Inspired by Life ... and Fiction

Novelists bound by the pen, sisterhood, & more

The Story Behind the Story

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In April I have a novella releasing in a new collection Across the Shores. But the germ of this story came to me years ago. I was trying to find the original proposal idea and I'm going to guess it was about 2011 or 2012. I'd written two series of WWII novels for Barbour -- Cornhusker Dreams set in Nebraska and the Ohio Brides set in Ohio. Stars in the Night was about to release, and Shadowed by … [Read more...]

Talking to My Friends

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The last two weeks I've been chatting with many of my writing friends as I've been recording new episodes of Book Talk. It has been such fun! Two weeks ago I chatted with Kristy Cambron and Jill Eileen Smith. Last week it was Lisa Phillips and her team of authors as well as Mary Connealy. And this week I had a blast connecting with Melanie Dobson, J'Nell Ciesielski, Lynn Blackburn, Lynnette Eason … [Read more...]

Goals, Intentions, and Expectations

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Here we stand at the beginning of a new year. And for so many of us, our minds turn to yearly goals. I’ve been thinking a lot about that these past couple of weeks. A few years ago I shifted toward “intentions” instead of “goals.” It helped me be less stressed when life interfered and made my goals if not impossible, at least much more difficult.  But this year, I’ve been reevaluating that a … [Read more...]

Writing, Swimming, and Giveaways, oh my!

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Last month I participated in NANOWRIMO, a race to write 50K words in the month of November. It gave me the competitive drive to write 44,000 while also macro and line-editing a novella that will release next year. But the result of writing that fast was a sequence of chapters and scenes that might -- or might not -- actually mesh together. This fast writing was an important part of the … [Read more...]

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