More Recent Releases

Possibilities

I haven’t had enough artist’s dates recently.  Every time I imagine taking the afternoon off to enjoy something–a friend, a meander through a bookstore, a movie–I start fretting about what I’ll have to give up to get that. Work or exercise mainly.  I won’t give up the afternoons with Amara, which are artist’s dates [...]

Upcoming workshops and appearances

Have settled the summer schedule:

June 15, 3013: Missouri Romance Writers “The Heroine’s Journey” Booksigning: 12:30 Maryland Heights Centre, 2344 McKelvey Road, Maryland Heights, MO Website

July 16-20, 2013 Romance Writers of American National Conference Panel on Romantic Women’s Fiction Friday 2-3 pm Atlanta Marriott Marquis, Atlanta GA Website

July 28-August 3, 2013 Antioch [...]

A New Walker

Yesterday, I took Amara to the park.  We walked most of the way.  I couldn’t help but think of my grandmother, walking with me in a dozen parks and on hundreds of city blocks and country roads and shopping malls and small towns.

So the circle turns.  What a blessing!

 

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South Island, New Zealand Trip Report, #1

January 10, 2013 Queenstown

 

(Having trouble adding images….will try to add more later today….)

It’s raining this morning, a very agreeable weather considering how many days in a row we’ve been moving, moving, moving. I was delighted at the moody weather when we drove in last night, heavy clouds in dark puffs around [...]

The Age of Aquarius–a time of balance

Happily, the end of the world has not yet arrived, and we’re all here to begin the long awaited Age of Aquarius, which some say begins this year.  It is meant to be a time of spiritual growth for society, and to me, it  does feel like the dawn of a new age.  I’d like to think so.

I’m thinking about change and balance myself, and a few things have come together to insist that I begin to consider exactly what I want each day to contain, how I want to live, what changes I’d like to make.  In October and November, I was pulling my usual deadline marathon, finishing the new book, Flavor of a Blue Moon, which will be out in early 2014.  (Sorry, I know that will be a disappointment to some of you, but the truth is, it just took more time to research and write than some other books.  I think you’re going to fall in love with Lavender and Ginny and all the adventures they have.  In the meantime, I promise to have some novellas up this year, just for you.)

Back to the deadline marathon.  It was exhausting.  Way more exhausting than it ever has been.  By the time I emailed it to my editor and agent, I felt like a zombie, and looked like one, too: my eyes were bloodshot constantly, and my skin was the color of wax, to compliment the smeared-cinders look of the circles under my eyes.  The last week of the deadline, I realized that I had a sinus infection and dashed over to the local urgent care to get some antibiotics.

There I discovered that one reason I felt so crappy was that my  blood pressure, which I’d been trying to control with diet and exercise, had gone way too high, and my heart was murmuring and all sorts of alarms went off and I was hustled to this doctor and that and had tests and Serious Conversations and–well, the bottom line is, Continue reading The Age of Aquarius–a time of balance

Upcoming New Zealand

I haven’t been on a long journey since the splendiferous trip to England and Spain in 2010, when I walked a part of the Camino de Santiago (which showed up emphatically in The Garden of Happy Endings).  In a couple of weeks, Christopher Robin and I are headed off to New Zealand for a [...]

An Award for the Blog!

This arrived today, an award from MastersInEnglish.org, which recognized 25 top sites for writers and English buffs.  I’m quite honored!

I will figure out how to get it in the right place when the current book-in-progress is finished.  Two weeks to deadline…eek.

Also check back for a post on my trip to Ithaca, [...]

How Flowers, A Camera, and The Girls Play Together

This morning I awakened feeling crazy hunger to create, which often happens to me on days like this. It’s cool, with a sweet little breeze carrying autumn. It’s overcast, which is the most important thing.  In a place with so much sunlight, cloudy days are a blessing, quieter somehow, thoughtful.  I [...]

The Off-Season

I’m back in Breckenridge, this time for a Writing Away Retreat, which I agreed to do a couple of years ago. Funny.

It’s again the slow season.  The gondola to the slopes is closed, and mostly the tourists are elderly, stopping to shoot a photo of the river. I walked five miles in the [...]

One Ripe Peach

I heard the unsettling news that an old friend died suddenly last January.  We were in college together, and he was part of the Cantina gang, many of us Mass Comm majors at CSU Pueblo.  We talked about having lunch, taking time to catch up, but you know…we didn’t.  It was disconcerting that he [...]