The Blog That Isn’t Today
Just a quick heads-up. I’m nearly finished editing my latest book, When We Were Sisters. I hoped to blog today, but the book keeps calling. So tune in next week and I’ll be back. I’m planning to tell you all about this final stage of writing a novel. If I survive it. For those of…
Read MoreSunday Inspiration: Love is better
These words seem so obvious in a way, and yet so difficult to achieve. Certainly love is better, hope is better, and optimism is better. But the hard part is keeping those values central in our lives, like the sun being framed by the heart of hands in the photo. Every day, a multitude of…
Read MoreWriters Conferences: NINC 2015
I’m home from the Novelists INC conference in St. Petersburg, Florida at the Tradewinds Resort after a jam-packed four days of workshops, conversations and panels. Wow. My head is still spinning. So much energy, so much I still don’t know. Everything in publishing is changing at the speed of light, and it’s difficult, if not impossible,…
Read MoreSunday Inspiration: The Impostor Syndrome
Do you suffer from The Impostor Syndrome? You would be surprised how many people do — including me. No matter how successful you may be, you may feel like an impostor and fraud. I feel it sometimes when I’m with colleagues, which I am now. Attending the annual NINC conference are authors who have…
Read MoreWriters Conferences: All These Year Later
Today I’m vaulting back in time to 1984 and my very first writers conference in Manhattan. At the time I’d sold my first book, but it hadn’t yet been published. I was such a newbie. What was I doing at this conference with people like Mary Higgins Clark and Lawrence Block? Me, who wasn’t sure…
Read MoreSunday Inspiration: A Happy Brain
“The chief function of the body,” said Thomas Edison, “is to carry the brain around.” I’m not so sure I agree with that, but I do believe it’s vital to keep our brain healthy and happy. Neurosciences are are making many exciting discoveries about the brain, and I ran across some in a recent blog by…
Read MoreChecklists and Why We Should Use Them
Every Saturday I get an email from blogger Amy Lynn Andrews titled the Useletter. The Useletter is always filled with great tips for people who use computers, including software and new ideas along with a little chit-chat. I can’t say I actually look forward to many of the weekly/monthly newsletters that I’ve signed up for, but Amy gets…
Read MoreSunday Inspiration: Parenting
I found this delightful photo online with several others showing a variety of animals with their offspring (you have to see the opossums). Parenting comes so naturally to the animal world, but for humans there’s quite a learning curve. What does it take to be a good parent? A writer-friend told me over the summer…
Read MoreGlobal Literacy
A reminder to all of us from the proofreading website Grammarly. If you’re reading this blog, then you have been given one of the greatest of gifts, the ability to read. International Literacy Day was September 8th, a fact I just discovered, but the message is important any day of the year. I’m looking forward…
Read MoreSunday Inspiration: Finding Peace
This week marked the 14th anniversary of 9-11, and I know for many if not most of us, this was a solemn, difficult day of remembering the victims and all those who loved and honored them. Most of you know my husband is a Unitarian-Universalist minister. Several years ago when he was the senior minister…
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