Happy St. Patrick's Day

Blog - special edition.

Those of you who have read my EPITAPH series know that one of the recurring families is The McCormicks. They're Irish, with Ma and Da coming over from the old country and some of the family still there. In fact, in THE SELKIE, the youngest McCormick (Liam) takes a trip for work.

Why the special edition of the blog? For those who haven't read the series (or for readers who have started but are looking for more), I've bundled the series into two books - the ones featuring The McCormicks and the ones with the Bensons. I thought this would be the perfect time to release them, while we are all practicing social distancing. So put on the Irish and read about the McCormicks, and when you're done, you can read about those "Troglodyte" Benson brothers!

Check them out! (or any of my other books, while you're at it). I know I've been spending more time reading, as well as preparing the next release - Hillendale #2!

Buy it here

Buy it here

Tools of the Trade

As a follow up to last week's post, I haven’t used Scrivener since November. Why? Because that’s not my process.


When I downloaded the trial, I was dealing with the holidays, and preparing a new release, and a new audiobook. I’m used to managing multiple priorities, so those things, in and of themselves, wouldn’t normally push me over the edge. The final straw was pulled when I lost “my person,” a family member I was closest to.


You’ve probably seen those drug ads on television.  In particular, I’m thinking of one that is used to combat depression, and one of the symptoms is loss of focus. No, I’m not advocating (or using) said drugs, but profound sadness absolutely screws with your focus, and that’s the point I’d reached with my work in process.


Going to take one more side trip before I circle back to the topic at hand…


My editor supplies me with a contract before we start work. She gives me dates, and for all the books she’s done for me, she hits every one of them. Sometimes it’s midnight of the day her edits are due back, but they come back on schedule. I hired a different editor for one of my books, and her process wasn’t quite as “professional.” She quoted approximate dates, in case “life events get in the way.” Now, I get life events. I completely get life events. But can you imagine me going to work and saying I want to build more days into my deadline because “life events?” Missing that deadline because “life events?” While I enjoyed working with that editor, I went back to the editor I knew and was comfortable with, because I want someone who will be held accountable. Does that mean she can’t be a day or three late if the worst should happen? Absolutely not. But that should be an exception rather than something that’s expected. Writing "life events" into a contract feels more like “in case I oversleep one day.”


So, back to the topic at hand. In spite of life events, I still have a job to do, and when life events throw me for a loop, I have to find a way to keep on track. Keep working. That’s where Scrivener came in handy during the “mourning period.” It organized my scattered thoughts. Gave me a way to think when thinking was too difficult.


For writers who struggle, there are tools out there to help. Grammar checkers. SPELL CHECKERS. Redundancy checkers. Programs that can pick up the slack where someone has a weakness. Even if you use the programs as a temporary crutch to get you over the hump, or a safety net, they are available to give you a boost when you need it.


So, back to Scrivener. As I said, it was helpful while I was stuck—when life events were overwhelming—but I have my own processes when I write. If you don’t have processes or systems in place, Scrivener is very helpful. For me, I’m glad to have had it for a crutch when I was struggling, but now that life is on a less bumpy course, I’m comfortable doing things “my way” again.

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

I wrote this post in November, and then a follow-on (which I'll post next week to let you know "how it went").

Years ago, The Big Guy got me a version of Scrivener to try. I did try it, and I figured I was an organized enough person that it didn’t make much difference, and so I chose not to buy the program. I track everything it does in my own fashion. Fast forward – I have some of the scenes in my current WIP that I know have to happen, but I don’t know how to get there, and my brain is refusing to focus on the problem at hand. I’ve learned from past experience that you can only solve problems by focusing on one at a time. Because my brain isn’t cooperating with the multiple balls in the air, I downloaded a free copy of Scrivener again to give it one more try. I needed to do SOMETHING. Generally, this would be the point I outline to propel myself forward, but I couldn’t even manage to do that.  


This might start to sound like a commercial for Scrivener, but please keep in mind that different things work for different folks. As I mentioned previously, I’d discounted this software years ago because I was able to do all that it does on my own using Word (I’m what they call a “Super User”) and an Access database. But this time I needed help. There is a learning curve to the software, but I’m a computer friendly person, so I was able to manage that fairly easily. Then I organized what I had already written, added what I know needs to happen in the story, but it was too soon to write that part. Added a couple other “somewhere down the road” things and suddenly I was filling in the holes. To be honest, those holes were what was scaring me. “What if I put down what I need to happen and end up with empty space in between?” Getting down what I needed to happen provided me with “This has to happen first” moments – the spackle for those holes. The end result is what some authors refer to as storyboarding. Mind mapping. Once I get down the plot points I need to cover “at some point,” I was able to see more clearly the plot points I needed to employ to get to that point, the ones that were eluding me.


Sometimes we all need a little help, and the program helped me to visualize what my brain refused to recognize. Will I continue to use it? Well, that remains to be seen. For this particular time in my life, it serves the purpose of a “style sheet,” something my editor generally does for me when she completes her editing pass. I have to tell you, I love that. The other benefit is that I can save the template to apply to future books in the series. While I do track all the pertinent information, settings, characters, etc., this keeps everything at the click of a mouse rather than the “open the file to refer back to,” or immediately tracking things I might forget to add because I had to open a second file to note them.


Can you achieve the same results without getting a “fancy writing program?” Absolutely. As with most aspects of writing, Your Mileage May Vary.

The Sounds of Silence

I am fluent in silence. It's one of the things I learned from my big sisters. With four of us, and me being the youngest, I always had older, more experienced competition.

I remember when we were kids and my grandmother died. We went up for the funeral--I think I was ten years old at the time--and my aunt and uncle were there. Someone, I don't remember who, it might have been one of my sisters, made an observation about the "youngest sibling." My uncle, the "baby of the family," didn't say much. In fact, he rarely spoke in a group setting, but he was very conversant away from the crowd.

Likewise, I'm more likely to have a meaningful conversation with someone one-on-one than I am in a group. Conditioned response. This is something I had to overcome in my professional career. I had a dear friend who would recommend me for committees because I had such good ideas, but when I went to the committee, I didn't speak up. She called me out on that, saying nobody would ever hear me if I didn't say anything. So I fought against years of listening and observing and made a conscious effort to contribute to the group conversation. Guess what? They promoted me. And you know what they told me? Make sure you listen to what other people have to say when you're developing talent. In other words, don't speak. Go figure. Yes, I learned how to balance when to speak and when to stay silent. For the most part. Funny thing about using your voice, once you speak up, sometimes its hard to stop!

There are many days where I don't say much. I don't feel the need to hear my voice in every conversation. It makes some people uneasy, people who don't know me well, but as my daughter once observed, that's just my way. There are days when you can't shut me up, especially if I've been silent for days in a row.

I greatly value the conversations I have with my family and friends, but in the silence, I hear what people say. There is time to reflect. Time to appreciate someone else's point of view.

As the titled song says, I write my books in silence. If I don't share them (according to the song), that makes me a fool. If you read my words, I might teach you. I might reach you. Like my dear friend said, if I don't say anything, nobody will ever hear me, and I speak best "on paper." At the very least, my books give us something to talk about to break the silence once in a while.

Life is frittered away by detail

I remember a Shirley MacLaine movie where every man she married died a tragic death and left her lots of money. She started looking for poor men in hopes they wouldn't die. It's the first time I became acquainted with Walden Pond.

At the beginning of every year, I evaluate what my goals for the year are. It's more of a wish list, but it helps give me direction. What do I hope to accomplish? How do I plan to achieve those goals? What's the end game?

This year, my plan is for simplicity. Do what moves me.

I'm expecting to release Epitaph 2: The Twins as an audiobook this spring. I began a new series with my release of FAMILY ALCHEMY in January, along the lines of Practical Magic, Karla Style. In anticipation of continuing that series, I finished Book 2 this week (or at least the first draft of book 2). Moving on to the hard part now, filling in the blanks, fixing the mistakes, stuff like that. Overall, I'm pleased with the way it looks, and hope to be sharing it with readers late Spring.

And then what?

I'm seldom without a story running around inside my head. At this point of writing a book, I'm usually already looking ahead to the next one, but for right now, I'm taking a breath while I decide if I should move on to Book 3 in the Hillendale series or take a break from the alchemists and write a romance. I'll be honest, I miss my happily ever afters, the sigh-worthy heroes and misguided heroines. As Spring approaches, is love in the air?

Stay tuned.

Feel free to share your opinions. Inspiration often comes in the form of a kind word.

Happy Valentines Day

I'm a romance author. I believe in happily ever after. When people tell me how they met their spouses, I listen with rapt attention. If we don't have love, what's left? This is a question I'm hearing with increasing frequency, and not just as pertains to romance.

Most of us have had "practice" relationships, people we thought we loved but didn't. Some of us have "the one that got away." And some of us found the loves of our lives the first time out of the gate (I'm looking at you, Scott and Kathy.) 

In the course of research, I follow a "love guru" by the name of Matthew Hussey, and I have to tell you, he has some spot-on advice. In hindsight, I wish I'd run across him years ago, but we all have our own lessons to learn. While I didn't always make the best decisions, I wouldn't change any of them.

Well, maybe one.

So as we approach this "Hallmark holiday," and maybe it is just a made up thing, but if you think of it as "Happy I Love You Day" instead of "Valentines Day," then maybe it won't seem so commercial. Then again, Happy I Love You Day doesn't have to be restricted to February 14. I know I've celebrated more than one of those days every year. On this February 14, share the love. It doesn't have to be romantic love. Instead of pointing fingers and calling people names, set your differences aside and look for commonalities. We weren't always this divided as a country. Once upon a time, we exercised human kindness with one another. Let's see if we can do that again, starting with Valentines Day. And then maybe the day after that, and one more day, until it becomes a habit again.

In a world full of angst...

I've reached that part of my current work in progress - the climax. I ALWAYS struggle with "when all hope is lost" moments in my books, partly because I tend to be an optimist, and partly because I hate acknowledging the worst in people.

A few years ago, I was called to jury duty. I lived a sheltered life growing up, and while I've acquired a lot of world experience during the course of my life, there is still a darker side to humanity that I'm fortunate I don't have to deal with on a regular basis. In the trial I was chosen for, the bad guy stole something out of a vehicle. The owner of the vehicle saw him and chased him down the street, and the thief then slashed the guy with a box cutter. Pretty serious stuff. The thief on trial used the "I found it" defense, and the subsequent slashing as self defense from the guy who was chasing him. Enter my naivete. They'd dressed the defendant up nice for court. I don't have a lot of experience with this level of bad guy. In the jury room, one of my fellow jurors pointed out some key parts of the case which clearly pointed to the defendant's guilt, points I never would have understood unless someone with firsthand knowledge was there to point them out. I like to think the best of people, see the good in everyone, many times to my own detriment. I wanted to believe this guy was innocent. Sometimes you have to take off the Polllyanna glasses. With my fellow juror's knowledge and other folks in the jury room in agreement, I felt compelled to join them in convicting the defendant. When it was over, the judge came into the jury room and told us we'd done the right thing, that the defendant had a long rap sheet and there was little doubt of his guilt.

I've been called for jury duty again this month. It's a very interesting, eye-opening experience, but I'd be lying if I told you I hoped to be selected for a jury again. What I'm hoping is to take along a book to read and be dismissed - unneeded - at the end of the day. (fingers crossed)

Which brings me back to the bad guy in my book. That jury duty experience reminds me that there are bad guys in the world (and yes, some of them live VERY close by), but I don't write urban fiction. Nor do I want to. Still, I have to find a way for my villain to act villainously. That means taking a walk on the dark side.

In a world where I'm not sure we aren't heading toward Armageddon, when the end days feel like they're right around the corner with fires in Australia and locusts in Kenya and other disasters too numerous to dwell on here, Anyone see Noah? Is he building that ark yet?

I REALLY hate stepping into the dark side, but the thing about evil is that good always wins. There's this thing called Karma. By stepping into the dark side, I want to give my readers hope for a brighter tomorrow. No, these books aren’t romances, but I’m going to slip back into #MyLifeIsAMusical, because this song says it all.