• General Thoughts,  Novels (my writing updates)

    About my novels

    It’s been a while since I’ve written about my four published novels, so I thought I would share some information about them as well as some reviews from Amazon and Goodreads. Reviews are super important for authors, especially independent ones. Reviews help other readers take a chance on an unknown author.   The four novels below are available at Dog Ear Books in Russellville, Arkansas, and on my Amazon.com Author Page.   About Caroline’s Lighthouse: What really happened at Bettencourt Estate? In the mid-1800s, Caroline Marshall was forced to accept the marriage proposal of an attorney from a neighboring town. However, Caroline was in love with Thomas Cooper, the caretaker…

  • Essays,  General Thoughts

    A New Family Member: An official introduction

    As many of you know, we lost Buddy, a dear four-legged and furry member of our family back in September 2020. By December, we were feeling the pull to adopt another dog. After three months of mourning had passed, I wouldn’t say we were healed; we were just open to expanding our hearts again. After some searching and conversations with our kids, Jonathan and I reached out to Needy Paws Animal Shelter in Clarksville, Arkansas. It was there we became interested in a young adult Kelpie mix named Roscoe, whom we adopted on December 30. I mentioned him in my first post of 2021, but here’s some more information about…

  • Woman typing on laptop
    Essays,  General Thoughts

    Self-editing a Story: What it Takes

      Independent publishing takes perseverance, time, guts, and high self-esteem. It also takes money if you need to hire people for services such as book file setup, cover creation, and editing. I’m fortunate that I work as a professional editor in my day job and that I have graphic design experience. Because of these skills, I am better equipped than some indie authors when it comes to setting up my own book files and creating my own covers. Editing is a HUGE step in publishing a novel. Reader reviews can be brutal, and nothing spells amateur quite like publishing a book full of grammatical errors and typos. Of course, no…