New Year, New Mug, New Socks, New Motivation
I’m delighted to bid farewell to 2021. Our family had a particularly bad end of the year. The darkest moment was the passing of our granddaughter, Claire Elizabeth. As much as I want 2022 to be better, I said the same thing in 2021 and it turned out to be much worse that 2020, so…Read More
Book 2: Fire – first draft complete!
During the 12 Days of Page Turners online event, the host, Aimee Ravichandran (@aimeeravichandran) of Abundantly Social, asked me how long it took to write SPARK. I told her that I thought it took about a year to finish the first draft. There were eight drafts before it was done. So, having just finished my…Read More
Book Review: Uncaged by John Sandford & Michele Cook
Years ago, before eReaders and free video entertainment on airplanes, I travelled every week for work. Usually by air, so I spent lots of time in airports and didn’t yet have a Kindle or iPad. I was wed to actual, physical books. I still prefer to read that way, but there is a downside to…Read More
Meet the Pod Part 2: Yennifer, Zen, DeadElf
Among the games that I have truly enjoyed – and by that, I mean that they’re good enough to play at least twice – is the Witcher series. Particularly Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt. If you’ve played the game, read the books, or watched the series, you know Yennifer. (I deliberately changed the spelling –…Read More
Book Review: Diminishing Return by Joseph D. Newcomer
Newcomer’s latest is not a good book, it’s a great one. It’s the first book in quite a while that made me truly think. It made me think about life, death, love, friendship, the general dumbing-down of public discourse and entertainment, the occasional, apparent, futility of existence. Pretty heady stuff for a relatively short (205…Read More
Meet the Pod: Fantom
In SPARK, the Pod is a group of runaways who have figured out the secret to staying overnight in the park. Every kid’s dream. An augmented reality version of Neverland. Janne, HVH, and Hodgins all know what’s going on. They are tidy squatters, so HVH decides to let it play out as an impromptu social…Read More
Book Review: Daughter of Hades by Mack Little
I first met Mack Little through the Houston Writer’s Guild. I ended up joining her writing group as she worked on the second installment of her Zenobia Grant series and I worked on SPARK. Since then, she has finished Book 1 of Daughter of Hades Series, and I was privileged enough to be asked to…Read More
Twelve Days of Page Turners
I’ll be talking about SPARK with Abundantly Social on December 1st at 7:00 PM CST. There will be three other authors discussing their books, but I know you just really want to know more about SPARK! Here’s the link to Aimee’s FB page: https://www.facebook.com/AbundantlySocial/
Smurf Slayer
After reading my manuscript Steph (my developmental editor) had a few things to say. The one that hit me hardest was this: “I actually like your bad guy (Ragnar Sarnak in the published version) more than I do Will (the protagonist).” Ouch. When I started the novel, I wanted Billy/Will to be a lead with…Read More
Thank you, Matthew!
We dwell in a universe of quick, easy, “likes.” So, when I checked the mail last week and saw a hand-addressed envelope, I was surprised. Inside was my first ever piece of fan mail. An honest-to-God, hand-written note to me: As Newcomer put it: “There will never be a digital form of communication which will…Read More