Hallelujah! HOPE DAWNS ETERNAL is finally ready to publish, or almost. Yesterday I finished combining the prologue and 36 chapters into one gigantic document of 265 pages and 78,318 words – longer than I’d expected, but an ideal length for the first book of a trilogy. Or who knows, maybe it’ll become a longer series…. [Read More]
Is Sloth Still a Deadly Sin?
This New Year’s morning, I awoke full of good intentions. Rather than committing to the usual litany of resolutions I’ll never keep, I decided to focus on just one goal: I vow to write at least 500 words per day, which comes out to 3,500 words per week. If I don’t reach 500 words… [Read More]
My NaNoWriMo win: I may be a cheater, but I’m not a liar
I made it! Last night I validated my National Novel Writing Month (aka NaNoWriMo) score of over 50,000 words, and the site declared me an official winner. They provided a link to an online certificate I can download, with lines to fill in my name and book title, and links to order merchandise, including a… [Read More]
Drifting downstream in search of inspiration
In search of illustrations for this blog post about NaNoWriMo and my writing process, I Googled “Woman Writing Painting.” Hundreds of images popped up, and as I scrolled through them, this painting of the Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse* caught my eye. The woman is drifting on a river, face tilted skyward, eyes… [Read More]
Soap Operas: Fifteen Unwritten Rules
HOPE DAWNS ETERNAL, my new paranormal soap opera thriller, is practically finished. I plan to have the final edit completed by my birthday, July 31st, and to make it available online in September, so it’s high time I start building some buzz about it. My hero, Lieutenant Jonah McQuarry, is the narrator. With his years… [Read More]
Hobnobbing with Agents in the Big Apple
Back in April, I attended the second day of the International Women Writers Guild’s Spring Big Apple conference. I wrote the following piece for their newsletter, and I’m delighted to learn that they published it almost in its entirety. (They diplomatically deleted my critique of the old events, which were held back when IWWG… [Read More]