writing progress

My Christmas Collection is Here!

I’m super excited to announce the arrival of my short story collection, Count on Christmas.

Originally, I planned to release it with five stories, but had so much fun I wrote six. The collection contains contemporary stories, some with new friendships, a couple of love stories, and one magical story. All of them are set around Christmas time.

To learn more about the collection, you can visit my book page for more details.

I hope you enjoy reading the stories as much as I enjoyed writing them.

You can purchase my book where ever you purchase your e-books. If you prefer print, you can order a copy through Amazon.

Merry (Early) Christmas!

What I’m Working On: October 31

Happy Halloween! The adorable little kids in costumes made me smile this evening.

Also, happy day before NanoWriMo. November is the month when writers challenge themselves to write a novel in one month. I don’t plan to take part this year, but have done so in the past. The best thing I learned from NanoWriMo was that when I made a writing project important to me, I could make the time needed to get the draft finished despite the holidays. If you’re a writer struggling to carve out time to write, this could be helpful. There is one that runs during June (CampNanoWriMo) if November isn’t possible.

Last week, I created the book cover for my Christmas collection. I love how it turned out. My stories are almost edited and I’m on target for the release of the collection next week. The stories are a mixture of friendships, romance, and nostalgia.

I also continued to write my third Rockton Treasure novel. It took a few surprising twists. I’m having fun with it.

My ghost short story collection hit a slight delay and will go out this week.

My second Rockton Treasure novel just returned from my copyeditor. Once I make the suggested adjustments and create the cover, it will be published. If you’d like to be notified of when it’s ready, please sign-up for my newsletter.

Thank you for your support. I hope you have a great week.

What I’m Working On: Oct. 19

Last week, I finished my last Christmas story for my holiday collection. I wrote five heart-warming short stories for the collection. I’m super excited to share them with you. Currently, all the stories are in my copyeditor’s hands. Hooray!

I had a blast writing the Christmas stories. It took me back to my tradition of writing daily Christmas short stories for my kids for about ten years. It ended when my daughter moved out. Those two were fun to write and I’m thinking about reviving the tradition to be a weekly story instead of daily. Writing daily short stories gets intense when juggling work and Christmas task.

My newest romance novel, Imperfect Love, is waiting review on all the booksellers’ websites.

This week, I’m writing my third novel in my Rockton Treasure series. I also plan to assemble my quirky ghost stories into a collection for Halloween.

I hope you have a great week.

What I’m Working On

It’s the first week of October and Christmas tunes are playing in my studio. What I love most about the music (besides it putting me in a festive mood) is it makes me feel like I’ve won a battle with my husband. For over twenty years we’ve argued (good-naturedly) about when it’s okay to play Christmas music and when it isn’t. He says December (maybe after Thanksgiving). I say when the mood strikes.

For the first five years of our marriage, my husband actually hid my Christmas CDs until the day after Thanksgiving. He lost ground when I ripped all the CDs to my computer and had a song ready to play as soon as it snowed, which in Wisconsin often happened late October or early November.

So why am I playing Christmas music on a sixty-degree day in Idaho at the beginning of October? I needed to set the mood for my Christmas Short Story Collection. Technically, Christmas music has played since September because it’s when I started writing my Christmas stories.

My Christmas collection will be five Christmas short stories. The first three are written. I will finish the fourth one this week.

I’m having fun writing Christmas stories. My brain is already playing with other ideas on future collections. I will release this collection during the first week of November.

Stay tuned!

2020 in Review

What a year! I wanted to get this posted at the beginning of January but a few things cropped up. At least this post will still show up in January, albeit the last day.

The beginning held great promise with going to Maui, gaining a bonus-mom, and spending six weeks outside of Breckenridge, Colorado. Then along came co-vid 19 and a job layoff. Since our life had gotten shaken up (as was the case with many people), we decided to throw in a move from Wisconsin to Idaho. There’s a long story behind that decision, but I want to keep this post short.

Despite the upheaval riddled with much uncertainty, I still progressed in my writing.

What I Accomplished

I wrote four novels.
My goal was to write more than this, but life had a few other plans. I learned to roll with what life threw at us.
I published two novels.
Typing that makes me smile. The other two from the four that I wrote will be published in 2021.

I completed Dean Wesley Smith’s challenge of writing one short story each week for a year in mid-April.
Thanks Dean. This one taught me a lot about sticking to my goal and finishing no matter what. I managed to keep the streak going through travels, co-vid, the job loss, and getting the house ready for sale. I wrote a few more short stories throughout the year, giving me a total of 20 short stories for 2020.

I entered the Writers of the Future contest every quarter.
I received three honorable mentions and a semi-finalist award. If you love to write speculative fiction, I encourage you to enter Writers of the Future. It’s free, it gives you practice on finishing stories on a deadline, and it’s fun.

I had fun.
Typing this is a bit strange considering the weirdness of the year, but I can’t say that the co-vid challenges made it the worse year ever. I’ve had years way worse than this. I took advantage of things not happening to focus on improving my craft, exploring a new area (I love the outdoors), and really digging in to write.

With all the things happening so far at the beginning of 2021, I’m optimistic that things will get better. It’s the only way I can keep moving forward. In the meantime, I plan to keep writing, publishing, and creating art.

Here’s to an improved year.

2019 in Review

2019 was fun. I learned so much about writing, telling stories, and publishing. I challenged myself in new ways. Many times I found myself energized by the pleasure of jumping in and figuring out things as I went.

What I accomplished:

I published four novels.
If there was a word for the super, huge, mongo smiley face that is on my face right now, it would be here. All of my current books are available in any e-book format or in print.

I wrote thirty-seven short stories.
I love the format of short stories. In April, I entered Dean Wesley Smith’s Short Story Challenge. The goal is to write one story every week for a year. As of today, January 28, 2020, I am finishing short story number #42.

I submitted twenty short stories to magazines; multiple times.
Submitting is something I tend to procrastinate on because I love to write more. So my submissions go in bursts (something I plan to adjust in 2020). I’ve received quite a few “try again” letters and have noticed over the last few months many of the letters I receive are more personal in responses. I figure I’m getting close to getting something accepted and published.

I received two honorable mentions for the Writer’s of the Future contest.
So far I have entered three short stories. The third one I won’t hear the results for until sometime in March 2020. The Writer’s of the Future contest is a quarterly contest open to amateur writers. If you love writing science-fiction, fantasy, and/or horror you should enter too.

I graduated my oldest from homeschooling.
While I can’t take full credit for this one, since homeschooling is a team effort, my teaching duties for our oldest shifted from making sure the checklist was checked, to advisor for navigating the adult world. The high school years are a bit more challenging because their interests are different than mine (almost complete opposites) and the way I taught had to change.

I finished a couple of paintings.
Writing took most of my focus for the year, but I found I felt more balanced when I gave myself a break to play with my paintbrush. I will post pictures of my favorites soon.

I had fun.
This one should maybe be at the top. I had fun navigating the waters as a writer. I learned how to format books, design covers, and use some graphic programs that I always meant to master when I worked as a web designer. I also experimented with many genres of writing.

Those were the highlights for the 2019. At the beginning of February I will post my goals for 2020. One of my goals is to keep my blog updated more regularly.

I hope your year went well and that 2020 is filled with fun.