How Writing Has Positively Influenced My Life

I was six or seven, sitting at the redwood picnic, my feet dangling from the bench, unable to touch the concrete. I had a thick green pencil in my hand. The blue-lined tablet paper had random chunks of wood that caused staccato breaks in my printed letters. I loved the words, “Once upon a time.” Every story started the same way. I don’t remember if I showed my stories to anyone. Probably not. If I was caught writing or reading, my mother would say, “If you have nothing better to do than sit around, I have some chores for you.” Read more…

Welcome To My New Office!

I’m thrilled you stopped by! Life threw me a curve ball early last year but now everything is back on track…sort of.  I still feel a little bit like a fish out of water. After being lifelong Californians–the last 40 in a beach city!–my husband and I moved to the desert!  Actually, Las Vegas! Before the hectic scramble to prepare my home for sale, I had been working for about three years on a narrative nonfiction project with private investigator, Deanne Acuña. LOSING LISA: Intuitive Investigator Series, Book One was published in March 2014. I had also re-issued one of my Read more…

Organize Your Novel With Excel – Laura Drake | Writers In The Storm

“We’ve talked about it in other posts. How learning your writing process is finding your way in a pitch black room, full of furniture. You can learn by banging your shins, but there are less painful ways. Hopefully, this post will help. I’m an organized person, and it would make me crazy trying to locate details in my WIP. Which chapter did the dog first show up? Or the first kiss? Or harder yet, the smaller details – what kind of shoes did the old man wear the second time the heroine met him?…” READ MORE: Organize Your Novel With Excel Read more…