In Scotland, they celebrate New Year’s with Hogmanay. Traditionally, Hogmanay was a fire celebration commemorating the Winter Solstice. Because I'm a dictionary nerd, I'll share with you the following definition from The Free Dictionary: Hogmanay [ˌhɒgməˈneɪ] n a. New Year's Eve in Scotland b. (as modifier) a Hogmanay party See...
Almost a week ago, I lost my mother-in-law to ALS, a disease many people know as Lou Gehrig’s disease. It’s a terribly cruel disease that strikes about 5,600 people in the United States each year. The disease is variable by person. Some patients live many years with it. My mother-in-law...
Here’s another sample of the variety of ridiculous comments I’ve received on the blog lately. It’s obvious they don’t read the blog and I hate, abhor, no detest SPAM. But this does lend a little humor to the situation and it gives me a great subject to post about: #1...
Editing is like a merry-go-round. At first it can be a bit of a thrill, accompanied by a hint of butterflies. But if you stay on the carousel too long… you’re gonna get sick. Aside from editing the voice right out of your work, story fatigue becomes a factor....
The beauty of an online writing conference is that you don’t have to physically go anywhere. You can attend via the comfort of your favorite chair or coffee shop. Anywhere you can connect via your laptop or internet enabled device of choice. It’s perfect for those of us with day...
The other day, while shopping at Publix, I spied a teenager, with her nose in a book as she walked the aisles with her parents. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get close enough to get a good glance at the title. I wondered if it was required reading in English class and...
Here’s just a sample of the plethora of ridiculousness I’ve received lately: POSTED COMMENT: Energizer Bunny arrested, charged with battery POSTED BY: http://www.getlaidtonightinfo.com/ MY RESPONSE (in my head of course because I’d never respond to any of these spammers): Check out the URL link. Actually PLEASE don’t. Seriously people. What...
I needed to find out which South American country was the hottest, in terms of temperature or climate. So I went to my favorite search engine, Google, and typed in the following: hottest South American country Here are my less than helpful results: In case you can’t read the small...
Aye! My TBR pile runneth over. At the moment – it’s a bit overwhelming. Here’s the stack of freebies from RWA. And here are two other piles that I haven’t gotten to yet. That’s a total of thirty books!! 1.7333 books per week if I don’t add any more...
I’ve been figuratively tugging my hair out trying to write a synopsis for THE NOVEL. I need to condense a four-hundred page novel into two pages. How in the heck do you do such a thing? I spent hours Googling and studying resources from various sources. (BTW - RWA University...
I’m headed to NYC for RWA Nationals. This will be my first conference and I am excited to learn tons from the workshops and get to meet some fabulous like-minded writerly types. I’m also looking forward to putting a face with a lot of folks I’ve met virtually in classes...
This is our second week hosting a soccer coach for the Challenger Sports British Soccer Camp. It is one of the most rewarding experiences and tons of fun getting to know someone from another country and sharing a week of our American life with them. Last week we hosted an...
