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…


Picture of Gratitude (POG) Day 4 – Sun Breaks Through Storm Clouds

Picture of Gratitude (POG) Day 4.  The morning sun breaking through dark storm clouds is a perfect picture of how I feel today. Due to the dire circumstances with my 5-yr-old great-niece, I chose to write about Alyssa instead of posting POG #3 yesterday. (See it on Instagram.) In case you missed my “#PrayersforAlyssa” post, she fell through a 2nd floor open window onto concrete and fractured her skull. Doctors warned the first seventy-two hours were critical regarding the brain swelling. Today dawns with great news of her improvement! She battled a fever for a short while yesterday but that crisis passed. Xrays Read more…


Day 2 POG – Palo Verde

For decades I lived two blocks from a major thoroughfare, Palo Verde Avenue in Long Beach, California. For a few years, I volunteered for the Gray Whale Census  at the Point Vincente Lighthouse on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. PV Pennisula is also the setting of a murder in the true crime novel co-written with Deanne Acuña – LOSING LISA: Intuitive Investigator Series, Book One. Not once did I stop to wonder about the name. Since moving to Vegas valley I learned the green-bark trees that seem to be everywhere are Palo Verde trees. (The word actually means “Green Stick” in Spanish.) Lately, they have Read more…


Pics of Gratitude! Have you POG’d lately?

Before I found the #100HappyDays challenge, I had already been mulling over the idea of taking a photo a day of something I am grateful for. I have been battling depression off & on for years–more “on” in the last year. Writing a daily list of gratitude was not helping. A few days ago, while walking my dogs in the park, I noticed the vibrant blossoms of yellow, red & purple on the desert trees and bushes. My spirits lifted a little. Why not take a picture to remind myself of the beauty? The next day, I took some pics of 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…