I committed to a writing career on my 40th birthday–May 27, 1999. I figured that, given the average lifespan of 80 or so years, I was about halfway done with my life, and if I was going to be a professional writer I had better be about it. Do the math. That was 19 years…
When I was much younger, my family would come to Marietta from Tennessee to see my dad’s sister and her eight children. It was such a great time for me. I loved their big family, and the craziness that was always going on. One of my cousins, who was three years older and whom I…
Of course, Winnie the Pooh never went anywhere. He was always with me; I just forgot. Have you read the Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff? I do not claim to be a Taoist or any sort of authority on Taoism, but I find a lot in this little book that gives me pause and…
The point of NaNoWriMo is that you sit down and write without any editing for an entire month in order to generate 50,000 words. For my genre, contemporary romance (sub genre sweet romance–everybody keeps their clothes on), this is almost an entire book. I use this method a lot when I am writing just to…
When people tell me they love math and science but hate writing, I always tell them how mathematical writing is. It never fails to get me a puzzled stare, but once I explain it they see it is clear as day. After all, I’m not a genius, I just spend a lot of time thinking…
I have had this story on my mind as I think about a friend who has been feeling a little blue. I thought I would share it with you because it is meaningful to me, so you might like it, too. (By the way, I looked for it online, and there are so many different…
My sons are dating/engaged to wonderful girls. How do I know this? They love dogs. I haven’t met Nora yet, but I am over-the-moon about Pop.
This starts off sounding a little sad, but stay with me, I promise you a triumph of the spirit at the end. My friend, Jill, who is wise well beyond her years, told me about an article she read saying that we don’t always recognize our “last times” when they happen. You don’t realize it’s…
I’m not a “lay out on the beach until you are fried like KFC” kind of person. I’m a Tennessee girl, and given a choice, most of the time, I will chose the mountains. Until I don’t. I am drawn to the ocean for so many reasons–too many to name in one post–but let me…
Last week I shared some of the elements of interior design I had learned in my light research on the Internet. I must make a disclaimer before I branch off into this post: I in no way consider myself to be an expert on interior decorating after so short a review of the principles of…
I am not very good at decorating. I can do okay with hanging a few pictures, matching bedspreads and wall paint, even picking out wallpaper on occasion, but when it came down to it, we hired decorators–formerly Main Street Interiors, now Black Dog Design House–and they were awesome. I’m afraid they’d be a little disappointed…
Who isn’t these days? But busy is the sign of a wonderful, full life, so I’m not going to complain. I am not actually the right person to be juggling all of these balls because multi-tasking makes me break out in hives, but I’d rather be scrambling to fit it all in than sitting…
