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The Writing Report – January 3
As a way to hold myself accountable for my work as an author, I’m making my New Year’s Resolution to commit to the weekly Writing Report. In this weekly Monday blog post, I will report on what has been done in pursuit of my writing career. I’ll keep each report as short as possible, and will sometimes write in paragraph form, and at other more pressing times when my life as a professor becomes a little hectic, I will write in bullet points. Let’s begin today’s Writing Report with a short recap and an establishment of my writing goals. RECAP Last year, I published two novellas, including Anna in Tuscany…
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We Need a Little Christmas, Especially This Year
We Still Need a Little Christmas…and we desperately need Charles Dickens’ reminder to be a good human being in 2021 and beyond. Living through this pandemic and seeing what I see daily on social media convinced me (do people really need to be so nasty to others, even if you disagree on things?????) that I needed to do what I could to help promote charity and goodwill. Additionally, I’ve weathered a hip replacement and continuing SI-Joint issues that leave me in pain, and honestly, I just needed to distract myself with something pleasant. So, all summer I wrote the continuation of Ebenezer Scrooge’s story called From Humbug to Humble: The…
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Join Me for Two Dickens Events this Holiday Season
It’s not often you get to attend Dickens-related events, but how wonderful to have two upcoming events within a week of each other! I’m certain these will put us in the Christmas spirit! (And the way the world is at the moment, we need a little Christmas!) My husband and I will be wearing our Dickens-era costumes, and we’re looking forward to meeting people who share our enthusiasm for the season. A DICKENS OF A CHRISTMAS, Sat, Dec 4 CHESTERTOWN, MD, In Chestertown where the slogan is Party like it’s 1843, I’ll be signing and selling books at “A Dickens of a Christmas” on Saturday, December 4, from 10 a.m.…
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A Pep Talk on How to Use NaNoWriMo to Your Advantage
Okay, listen up writers. I’m here to kick you into gear. I’m here to tell you it can be done. I’m here to tell you not to give up. November is here, and on this 5th day, let us remember that there are many more days in the month, and they shouldn’t go to waste if you are participating in NaNoWriMo, otherwise known as National Novel Writing Month. Established many years ago, NaNoWriMo was created to encourage writers to complete 50,000 words of a novel or work of nonfiction by November 30. The word count of 50,000 words constitutes a short novel, or approximately 1,660 words a day. I’m here…
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What the Dickens? Book Launch Next Week
Next week, my newest novella entitled FROM HUMBUG TO HUMBLE, will launch! I’m very excited to share this book with you. It was a true labor of love, and I think I’ve been in the Christmas Spirit since the summer when I began this undertaking. The truth is, I’ve loved Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol since I was a little girl. The story of a man being haunted by ghosts in order to warn him about his place among humanity and save him from his selfish ways is one of literature’s most renowned stories. That love of Ebenezer Scrooge and A Christmas Carol led me to fill in the blanks…
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Coming in November
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Summer Reading Roundup Thus Far
Good morning, sunshines! I hope you’re enjoying your summer and getting to spend some time having fun with friends and family and sneaking in a little reading. Today, I’m going to review the books I’ve read so far this summer; each will be short and succinct. Fair warning, however—I’m a pretty gentle reviewer because I know what it takes to write a novel. When someone pours their whole heart and soul into their creative writing and it takes time to do so, I have a difficult time being overly critical, but I will share my overall feelings about the book. I recommend all of them. The Giver of Stars by…
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Hold Fast to Dreams: An Update!
We all dream of seeing our book go out into the world and having people enjoy reading it. I’m proud of the work I’ve accomplished as an indie author. And I will be proud of the work I produce going forward if I stay in this lane. It’s never easy, but there are tremendous rewards. Meeting people, seeing the support of your local community, and hearing from people who’ve enjoyed your books keep me motivated. My goal is to write books that offer hope and to write better and better books each time. To those of you who have followed along on my journey, THANK YOU. To those of you…
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How Debbie Macomber Inspired Me
Last week, at the last minute, I signed up to join a Zoom call through the Baltimore County Public Library with author Debbie Macomber. It was the best thing I did for my writing career last week, and I’ll tell you why. If you don’t recognize the name Debbie Macomber, you may in a minute. She’s a bestselling author. Her genre is women’s fiction/romance. Her stories have been picked up by the Hallmark Channel (if you watched Cedar Cove, that’s Debbie’s brainchild, as are some of the Christmas movies on the network, including Trading Christmas, Mrs. Miracle, and Dashing Through the Snow). Her books can be found everywhere—at libraries, bookstores,…
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Frocktober begins tomorrow & I’ve picked my charity
FROCKTOBER BEGINS TOMORROW… And I’m announcing the charity I have chosen for the next 31 days. What is FROCKTOBER? It’s a 31-day fashion challenge, whereby you post an outfit a day on Instagram, that calls attention to a charity of choice! As an educator, author, blogger, and reader, I am so happy to support and call attention to another woman of style’s organization that fosters reading: Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. Dolly’s nonprofit organization is a book gifting program that delivers free books to children from birth to age 5 in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and Republic of Ireland. The organization was inspired by Dolly’s father’s inability to…
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What I’m Writing Now (or my current WIP)
* Currently, I’m not writing anything, but next week, I will begin to dive deeply into novel number five, picking up with Chapter 3 where I left off before coronavirus intensified the nature of my working life. The novel is still to be named, which I hate, actually. I typically have to have a working title, but now that the premise of the book has morphed into something different, the working title “Four in a Year,” is just, well, not working. Wrapping up the semester leaves me time only to write this short blog post before getting my grades finalized and uploaded. I shouldn’t even be taking time to do…
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Getting My Books in Order
This whole lockdown has been pretty strange. Not only are we getting sick of being in the house, we’re in front of our computer screens nonstop, with walking breaks stretched throughout the day to keep us sane. I thank goodness each day for the park/farm up the street and the odd little jobs we’ve been doing, in addition to watching Game of Thrones from the beginning all the way through with our kids (they had not seen my favorite all-time show before) as diversions from work. It’s truly been a whirlwind. One of the projects I decided to undertake was rearranging my bookshelves in both my office and piano room.…
