During the Dark Days, a Bittersweet Smile Will Do

It’s rough out there, folks. At least, I think it is. With the exception of snatched “retail window” moments (post office, library window, grocery checkout), I rarely interact with any non-spouse humans. But I see it in my Inbox and on social media and podcasts—many of us are just hanging on to the non-committed side of the mental health line by the skin of our skinless teeth. [Random digression: I did not know skin of my teeth is a phrase of Biblical origin. Random Digression P.S.: how many of you thought I was going to rant about about pathetic mental Read more…

Thank You! And Last Chance for a Buck Box Set

Didn’t I just post something last week? Why, yes, I did. But I have something to share that can’t wait. Thank you. Thank you, Reader Peeps (and BookBub and other awesome advertisers) for helping make the first Sydney Brennan Box Set an Amazon Bestseller in PI Mysteries this week. 😱 I know! I didn’t expect it, either. But I am very grateful. And if you need to add any of the first three Sydney Brennan books to your ereader (Back to Lazarus, Secrets in Stockbridge, and The Perils of Panacea), you can still grab the Box Set for a buck today. It goes Read more…

How is Your Covid Roller Coaster? Trying to Level out the Track

A few days ago, my husband came in from checking the rain gauge to report, “It’s raining lizards. What’s the next sign of the apocalypse?” To clarify, our moldy, plastic rain gauge is on its last legs. The sun has done its best to break down the structure on a molecular level, including the screen that keeps the floaty disc from flying out the top when you empty the water. That morning, an anole had crawled/fallen into the long, clear tube and had to be poured out. Fortunately it hadn’t rained the night before, since I doubt treading water was Read more…

Writer’s Little Dino Helper, or When “The Outside” Comes to You

Happy Good Friday, Christian folks! And happy end-of-another-week-you-survived to everyone else! I know many of you haven’t left the house in a VERY. LONG. TIME. I feel you. Quarantine sucks. But it beats the alternative. As I mentioned to my newsletter folks, I’ve been fighting a little something for a while. (Something flu-like, not grizzly-like.) That’s means, in an abundance of caution, the only time I’ve seen paved road in weeks is when we took our poor dog Travis for The Final Vet Visit. (He passed in the car on the way, so I barely set foot in the parking Read more…

Monday Musings: Peeking (again) into the Writer’s Psyche

[NOTE: I wrote this on Sunday, but couldn’t get it posted until what is, for most of you, Monday. Or even Tuesday, with the glories of a very large, round world.]  This is a rare Sunday check-in to let you know I haven’t run off to join the foreign legion (I think I’ve aged out of that option) or jumped in a volcano (the lava lake at the Kilauea caldera isn’t as dramatically enticing as it used to be). But since we’re talking about hot places (how’s that for a transition?), let me say, satellite internet is the spawn of Read more…