved filling out tedious questionnaires, pages and pages of them.  I actually had three …

One of the things about being a writer that bothers me is the cryptic style of rejections letters and how we’re supposed to learn to be better by osmosis.  I keep hearing the mantra “learn by doing” over and over in my head.  I read writing books.  I write manuscripts.  I get rejections.  I read more writing books, just trying to figure out the definitive way to do things better.  Guess what I learned?  There isn’t one.  Then a rejection letter comes that says:  “You’re tension is lacking.”  See cryptic.  …

Like my snazzy title?  Totally made it up on the spur of the moment.  Usually I write this column the night before, proofread, tweak – you know the drill.  This year the holidays messed with my setup.  That sounds good too, right?  Truthfully, I forgot.  And literally about fifteen minutes ago I remembered.  I hate it when that happens – when you have that “Darn it, I forgot” moment.  In my defense, I Christmas shopped all day yesterday.  I wouldn’t have had a brain cell left to write a column …

I’ve been a romance reader since age fourteen.  You can blame my sister.  I’ll be giving away my age and hers here, but her husband went to Vietnam for the second time in his military career, and she moved home with her toddler son for that time period.  During that year, she introduced me to Days of Our Lives and romance novels.  No, I don’t watch Days of Our Lives anymore (I did for about 20 years, though!), but the romance novel thing really took.
Years later, I married, delivered three kids into …

In November 2007, The Wild Rose Press published my first novel – THE DADDY SPELL.  Set in the fictional town of Echo Falls, Texas, this is a terrific story — if I do say so myself – about twins girls using pumpkin magic to find a daddy.  And find one they do.  Chad Applegate walks into the middle of their mother’s rescue of a dog and falls flat out in love, but convincing the twins’ mother that he is her “happily-ever-after” is another matter. 
I love Echo Falls and the Applegate family.  I grew up in …

I’ve had occasion recently to contemplate the climbing numbers on my scale.  It seems the more hours I spend at my desk writing, the more my weight rises.  I admit that I snack at my desk.  Alot.   The habit has a positive soothing affect on my muse.  There’s just something about chocolate when you’re trying to write sex scenes that is unbeatable.   But it also has had a not so good result — my clothes are too tight and I huff when I carry the laundry upstairs.  So when I was trying to come …

Suppose I said to you:  “Right this second, drop everything and name me five things you can do to promote yourself and your books.”  Most of you would run for a piece of paper and scratch out five viable things.  Suppose I guess what’s on your list?  Hmm.  A website.  A blog.  Advertise on websites.  A newsletter.  Guest blog.  Those are just a few of the basics and if you wrote down something different or more ideas than that, congratulations.  You have a solid idea of how to reach out to interested readers.
I think marketing …

Music increases my productivity.
I stumbled on this fact several years ago.  I noted when I play particular CDs or artists when I write, I write longer, with less mental strain.  I had known for years that I work better — in all situations, not just writing — that I get more focused and driven when I have music in the background.  I didn't realize, though, that certain music was invoking the process better than others until I realized at one sitting I had played a certain CD ten times in five …