Anybody who knows me at all knows I’m horrendous at self-care. I’m excellent at tending to the needs of everyone around me, but when it comes to myself? I’m awful at it. Boundaries are really hard for me given that I am the child of an alcoholic and was a parentified child (which, if you...Read More

Since August 1 is apparently “National Friendship Day,” I wanted to share a story about one of mine. Chris has been a friend of mine for twenty years, and if I’m honest, he’s the closest friend I have beside my husband. We know each other’s secrets, and we share triumphs. He’s everything a person could...Read More

As I write this in early July, there’s something going on, on TikTok which, you may or may not know, is my primary marketing platform. I have between 1,500 and 1,600 followers as I write this, and the number is slowly growing and reflects a lot of hard work and time I’ve put in over...Read More

Since my writing retreat, I’ve noticed my life is very cluttered. There’s so much… stuff. Some of it’s physical possessions, some of it’s mentalities that don’t serve me, some of it’s routines that aren’t helping me get what I need done. There are a lot of places in one’s life where clutter can collect like...Read More

Recently I’ve been trying to get myself back into reading more. I fell out of it for a long time because, honestly, when you read for a living, it can really damage your ability to just enjoy a story. I found myself having to fight to stop the analytical part of my brain from constantly...Read More

I’m going away for a week to a space that I absolutely love. My grandparents own a lake house in upstate New York on a small lake not far from Lake George. It’s one of my favorite places in the world. It’s become more and more important to me as I get older. For one,...Read More

So, you know how I said I was back in the last blog? Apparently I wasn’t. I had a lot going on and then abruptly got COVID. Thanks to being vaccinated and boosted, it was mild, but it was still misery. After that, I’ve been recovering well but dealing with fatigue. That and physical therapy...Read More

I’m sorry I’ve been MIA for so long; I had to take an unexpected hiatus due to health issues. With physical therapy for my shoulder surgery having started and some other health issues appearing, I’ve just been exhausted and hurting and not really up to much the past month. Also, we’ve had folks doing some...Read More

Last week we talked about Hooks, so this week we’re going to talk about how to put them into effect by looking at some hooks for famous novels and discussing how we can create our own. I’m also going to give an honorable mention to other types of “lines” used in marketing that writers should...Read More

This is part one of a three-part series I’m doing over the next three weeks where I talk about book taglines, book blurbs, and marketing hooks for authors. I know marketing is about as exciting as watching paint dry for a lot of authors–either that or they feel like it’s going to bite them–but I...Read More