Spring has sprung!

Spring has sprung here in north Georgia. The pollen is working my husband over big time, and covering anything outside with the evil yellow dust. My silver car definitely doesn't look silver at the moment, and there's really no sense in washing it until things calm down.

With the arrival of spring, so comes the arrival of our wedding anniversary. April 9th marked 27 years. Eek! How is that possible? I wrote a little something on Facebook (see below), and presented the hubs with this cute penny from 1994 that I ordered from an Etsy shop. It was a nice day.

Twenty-seven years ago, on a windy, Spring day, two 17yos pledged their lives to one another. Most would say that's far too young to agree to eternity, and I would certainly agree with you NOW, but it appears to have worked out. Some days it feels like a lifetime has passed, and others it feels like just yesterday we were so young and free (i.e. stupid).  

I won't say it's been an easy ride. Oh, definitely not. Like all couples, there were moments where I considered smothering him with a pillow. Especially during all those middle of the night cluster feedings when I had an infant attached to me, and their dad was snoring away like nothing. Now here we are, all these years later, three wonderful children and a grandson we both adore. We had two short years alone in the beginning before our oldest was born, and now we have two short years left before the youngest is out of the house. It blows my mind!  

Even with all that, the good definitely outweighs the frustrating, and I couldn't imagine spending my life with anyone else. I look forward to spending the rest of our lives together, and I hope it will be a very long time before you die. (I always say he'll go before me.) Happy 27th anniversary, baby! I love you forever and always!

This past weekend, I spent some time planting 9 strawberry plants in our little makeshift cinder block bed. They were already covered with flowers, runners, and small berries when I bought them, so I'm hoping they'll grow abundantly. I've picked a few berries over the last few days and still waiting on a couple to fully ripen. Sun-warmed, freshly picked strawberries are simple pleasures in life.

Now flowers are blooming, bees are buzzing, birds are chirping every morning. This is the time of year I love!

And then next month my grandson turns 1! Eek! I can't believe how fast that happened. He's growing so fast, babbling all the time, loves for me to read to him, pulling up, and doing his best to get into anything that isn't tied down or just out of reach. It has been a lot of fun watching him grow and learn. 

Today, I'm waiting on an inspector from our homeowner's insurance to arrive and inspect the roof. With all the storms, wind, and hail we've had the last few months, we've developed a leak in my laundry room. So now we see if the insurance will pay for a fix, or if we'll have to handle it ourselves. With 25 years of coverage, and zero claims, I really hope they'll do something beneficial.

In the meantime, I'm working on book 9 in the Liz Baker series, as well as a short story about Chad & Monty from when Liz was missing. The short story will come out first (free of charge), and book 9 is currently scheduled for the fall.

I hope you're all safe, healthy, and having a wonderful week. Be sure to pop by my Facebook page for more updates and randomness from me. :)

October 1st! We made it to level 10.

This little boy is a fox! :)

Good morning, everyone! 

We finally made it to October. This year has been pure insanity, and it doesn't look to be calming down just yet. Yet, we can hope for the best!

I've been kicking it around here lately with home improvements, cooking, cleaning, book writing, promotions, and even managed to order my 2021 planner (woohoo!). 

This coming weekend I'll even be cleaning out my chicken coop as the girls may be feeling a bit neglected lately since my 15yr old has been in charge of them while she was home from school for 6 months. Now that she's gone back to school I'm back out there tending to them and realized the teenager might have slacked a bit on cleanliness. 

On the Homefront, I've been spending a lot of time with my little grandson, Grady. He is a light in this crazy world. He's all smiles when he sees his Gammie and PopPop, and we adore him! He looks soooo much like his mommy (who looks soooo much like me!). 

On the book front, I'm still working on the 8th book in the Liz Baker series. I also wrote a little short Liz thing for a multi-author anthology coming up in the future. I've been reformatting a few of the eBooks to include extras like free short stories and even a full length book. I've joined a few multi-author promotions to boost newsletter subscribers and introduce my readers to other authors who are doing the same with their own lists. I've also been approached by a website looking to add the Alex & Fiona series to their novel-reading site (I haven't decided on that one yet). Lots of things in the works right now! 

In the meantime, I hope all of you are surviving the year. Hopefully October will be a good month and lead us all into the holiday season with a bit more calm.

The End!

Last week, I finally wrote those two little words I love the most: The End! Death's Seduction, book 7 of the Liz Baker series is finally finished. Woohoo! Well, if we wanna get technical, it's not "finished" since there's about half a dozen rounds of editing it will need to undergo, but for me..... IT'S DONE!

Yay!

I'm so excited!

Mr. Silvers asked me the other day how long it had been since book 6 came out and I figured a few years, until I looked at the copyright page of book 6. Five years! *Gasp* I can't believe it has been 5 years already. Even I have forgotten a lot of the small details of the series and had to go back through my notes from the previous six books.

Granted, I've been through a LOT in the last five years, the most important being the cancer diagnosis of my mother, sooooo many treatments, and her ultimate passing eight months later. Not to mention, I started working a part time public job two years ago, and that has taken away a lot of my writing time over those years. I also had one daughter join the Army and another daughter graduate high school and move out on her own. I finally got my very own office last summer (and it has been glorious!) that I was able to set up to my liking. That helped the writing process tremendously.

In the meantime, you guys don't know just how much I appreciate all my loyal fans that have stuck around, sent me words of encouragement, kindness, and understanding, and those who shared the Liz Baker series with their friends and family while I've worked to get my writing life put back together. My heart swells from the love you guys have shown and it definitely fueled the fire in me to get this book finished.

Oh, and I've already started on book 8, as well. I'm planning to release it toward the end of this year. Two releases in one year?! I haven't done that in quite some time, and I'm excited about it this year.

Sooooooo, while I have everyone all excited with me now, I'd like to announce what everyone is waiting for.....

Death's Seduction, Liz Baker Bk 7 will be released on MAY 24th, 2019!

Normally book releases are at the beginning of a week, but I chose this day to honor my mother. May 24th will mark the 3 year anniversary of her passing, and while I miss her every single day, I know she would be so excited about the release of another Liz book. She loved to tell all her friends that her daughter is an author and she had all my books proudly displayed on her bookshelf for everyone to see. She had framed newspaper articles about me and even printed off online articles and blog posts to show everyone.

If you've read this far, thank you for sticking with me for all these years. I hope you're as excited about the new Liz Baker book as I am. Pre-Orders will start soon, and I'll share all of those links when it's time. Until then, check out the new cover above from the extremely talented Kelly Shorten. She has been the cover designer for every single Liz Baker book from the very beginning.

Lots of love to you all,

It's nice to see you, 2019!

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope the holidays were extra special for all of you and that 2019 has started off with a bang. My holidays began with my Army daughter making it home on the 21st. Her flights were delayed a little, making her an hour later than scheduled getting into the Chattanooga airport. Thankfully, she made it in ahead of some nasty weather we were expected to get that evening. We made it home safe and sound before the storm hit that night.

Not only did I have my daughter home for Christmas, but also her 22nd birthday, and New Year's! She had to leave on the 2nd. It was nice having her home, even if just for that short amount of time. She hadn't been home since May! The next time I expect to see her is next Christmas. :(

My other girls enjoyed seeing their big sister while she was here. There was a lot of giggling, squealing, wrestling, picking, and cuddles. They had a good time.

Now that the holidays are over, it's time to get back to business. This year I have several projects in the works, most important is the long awaited release of book 7 in the Liz Baker series. Yay! I have a long to-do list for 2019 that includes short stories, BOGO deals, a possible box set deal, and possibly some videos from lil ole me. With all this upcoming goodness, if you aren't subscribed to my newsletter no is definitely the time. You won't want to miss out on all the fun stuff coming your way. Subscribe Today.

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope 2019 brings you all the health, happiness, and prosperity you can stand. :D

Time for the real fun.

With the first draft of a story complete, the real work begins. It's time to dive into edits, rewrites, deletions, and additions. My stories usually go through at least half a dozen rounds of the process, both via myself and several others. And yet there will always be something that slips through the cracks. We're only human, after all.

A lot of writers hate this part of the process, but I actually like it. I like that the story is already there, complete, in front of me. No more thinking of what the characters will do next. Nope. Now, at this point, I only have to think of how to enhance the story. Adding more details, removing redundant material, and even correcting weird sentence structures are the challenges ahead of me.

I do all of this in the old-fashion manner of putting pen to paper. My entire story is printed out and I sit down with my red ink pen going over sheet after sheet. When one chapter is complete I go to the computer file and input my changes. And then I do it all over again. After the second run through, I send the story off to my editor for her input. After her changes are implemented it's time for beta readers. These are the people who will tell me what they think of the story: how it flows, plot structure, and whether or not it held their attention. The betas will offered up their suggestions and I choose to include them or leave the story as is.

And that's when I finally determine the story has been edited to death and plan for the big release date.

No matter how many times a writer goes over their story there will always be something to change. However, at some point you just have to quit and move on to the next project, or fear editing the story into dust. We don't want to lose the feel of the story by changing everything you started out with. As a writer you have a feel for a story when you're writing it, so don't make it as mundane as a brown paper bag by editing out all the finer qualities.

And here I am, looking forward to the next few weeks of edits and rewrites before the big release day for this new story. And when March 7th comes and goes, the book delivered to the world, I'll hope the story draws in its readers and I'll move on to the next story. Thus is the life of a writer. :)

What's next for the Liz Baker series?

I've had a few emails from readers asking when the next Liz Baker book will be released, so I figured I'd touch base with you guys on this series.

If you're up-to-date on the series, you know there are currently six books and one short story available. Liz has been up to her ears in monsters, demons, friends, family, and two horrible fathers, but that doesn't stop her. She keeps right on moving forward and attempting to create the life she wants. The next book will be no different in that respect.

And yes, there is another book coming out, two or three more actually. Her birthday is coming up in the next book, and thus a very elaborate party at Adele's estate (will it ever not be Adele's estate?) with hundreds of guests, a lot Liz has never met, and some she's only heard of.

If you read book 6, you know the ending leads to more trouble (when do they not), right after Liz gets rid of her longtime enemy. Christmas has come, gifts were exchanged, everyone seems to be settling in at the estate, but of course it can't last long. If it did there wouldn't be a story to tell. ;)

As for the series on a whole, I know I have two or three more books to go. I have their ideas in my head with snippets of notes on paper. I, however, don't know what will happen after those two to three books. If only I could see the future (boy, wouldn't that be awesome sometimes).

So don't worry Liz Baker fans, she will return for at least a few more books. And who knows, you might even catch a glimpse of her in the new series I just started. More on that at a later date.

If you aren't up-to-date on the Liz series, stop by and snag the ones you need before book 7 comes out later this year. They are available on Amazon, B&N Nook, Smashwords, Kobo, CoffeeTime Romance, Lulu, any bookstore can order a copy, and you can get autographed ones direct from me.

Spring has finally sprung!

My cherry trees are bloomed out beautifully.

Spring is my favorite time of year. After the nastiness of winter, everything comes back to life. Blooms abound and everything turns bright green. And if you look out the window in front of my desk you'll see a yard full of dandelions (my own fault since the kids & I love blowing the seedlings all over the place). It's time to think about the upcoming vegetable garden, spend time clearing away the debris left by winter storms, and relishing in the warmer, sunny days. Plus the kids have Spring Break next week!

With the new sprouts of life outside, I feel uplifted and ready to tackle new projects. I have two books I'm working on for 2015, plus several blog posts ready to go out on schedule. I also have one daughter graduating from high school in less than two months, and then preparing to leave for college in the fall *Sniff, Sniff*

In between all of that, I have two hogs going up for slaughter, and possibly adding a few new chicks to the coop, and a rental house to paint. Oh, and my middle daughter will be getting her learner's permit in July and will want to start driving. ACK! I told their dad he can do it this time around. I don't think my nerves can take it so soon after the last one.

Spring has definitely sprung, and my to-do list grows even longer. However, I'll get to enjoy the warm weather while whittling away at my tasks.

I hope your day is as beautiful as my cherry blossoms. <3

Book 'Em NC 2015 was a hit!

Before the doors opened to
the public. More pics on
Facebook.

Well, I did it! I made it home from my annual trip to Lumberton, NC for the Book 'Em NC Conference & Book Fair. There were more than 3,000 people in attendance, and my sales showed it. Yay!

Before I left, I was painfully close to running out of books. Eek! You might think that's a good thing, but it's actually very scary when you still have time to sell even more. I guess the only time you should run out is the last minute, right before the doors close. Now that would be perfect!

I met new friends, new readers, and excitedly caught up with old friends and fans. It was a lot of fun. I even did something I'd never done before.... a panel talk!  O...M...G. I thought I'd pass out from nerves before 2 P.M. arrived. Thankfully I didn't, and once I got in there and the discussion started the time flew by. I was shocked when the moderator said we only had 2 minutes left of our 45 minute session. And we actually went over by 5 minutes. The topic was "Creating Other Worlds" and I had a lot of fun answering both the moderator's questions and questions from the audience.

Overall, it was a great weekend, but I'm glad to be back home... until the next one.

I have two books planned for 2015, the first of which will be the start of a new series. I already have several notes and snippets written for this books, but now it's time to jump straight into the writing, feet first. Later in the year will be the 7th book in the Liz Baker series. I'm excited to see these two come to life and find homes with my fans/readers. I hope you'll enjoy the new series as much (or more) as the Liz series. I think it'll be a fun one to write.

Now I'll get back to putting my house in order after the kids had it to themselves for nearly three days. Ugh. And they claimed they cleaned, too.  Uh-huh, whatever you say. Teenagers! LOL.