Good morning!Have you heard of NaNoWriMo? It stands for National Novel Writing Month. Traditionally, NaNoWriMo has challenged writers to draft 50,000 words of a novel in November. In recent years, they’ve allowed more flexible goals, which is good fo...

Hello, and happy November!My first novel, Facing the Sun, Book 1 of the Sun-Blessed Trilogy, turned two years old at the end of October! This week, through Saturday, it’s free on Kindle. It’s magical and sweet and adventurous and sometimes a little s...

I don’t talk all that much about my novels in this newsletter. But every so often, I’ve gotta share my excitement about a book I’ve poured my heart into. Last Friday, with my miniature schnauzer Ollie on my lap, I typed “THE END” on the first dr...

Our family has graduated...when it comes to pumpkin-carving kits.If you live in America, or somewhere else where pumpkin carving is popular, you probably know about those cheap pumpkin-carving kits you can buy at the grocery store. We’ve gotten them...

For years, I resisted it. “It’s one more screen to distract me,” I said, proclaiming that even though I had an iPhone, I didn’t want an Apple Watch.Then I saw my mom with her Apple Watch, and I realized it was motivating her to exercise more. Now tha...

Hi!One of the things I love about having an exchange student is that we want to show our exchange student around...and we end up having fun in the process! Even with COVID, there are cool things to do outside and/or masked.Sunday, we went to a milksh...

Hi, and happy Wednesday!I was so pleased to be invited recently to write a story for a multi-author anthology. I haven’t even started writing it yet, and it won’t be out until spring of next year...but I wanted to give my Insiders a little peek into...

Hey, fellow authors!As of this morning, I'm finally a profitable author. I wrote a post about a few things I've learned along the way...things I've done right and wrong!I didn't include this post on my public blog, and there aren't any links to it on...

Hi, fellow authors! Part 2 of my series on common grammar/style errors is up. This one talks about internal dialogue.Check it out here.Hope it's helpful!Beth

“How is school different than it used to be?” I asked my daughter after her first day back at in-person school on Monday.“It’s not that different,” she replied.The response surprised me! All three of our kids (my son and daughter and our exchange stu...