Holiday Period

Whatever holidays you celebrate in this season….or firmly avoid, in this season…I wish you all as pleasant a passage from December to the New Year as possible.  We will be having a quiet holiday season, since we can’t drive at night and thus can’t go to the Sing-Along Messiah, or any performances, or attend the Read More…

Finish Line in Sight

This is the point at which, in the old days, would lead to two to four weeks of flat out writing all day and half the night, every day–no stopping, eating only what appeared at my side or (occasionally) on the kitchen table, as I made the final dash to the end of the first/rough Read More…

Are Horses Off-Topic? Not Really

Most regular visitors here know I am  a horse lover, longtime rider, and occasional horse owner, with a list of horse-related injuries to prove some level of inexpert experience.  I have fallen off horses over fences, been spun off, bucked off (both western & English tack), and have had broken bones and concussions.  Still, the Read More…

New Story

While working on NewBook, which is now OVER 100,000 words, I was ambushed in early July by a shorter story that demanded to be written ASAP.  I couldn’t shake it off, and after my husband’s younger brother and his wife caught COVID-19, and after Melissa died after a long struggle in the hospital, and after Read More…

On the Scent: Tally-ho

New Book changed gears this week, as I said a couple of times.  From a story that, on March 24, was still wandering about, not giving me much sense of where it was headed, just over 51,000 words, and took another five days to reach 52,500 by the end of the day March 29, it Read More…

Mid-January Progress

New Book is at 170 manuscript pages, 34, 280 words, and the plot is thickening.   I’m limited in time for it right now, as the legally required reports must be done by their deadlines, but the book needs a daily or almost daily infusion of time and thought and energy…so while it’s not moving *fast* Read More…

Cold Welcome: Signs of Spring

Spring flowers are coming out here (including the non-native little white daffodil-shaped things) and not having a cold welcome from the weather at all.  Dandelions, a honeysuckle that flowers in winter and smells like lemon, swelling buds on all but the most wary trees and bushes.   So…what about Cold Welcome?  You’ve seen both the covers.  Read More…

Notice of Return

The last of the cleanup (though not all the reorganization) from Thanksgiving has been accomplished, and Author is back on the job.  The new book stands at just over 94,000 words now (some days lost to the holiday.)    Various components of the feast are already packaged and in the freezer.   Other components await deconstruction, division, Read More…

Still going…and going…

And not a pink rabbit in sight, let alone banging a drum.  No, the new book is now at 68,000+ words, despite a real solid computer scare Sunday/Monday (now resolved, and no files lost.)  It demanded that I do my daily words Monday after getting home from the computer fixit place and reconnecting everything and Read More…

“May I see some identification, sir/madam?”

Anyone who’s traveled from one country to another has been faced with a country’s filter department–Immigration & Customs.   Where you can go, under what rules, varies with place and time and the country in question.  People get refused entry for all sorts of reasons.  They get deported for all sorts of reasons.   They may need Read More…