It’s no secret that 2018 was challenging for me. So I was especially excited to ring in a new year. There’s nothing quite like a fresh start. This year I sat down in my living room super early on New Year’s Day and set goals for various aspects of my life. I dearly love the […]
A New Year, A New Me
It’s January 3, 2019. How many times have you written 2018 on something in the last three days? Since I’m writing this before the New Year–I have big plans to binge watch some shows, rest, and write prior to this post going live–I probably have only done it a handful of times, especially since I […]
Learning to Pivot
Back in January, when I was looking forward to how I expected this year to go and made goals and plans, I could never have expected all the changes that would happen, either personally or professionally. My husband officially became disabled (he was before, but it’s not “official” until the government agrees…). My oldest daughter […]
When Do You Find the Time?
by: Staci Stallings By far the biggest question I get from my writer friends is: “When do you find the time?” While right now there are a lot of novellas being released which usually run around 20,000 to 40,000 words, my books tend to be…. uhm, longer, to say the least. The one I’m working on right now […]
Writing Retreat
Writing can be a very solitary, lonely pursuit. Even my husband, parents, and son don’t really understand the part of me that’s driven to get the stories out of my head and onto paper. I spent a lot of years going it alone. Eventually I found two local writing groups. Though some of the members […]
What Are You Reading?
I ended up teaching more classes this school year than what I had anticipated, and one thing has become infinitely clear: More classes means more grading. As an English teacher, you’d think I’d have understood this going in. Summer has a way of washing our memories clean, though, so that we forget the parts of […]
Friends & Cousins
Last month, I committed to finish an old book that I’d fiddled with for years. I ended up finding a local historical thread for my story, getting the synopsis updated, and adding eighteen pages to the book. I’ll take it. Not as much as I wanted to do, but it was a busy month with […]
The Time of My Life
Happy Fall! My part of the south is finally, finally beginning to see a little bit of a break in temperatures. (although I’m sure many of you would laugh that I think high 80s is a temperature break!) But this coming week looks like we may finally start to see some cool(er) nights and for […]
Friday Five + #Giveaway
I must admit that it’s been one of those weeks where I’ve woken up not knowing what day it is. Life has gotten busy with my kids back in school and me trying to invest as much of my brain energy into meeting deadlines before the year ends. Add to this the other dozen things […]
Being Kind to Myself
I’ve shared here before about some of the things I struggle with—in particular, juggling all of the moving parts of my life and trying to carve out time for my family. I’ve enjoyed the support I’ve received from each of you, and the tips on how to better do that. And something else occurred to […]