Blog
September
Tuesday 1st September 2020
There was no August blog--I was deep in the process of editing Stealing Thunder, now available through Amazon. And now it's September. Ahh September. I’ve written about this before—how the first of September is my NEW YEAR. In the past, it might have been about starting a new year at school. But as I got older it became a time of even bigger change—moving, changing jobs, starting projects. It’s also about autumn—my absolute favorite season. The colors—all my favorites—yellows, golds, oranges. The crispness to the air. The whole idea about ‘harvest’. The wildlife—active as they prepare for summer.…
July
Friday 3rd July 2020
Stealing Thunder, my latest book, is finally finished and I’m halfway through the editing process. One would think with all this social…
June
Wednesday 3rd June 2020
May was not a month I necessarily want to remember. There was a couple of highlights—my husband and I celebrated 20 years of marriage and our dog Abbey turned 6. But by the…
May
Friday 1st May 2020
I started a journal when ‘lockdown’ began. I hope when I re-read it (if I do!) in ten or fifteen years this whole period feels like a hazy story—with highs and lows. I hope I remember the good things about this ‘lockdown’ period and take to heart the things I’ve learned. I have had moments of real joy—where a simple thing like bird song or talking with a grandchild is more than enough to lift your spirits. And I have had moments…
April
Thursday 2nd April 2020
In the far reaches of my mind—the part that files everything away for my writing—are constantly emerging plots, characters, locations. But no part of my imagination could have dreamt of a plot where a microscopic particle kills millions of people and brings most of the world to its knees. Not even James Bond in ‘Moonraker’ went this far. And yet here we are. 2020. We are all paying for the hubris of governments who thought pandemics were the stuff of bad dreams—they happen somewhere…
March 2020
Sunday 1st March 2020
I didn’t write a blog for February. After receiving a lot of advice about this, I spent time advertising my books on Facebook for December—stepping WAY out of my comfort zone. When the ‘campaign’…
January 2020
Friday 3rd January 2020
Today is the first day I have had since the first of September when I didn’t have much of the day planned—when there wasn’t a list of ‘jobs’ that needed to be done straight away. This is not a complaint—I like having some structure to my…
December 2019
Monday 2nd December 2019
As we near the winter solstice, the sun barely makes it over the top of our back hedge (okay, it’s a pretty tall hedge) before plunging out of site like a nightshade drawn down. And then it is pitch black out. More so in our village because—by virtue of public decree?—there are no street lights of any description. To venture out at night without a flashlight would be just about asking for a fall. Which is why I can’t wait for the colored lights to go on our fence (see picture) or for other villagers…
November
Saturday 2nd November 2019
I’m a day late, but I THINK I have a pretty good excuse. Yesterday, November 1, I finished the first edit of my new Breaking Camp Mystery, CAUTION TO THE WIND. I’m really, really happy with it and am especially fond of the ending. I wasn’t sure how it was going to end until it ended. And this brings me to this month’s blog. I have no idea how other writer’s work. Truth be told, I don’t want to know—I know what works for me and I’m…
October
Tuesday 1st October 2019
My husband and I have recently returned from a wonderful trip to the USA. We visited places I had been before—the Teton Mountains, Yellowstone National Park, Durango-Silverton Railway, Mesa Verde, Monument Valley, Flagstaff and finished in San Diego with a couple of days at Balboa Park and the Zoo. But these were all new sites to my British husband and it was a real pleasure showing him places I’ve…
September
Sunday 1st September 2019
It’s the first of September and as usual I find myself ‘seasonally stimulated’. When I was young, September was all about the excitement…
August
Thursday 1st August 2019
Who is this person? This is a question I kept asking myself as I worked my way through the thousand photos—printed and slides—that I was determined to digitize. Once I was finished with this project, there’d be no more lugging around the cumbersome weight of forty-plus photograph albums or boxes of slides (not to mention the gear to view the slides). This past weekend was spent scanning in the last few albums—photos of myself and my siblings through high school. It became an…
