Inspired by Life ... and Fiction

Novelists bound by the pen, sisterhood, & more

Thanksgiving (No, Not That Thanksgiving)

By

Please extend a warm welcome to author Alyssa Schwarz! I'm on trip to New York with my daughters at the moment. :) Alyssa is graciously filling in for me AND giving away a copy of her new book to one of you. Leave a comment on this post for a chance to win! Happy weekend, Becky Thanksgiving. No, I’m not talking about the holiday coming up in a month and a half. I’m talking about the act … [Read more...]

A New Approach

By

Hi friends and happy Wednesday!  I have been an avid pantser. Meaning, that I don’t plot, don’t plan my story out, don’t do character worksheets or interviews, or anything of the sort. I just have a “what if” scenario or question in my mind and I’d sit at the computer to write—just letting the story unravel and the characters come to life.  However, I should change “don’t’” to … [Read more...]

WOW: Weird Old Words

By

A few months ago, our own Karen Witemeyer wrote a great post called Word Nerd about the enjoyment she takes in learning the history behind some of the words she comes across while researching and writing her novels. I too, consider myself a word nerd, and the one tab I almost always have open when I’m writing and editing is the Online Etymology Dictionary, so I can check to see if words I want to … [Read more...]

Paris est la ville la plus belle du monde

By

We’ve been home from our European adventure for more than a week now and while I can truly say, there is no place like home, it’s been such fun going back through our photos and deciding what bits to share with you of the firehose we drank from during two weeks of traveling through France, England, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland with all of Ken's siblings and their spouses.  I thought I … [Read more...]

Survey Results

By

In my last post, I asked readers if they purchased books from author websites (ebooks and/or print books and/or audiobooks. In addition to comments on the post, I invited readers to answer a survey. So for this post, I thought I would share the results. And if you participated, thanks so much. My first question was to see if readers are taking advantage of these offerings. I know it is … [Read more...]

A Bookish Writing Space

By

I admit it. I have office envy. When I see the writing spaces that some author's share, I turn a little green. Beautiful spaces filled with items to spark the creativity, soothing color palettes to promote serenity, and fun personal touches to add warmth and personality. Yes, Deb Raney, I'm talking about you. Ha! For the majority of my writing career, I have written while sitting on my bed … [Read more...]

Prince Edward Island

By

We love traveling to literary places. Way back in the spring, before we knew all the challenges we would face this year, Jeff scheduled our vacation to Prince Edward Island. He picked it for two reasons: First, it would be cooler temperatures than Texas, and second, he knew how much I've wanted to go there, for I love all things L.M. Montgomery. What we didn’t realize was that it would be the … [Read more...]

Readers, Recipes, and Releases

By

I recently received this lovely note from Ruthi, a reader friend... Our Divine Divas Book Club read A Beauty So Rare and we met to discuss it last evening. We all loved it so much and we had a great discussion. We also made Eleanor's Quiche and Buttermilk pie. Both were a success!" Don't you love the name Divine Divas! Getting reader notes like this is always such a JOY! First, … [Read more...]

Being Angry

By

Because I've been writing my heart out this week, I drew a blank when I sat down to write this blog post. So I visited the archives--this post is from 2012. Be sure to read the postscript so you can see how it all turned out. :-) "Be angry, and sin not." Ephesians 4:26. I don't know if you ever watched "Hard Core Pawn" when it used to be on TV--it was a reality show about a pawn shop in … [Read more...]

Recent Posts