Category Archives: Author

Author, creating

Win a Signed Copy of my Book

I need help!

I’m willing to give you a signed copy of my book if I use your ideas.

I’m writing a new book and need ideas.

Here are the basics of the book:

  • This is a historical romance set in the world before the flood.
  • Anica is brave, a lioness woman.
  • She’s from a wealthy family.
  • She meets the owner of the fabric shop where her family works.
  • .His family is not as wealthy as hers.
  • He knows nothing of her family’s belief system, which is required if they are to marry

What are some challenges these two will face before they can get together? What could happen to them to bring them together?

Best ideas will receive a signed copy of the new book in about 3 months when it is written and published.

I am willing to give more than one book away. If don’t live in the US, I’ll send you an eBook.

Your Entry

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Author, Challenges, creating, First Matriarch

What I Learned About Writing

Yesterday I was privileged to share my author journey with a group of home-schooled children who wanted to know how I started writing. We had a good time talking about what books they would write. Some of those will be authors to watch for in the near future.

I share some of our discussion with you today.

I am a reader. I have been all my life. I inhale books, often several at a time. In my early days as a reader, I learned to recognize a good book, although not how to write one.

I don’t remember having a drive to be an author. I wanted to write, but other things were more important then. I loved writing poetry. I tried to write a short story in high school. I failed. Later in college, I took a fiction class from an author and wrote the first chapter of a book. Between then and 2013, I wrote several first chapters, but never managed to get the second chapter written.

In all my years as a reader, I somehow missed the important elements of a good story. It wasn’t until I co-taught a kindergarten class in a private school that had every child write a book that I figured out why I couldn’t finish a story. I forgot the basic elements of story!

What are the elements? Character, setting, problem, and solution.

It seems easy. Now I know. Before I didn’t understand how to do it.

Then I received a challenge to participate in National Novel Writing Month in November of 2013. The challenge is to write 50,000 words in the month. To do that, you have to write like mad without editing.

I took a story I’d tried to put down before, changed the point of view, and remembered the basic elements. I’d think, “What problems would she face?” Then I’d try to come up with a solution to the problem.

I may write differently from many other authors. I don’t outline my books. I’ve never been able to do that even for big research projects in school. Instead, I write into the dark. I decide who my characters will be, where and when they are living, then think of problems they may face. As they try to solve the problems, the characters have other challenges to solve, until they finally solve the major problems of the story.

I write to discover what happened to the people I learn to care about as I write about them. I started Lost Children of the Prophet because children went missing and I needed to know where they went and why. I know now what my end story will be in that series, though I haven’t determined how many more books it will take me to get there.

After that? I have no idea. I’m sure some other character will want me to learn about her and want me to tell her story.

I write books about women because they have been forgotten through time and their stories need to be shared. If you have a suggestion of women whose story has been forgotten, I’d love to hear it.

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Author, Challenges, choice and accountability

How Will You Change the Country?

“What are you going to do to change the country?” my friend asked me the other day.

This has had me thinking for several days. “What can I do? I’m a lonely author, who has little impact on politicians and others who make laws for our land. I can vote, complain to others, respond to social media, and write letters to my Congresspeople. It has little impact on the country or the world.

My response to my friend was, “Nothing. Except live the best life I can, obeying God’s laws and the country’s laws to the best of my ability.”

Later consideration brought a few more ideas. I can be a friend to others, and do all I can to make my part of the country, and thus the world, better. I can offer assistance to others. I can do my best to be kind. And, I can write more books.

I’m an author. I try to change the world with my books. My imagination takes me to places I can never go. I share things I’ve learned as I tell my stories. I learn more things in the things I write. A long time ago, as a teacher, I discovered you don’t know what you know until you write it down. Writing my books helps me understand what I know about a few things, as I explore a time no one knows about.

The human experience doesn’t change, only the leaders and the things people gather around them. They walked, rode horses, or rode in carriages. We walk, ride in cars, airplanes, and soon spaceships. We all eat, dress, have children, or die. We love, hate, argue, solve problems, and search for happiness. It has been so from the beginning.

I’ve considered challenges in my life in my books. Some of the results I don’t like and hope my children never suffer the consequences I write about. Others of my stories I love. I hope more of my family receive these results in their lives.

So, I finished the editing of my next book, Betrayed Trust. I will release it in about a month. I still need a cover and a description for the back. More to come when it is closer. It, too, explores a different part of the human condition.

What will you do to change the world or the bit of the world in which you live? How will you make the lives of those around you better? (I’m hoping you will choose to read more of my books and review them.)

What would you suggest I write about in my next book? The one I’m working on now was recommended by a reader, one of you. I do listen.

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Author

Ready to Win a Prize?

Abandoned Hope is published and available for your reading pleasure. It is available on Amazon here.

I have an offer for my readers. If you send me a screenshot of your receipt, your name will go into the “hat” for a chance for a $5 Amazon gift certificate. That isn’t all. If you leave a review and let me know about it, your name will go into the “hat” again.

Easy, peasy, as we said when we taught Kindergarten. Where do you send the screenshots?

 

[email protected].

I look forward to your entries!

 

 

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Author

A New Book to Crow About!!

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As an author, most of my day is spent in writing. Imagine that! Anyway, last week, amid the other things I do for my family and friends, I managed to do two things worth crowing about.

First, my latest book, Abandoned Hope, is available for pre-sale on Amazon. You can order it now, or you can wait until Saturday, September 1st and download it and start reading! I’m excited to share this book with you!

I don’t usually even read a romance book. But, my husband loves chick flicks, and turns them on regularly. Some days we spend the evening with romance movies. What can I say? I have a romantic husband.

Abandoned Hope is a romance, telling the story of a visitor to Nod, Daphne, and Ziva’s son, David. I never expected it to be a romance. Half way through, I announced to my husband that I had written a romance. He read it, and liked it.Hope to see some of you have chosen to download Abandoned Hope this weekend. You may even find it on sale. The regular price for the eBook is $4.99. Saturday and Sunday, it may be less. *shrug* Check it out.

The next thing I did that I’m happy about is that I finished the first draft on the next book in the series, Brotherly Havoc. It is a totally different story. With a name like Brotherly Havoc, what do you think will be the focus of it?

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Author, choice and accountability

What Happens When He Throws a Rock?

I am working on the first draft of book three in the Lost Children of the Prophet series. (No. I don’t have a name for it yet. I’m sure I’ll find the name sometime soon.) I wrote a scene I’d like to share with you, but remember this is rough, I’ve done no editing on it yet.

You may wonder the things that helped me write this scene. Many years ago when I was a little girl, my brother had a friend who lived across the street from us in our small town. One day, this friend wanted me to see a rock he thought was particularly pretty. Instead of running it across the street and placing it in my hand, he threw it to me. I, of course, caught it on my head, not in my hands.

In January, we visited our son in Arizona. He took us to a river purposely kept low to save water during the winter. He and his little boy stood for almost an hour throwing rocks into the river. I stood for a long time watching father and son throw rocks into the water. As I watched, I wondered how I could include this in my books.

Here is a part of that scene:

“It may be my fault. When we were still young boys, Father took us out to the horse farm with him while he checked on the horses. Kimnor hit on a great game, or so he thought. We stood across the stream with a stack of smooth rocks, Kimnor stood on one side while I stood on the other.”

David shrugged and pulled his head down into the collar of his cape. “It was Kimnor’s idea. Peter and I were his younger brothers. We always did what he told us to do. Usually, his games were fun. On that day, we were tossing the rocks from one side of the stream to the other, trying to throw them close enough to the other boy that he could catch it.”

“That does not sound safe to me.” Daphne glanced at David, then faced forward to keep her eyes on the road ahead of her.

“Looking back, it wasn’t very safe. We were young boys. What did we know? I threw a rock to him, and he caught it. Then he threw one to me. We stepped back and Kimnor told me to throw the rock to him. It was a flat, little rock, easy for boys to throw. I threw it, he caught it and threw it back, before we stepped back another step. We did this several times.”

“And then he did not catch it?” Daphne asked. She guided the mules around a rock that stood in the center of the road. “Good boy, Jack,” she called out to the mule.

David caught up to her.

“So what happened to Kimnor? Did he miss the rock?”

David grimaced and swallowed. “We had stepped back a distance from the edge of the stream. I had barely managed to throw the rock to him the time before. I worried it would not reach him this time. Kimnor had yelled at me, called me weak. I didn’t want him to call me weak yet again.”

David stared at the ground between the wagon and his horse. He swallowed and cleared his throat. Daphne glanced his way, then stared down the road. She sat in silence, waiting for David to find the words.

David cleared his throat and spoke once more. “I stepped back with one leg and pulled the rock next to my ear. I flung that rock as hard as I could to Kimnor.” David swallowed again. “He didn’t catch it. It moved too fast. He lifted his hands to catch it, but he missed it. It hit him on the head, here.” David pointed to a spot above his eye and dropped his hand.

 

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Author, choice and accountability

A New Book in a New Month


I have been swamped the past weeks writing, editing, and preparing for the launch of my newest book, Ancient Matriarchs Book Four, Moving into Light: Zehira, Wife of Enoch. Now, it is available on Amazon for Pre-Sale. It would be an understatement to say I am excited!
I’m doing more to share this book than I have the others. Thursday, throughout the day, I’ll be checking in promoting it on a Live Facebook Event, Moving into Light Book Launch Party. I have games and questions, stories to tell, and excerpts to read. I think it’ll take most of the day, so check in when you have time. Everyone who responds with a comment, likes, shares, or participates in a game, will be put into “the hat” for one of the prizes I’m offering. (Watch the event page for the list.)
Go ahead and start sharing now, I’m collecting names of those who do and putting them into my “hat” to be considered for prizes.
I hope you choose to join me sometime during the day.

In other news, I am participating in a Book Funnel Giveaway: October Historical Fiction. Along with other authors, we are sharing a variety of fiction with historical fiction as the connector. Some are romance, others mystery, there are 18 authors and 19 books. See if you can find mine. You can find the Giveaway here.
Happy Reading.

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Author, Life

Where Do We Go When We Leave This Life?

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Madeline L’Engle is one of my favorite authors and has been for a long time. My introduction to Ms. L’Engle’s works came through the children’s book, A Wrinkle in Time. I read it, and all the others in that series, and searched for more, reading many children’s and adult books by this wonderful author.

Recently, I found The Summer of the Great-Grandmother a memoir about the summer her mother’s decline into dementia, or arteriosclerosis, as it was known at that time. It became poignant as, during the time I read it, my husband and I attended three funerals, one for a sweet lady who had suffered from this horrible disease for the last year-and-a-half.

Ms. L’Engle is as passionate about her Christianity as I am about mine, though they are different. Still, I found her thoughts about the end of her mother’s life similar to those so many of us consider at the passing of a loved one from this life into the next.

We all think about life, at these times of passing, wondering where we came from, why we are here, and where we are going when this life is all over. Now is not a time to share my beliefs on that topic. Just know that I have a strong and firm understanding.

I love the poem by Wordsworth. From his Ode, Intimations of Immortality we read:

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting
And cometh from afar;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home …

Ms. L’Engle worried about these same things. Her concerns were about where we go after this life, and will we be remembered, by others, or by our God. She said:

“To the ancient Hebrew the ultimate hell consisted in being forgotten, erased from the memory of family and tribe, from the memory of God. If God forgets you, it is as though you have never existed. You have no meaning in the ultimate scheme of things. Your life, your being, your ousia, is of no value whatsoever. You are a tale told by an idiot; forgotten; annihilated.

“How many people have been born, lived rich, loving lives, laughed and wept, been part of creation, and are now forgotten, unremembered by anybody walking the earth today?”

Certainly something to be concerned about. Who wants to think our lives are so unimportant, they will be forgotten? Not me, though I know that after I am gone, my children and grandchildren will the the last to remember me.

I find peace in knowing, as Eve did, that I will return to my Father in Heaven, a Father who loves me, cares for me, and as he knows my name now, he will know and remember me in the next life.

Sadly, our extended family is feeling the greater sorrow of the loss of a young teenager. He did not live his life to the fullest. He will never graduate from High School, will not kiss a girl for the first time. His parents feel his loss to their core. Preparations for his funeral and burial were not in their plans for this summer. Certainly, their hearts are broken, and they are asking if they will ever see their son again.

Eve struggled with the loss of her child when Cain slew Abel. Her sorrow felt palpable to me, as I wrote about this in Eve, First Matriarch. I felt the sorrows of other matriarchs, when they lost children. In my soon to be released book (book 3) Finding Peace, a mother faces the loss of her children to kidnapping and the inability to find them or know about them. This mother, overwhelmed by grief, was taught by Mother Eve to find hope.

She (Eve) tightened her hug and added, “This I do know, darling granddaughter, you will be reunited with them. Perhaps not in this world, but surely in the next. This is the promise and gift of the covenants we made. Our children will be ours once more. Ask Enos. Ask Seth. Ask Adam.”

This I believe with all my soul. This I know. We will be united with our loved ones. We will be remembered.

I hope we are at the end of our funerals this summer, but as our friends age, we will be faced with loss of friends and loved ones.

How about you? What do you think?

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Author, Earth

May is a Wonderful Month!

May is a wonderful month of the year! I have always loved the flowers! I visited my parents, up the road a bit, in Southern Utah last week and loved all their roses. I took pictures of a few to share with you.

I’m finding May is a good time for selling books! I am participating in a Headtalker Summer Reading Blowout! Prizes available for all who enter. My micro story, Avenging Angel, is included. Perhaps you will find another book or three you are interested in reading this summer? Go here to find it.


Speaking of Avenging Angel, I finally paid up and got a professional cover for it. It looks like my others, now. What do you think?


And, speaking of other covers, Ancient Matriarchs Book 2: Into the Storms: Ganet, Wife of Seth is available for pre-sale. Any book ordered today will be delivered Friday morning, bright and early. Wake up to enjoy a new book.


Do you like having other’s work shared so you can find it in the morass commonly known as Amazon? If so, I will share a book or two over the course of the month. If not, let me know!

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