“Your opening pages set the tone for the entire novel, so make sure you follow through with the promise you’re setting up from the first page. Is the mood light or serious? Romantic or mysterious? Tense, suspenseful? Comedic or literary?” Maureen Lang gives this advice on ACFW’s blog today. Which was funny, as I read […]
Christy Award Winners and Carol Nominees
We’re having a birthday party with 30+ people for sweet Liliana in a few hours, so I’m too busy/lazy to do this myself, though I had planned on it: here are links to someone else’s blog with all the award winners and nominees listed PLUS their covers. Seeing the covers is such a better way […]
Sparklers and Guns: All-American 4th of July
I guess The Start is a really good place to start when talking about the 4th, so here it is. Before I met Dave, I never really ran much. I would try, and end up out of breath and dying after a few blocks. As a sprinter in junior high, I was used to RUNNING […]
A Book that Brought Publishing Freedom
I recently read James Scott Bell’s Self-Publishing Attack: The 5 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws for Creating Steady Income Publishing Your Own Books. Jim and I have been pretty tight for years and years, ever since Mom and I wrote a second verse complete with hand motions for his Hairy Man worship song. Oh, but he might […]
How We Eat When the Kids Are Gone
(This post is not entirely true as my sweet honey took me to The Olive Garden tonight for a delicious 2 for $25 meal of never-ending bread sticks and salad, fried calamari, pork and beef ravioli, spaghetti and meatballs, and smoked mozzarella chicken. Yum!) We try to eat at least one nice meal alone at […]
Tips for Large Families–Size-wise, not Weight-wise
Hey, since I’m attempting to be a regular blogger again–did you notice I’ve posted every other day for a whole week? Didja? Didja?–I’m planning to introduce a new blog series on things I’ve figured out that make mothering large families easier. See, I’ve been cooking, cleaning, and shopping for a family of seven for more […]
Chasing Sunsets by Eva Marie Everson
Buy it I’m not going to pressure myself by calling this an actual “review,” so I’m just going to tell you what I thought about this book, okay? I’ve read several, if not many, of Eva‘s books–she was the FIRST coaching class teacher I had at OCW way back eight or nine years ago–and this […]
Rice Counter: Strict or Scheduled?
Anyone else out there noticing something different about the last few weeks? Like a noisier house? More lunches to fix? Exuberant children with nothing to do? Yep, it’s definitely summertime. I love the extra time with the kids, but with five to keep track of, I can tend to be too strict. Not so much […]
A Pain in the Neck?!?
Went to the chiropractor today as my right arm has been going numb and weak from the shoulder down to the ring finger and pinkie. He took X-rays, came back, and asked how I’d gotten the huge trauma to my neck. What? I didn’t know I’d had any. He slapped the X-ray up on the […]
And the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction Goes to …
No one. A tad anticlimactic? I think so. I noticed the empty category of Pulitzer Prizes when reading The Oregonian this morning. The mystery is afoot–as Tarzan from Survivor would say. Imagine my thankfulness to Publishers Lunch when they graciously emailed an explanation to me. And all their other subscribers, I suppose. But it still […]