October Love, Wild Wanderings, and a New Book

Fall is here at last in my home of Missouri. Three days ago brisk winds blew in thunderstorms and chilly weather. Leaves are falling from the trees already. All the beaches we love to play and walk on have been temporarily drowned in the swell of the great Missouri River (but that didn’t keep us [...]

Cinderella, Edits and Assassins

So what do Cinderella, edits and assassins have in common? It's not a riddle, I promise 🙂 They're all the things that have been driving me bonkers lately, that's what! (Don't worry - the assassin isn't after me...) CINDERELLA I have been working on several things. First and foremost has been the Cinderella retelling I've been [...]

First Drafts and Dragons

Well, my friends, I am feeling a strange mixture of utter relief and tension right now. It's the feeling that comes when a first draft is finished (relief), and edits loom large (tension) .... Yes, you heard me. Mere minutes ago I typed the last sentence of my book. It is the second of a [...]

Summer of Ups and Downs

Death ... The past weeks have included a lot of ups and downs around our house. For those of you who remember when we got our puppy, Pilot, a few months back, it pains me to say that we lost him just a couple of weeks ago. He died, we believe, of a disease young [...]

First ARC Proof for THE WORD CHANGERS

My publisher warned me ahead of time it was coming, but I still wasn't really prepared.  What a surreal feeling to see my name on the cover of a book at last, to see my own words written in the pages, my own characters walking around and doing things just on the other side of that [...]

Edits, ARCs and a Tree House

This week I've been working on edits for THE WORD CHANGERS. The first round was finished a few weeks ago, and the second round (thankfully!) was much less intense. There will likely be a third round quite soon, which will probably be the last! *Happy dance!* My publisher informs me he hopes to have ARCs [...]