Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Writing Life”
The world feels extra heavy right now. Anyone else relate? School shootings, a young father and advocate for civil discourse assassinated, women murdered. Need I go on? I’d rather not. When I began my writing journey, I couldn’t imagine writing anything but romantic suspense. I grew up on Linda Chaikin, Susan May Warren, Dani Pettrey, and my all time favorite, …
Brainstorming may be my favorite part of watching a book come to life. Before all the plot lines and edits and grammar get all twisted up in the creativity, there just exists an idea. At least that’s how it is for me. Usually it’s a scene or maybe even a character. Turns out, one of my favorite authors, C.S. Lewis …
Our newest Little Mister is in the house, and for those who weighed in on the hair color debate, here’s what I’ll tell ya: it depends on the lighting and what part of his head you are looking at. We see brown, blonde, and red all sprinkled in. He’s a sweet, go-with-the-flow baby so far, and we love having him! …
April is here, and it’s baby month for our family, which means we have both been furiously cleaning and reorganizing and writing and rewriting to-do lists to prepare to hibernate a bit. I know that’s not really a thing in the spring time, but it is with a newborn, especially after a c-section. My husband recently asked our three-year-old if …
Hey friends! It’s me again with all things March! We are a month out (or less) from meeting our newest little addition to the family. We are spring cleaning and reorganizing in preparation. I have grand plans to add a little curb appeal to the front of our house. TBD on how that will go as we prepare for a …
Hi friends! January was LONG and twisty for us. I know we aren’t alone. I saw a lot of memes floating around social media citing January as the longest year ever. Not gonna lie, it did make me feel better. That’s exactly how I felt! Enter February, and I turned in a book, started working on edits and home insurance …
Our little family has had a lot going on as we stepped back into school season for my husband. Then cue gymnastics for Little Miss (it may be the cutest thing ever watching 3 year olds try to be coordinated). Little Man is growing and RUNNING everywhere. Keeping up with him when we are out and about has turned into …
In the beginning, there was an idea… that turned into a story… that turned into a paragraph… that became a chapter… then a manuscript… then a beautiful book on the shelf. Sounds simple, right? I won’t lie. The process of writing a book isn’t what I would deem EASY, but it is worth it. And it is doable, even if you …
I’ve been working on a project for my day job centered around this idea: “What does it mean to be courageous?” And it got me thinking about the beginnings of the Heart of a Warrior series. This series began in a fourth-grade classroom while I was substitute teaching. They were taking a quiz, and I had just watched a news update on …
One of the most common questions I get about the Heart of a Warrior series is: Why Navy SEALs? I usually give one answer or another: My brother considered becoming a SEAL at one point. One of my favorite movies, Tears of the Sun, showed me what flawed men and a flawed mission can sometimes accomplish when our perspective changes. …