It’s no secret that I hate the working title on Bree and Mike’s story, “To Catch a Wife.” I blogged about it way back in May. Last night, inspiration struck as I drove to the grocery store. I thought I’d found a perfect replacement: “Virgin and the Tramp.” A play...

Every few months, it wallops me upside the head. What is it, you ask? Nothing good, that’s for sure. It’s the fear that, even after years of writing — and getting a degree in journalism, I still don’t have a clue what I’m doing. The familiar foe hit me...

It’s not Monday, but I finally got around to doing what I said I would: I submitted two queries on “Beauty and the Ballplayer.” Now, I wait … and continue to work on perfecting the GH entries … and write some more on Bethany & Cody’s story. For some...

One of the goals I set out at our July NARWA meeting was to send at least two queries on “Beauty and the Ballplayer.” Well, it’s still not done, even though the meeting is a week away. What’s stopping me? It’s ridiculous, really. I keep telling myself (rather stupidly)...

You often hear writers say their story ideas come from the strangest places. I’m not so sure that’s true. Ideas are all around us … all we have to do is open our eyes (and ears) to the possibilities. The initial idea for “Blind Date Bride” came from a...

Unlike the crew from “Saturday Night Live,” I don’t have a lot to report: I’ve been reading/editing most of the weekend. That means I’ve done no new writing … and I’m waffling about entering a third MS into the Golden Heart. A couple of nights ago, I started to...

I wrote this post for the Editor’s Note in the Sept./Oct. issue of the NARWA newsletter, High Country Highlights.  However, I liked it too much not to share it here on the blog, too. Since I’m trying to get in edit-mode for the Golden Heart, the subject is dear...

In preparing “Beauty and the Ballplayer” to send to the friends who’ve volunteered to read it, I found something handy to share. It’s a free service that converts Word documents into pdf files. Nice, eh? And so much easier than the way I thought I’d have to do it...

I know my writer friends are busy — some of them getting ready for the same contest I plan to enter. As such, they’re probably too busy to read anything of mine. (And they could well be my competition!) With that thought in mind, I posted on Facebook that...

Now that the 2010 Golden Heart winners have been announced (none of them NARWAns, alas), it’s time to start gearing up for the 2011 competition. That is exactly what I’m planning to do. My request for judges arrived in my e-mail inbox a few days ago, and I think...