My upcoming novel (available Q1 2025!) takes place in the fictional Midwest town of Glass. You’ll meet an interesting cast of characters from teenage boys being teenage boys to lawyers and not-so-clueless dads. I want to take the time to direct you to my Substack, where you can learn more about the town, its residents, and some other little behind-the-scenes details that so far only live inside my head.
It’s a new and constantly growing site, and with your help I’d love to add to it. Please go subscribe, and start getting weekly emails that keep you up to date on the goings on. Paid subscribers will get access to other fun, subscriber-only features, too.
We can continue to chat about Glass, writing, and other topics on Facebook, too. However you’d like to get your news, there’s a way.
I have many hobbies. Writing has been one for a long time, as has reading. I love to golf and swim, and volunteer with my son’s school and Boy Scout troop. About eight years ago or so I added cooking and baking to that list. I started out with some basic recipes I found online, along with ones my mom gave me for dishes I devoured during childhood.
From this I’ve expanded. I make my own pizza and breadstick dough, as well as pasta dough. I have a number of recipes to prepare all different types of meat. I have a variety of desserts I can whip up whenever my guys want something sweet. I make my own chocolate now, although the recipe still needs perfecting.
My latest kitchen adventure, however, was for a basic ingredient that many chefs and bakers, whether amateur home creators or those in five-star restaurants, rely on. Butter. I posted the results of this adventure on my personal Facebook page. One friend commented that she didn’t realize butter was something that could be made at home. Honestly, I never thought of it as an at-home project either, but now that I’ve tasted the result, it’s going to be very difficult to want to reach for the package of stick butter at the store.
The very basic recipe isn’t really a recipe at all. Just put heavy whipping cream in a cold bowl and whip until you see the cream separate and the butter form. It took about 20 minutes. It’s even easy to add salt and other flavoring, as well as make it spreadable.
My next attempt will be yogurt in my pressure cooker. It will be a simple as dumping whole milk into the pressure cooker and hitting a button. We’ll see. It’s a little odd and very freeing to know I can make basic cooking and baking needs right at home, without fancy ingredients or tools outside of what I already have in my kitchen.
What is something you now make at home that you used to buy at the store? Let’s talk on Facebook!
I love to write. I have worlds upon worlds and dozens of characters and situations flowing through my creative mind. Sometimes it’s too much to write everything down and flesh each one out into a full story. The elite few that do make it to the status of WIP and eventually full story, need more than just writing. They need editing, too. From making sure “to” doesn’t become “too” or “two” or a wandering sentence doesn’t become a giant run-on paragraph, to making sure the main character’s name and hair and eye color stay the same throughout the story, there are a myriad of things to keep in check. These checks are all maintained through editing.
I love writing the story, imagining characters and places and all the rest. When it comes to the tedium of editing though, I’d much rather not. I’m a professional editor myself, and have edited non-fiction books, news articles, and more. These are all factual documents, where all I’m looking for is the difference between two and too and weather or not the name of the politician being interviewed is spelled correctly.
After months of work, and even a month of just letting it sit, I’m combing through one last time before I put my baby in the hands of someone who can truly make sure everything is as it should be. I am simultaneously jumping for joy and cowering in fear. Joyous that I have reached this step after so long, yet fearful of the potential judgment an editor will have of my work. No one has read this manuscript in its entirety since I finally decided to call it finished. It’s overwhelming to know that it will be seen, in full, by someone else’s eyes for the first time. Will they take one look at it and say ‘I can’t work with this, you’ll need to start from scratch’ or will they rave over it being the best thing they’ve read in the genre in years?
It’s a big step, but one I think I’m ready for.
Tell me about a time you took a big step toward something you weren’t certain about. Let’s talk on Facebook!
One of the things I decided to do this year (no, not a New Year’s Resolution), was to devote more time to my fiction writing. I’ve done that so far, and have been closer to the next steps of publishing than ever before. Now, I have time to kick it up even more. After weeks of contract and payment negotiations, I have parted ways with the company I was contracting with. Throughout the process my husband and I prepared our family finances for the hole losing this income will cause in the short term.
Thankfully, his business is beginning to boom, and while I continue to work toward my first book being published, I’ll be joining his business. He absolutely do not like writing. Also, he knows the value of my skills. As he organizes toward some next steps, I’ll be focusing on making sure the message he wants to send gets sent properly. I’ll be working on website content, documents, and other documents and files to make sure that too is too and not two, and that the sometimes rambling and stream-of-consciousness writing he produces is tight and ready to present to potential investors and clients.
While quitting my contract job may seem like a sad end to over three years with this company, I see it as a bright new horizon, full of opportunities and experiences that will strengthen my writing and editing muscles. The still flexible schedule working in my husband’s business provides will mean plenty of time for writing, so I can deliver what I hope will be your next favorite book.
