A Contemplative Life

A beloved, decades-old recipe for meatballs. Other side of the card is below. Yes, here it is! Really. Um, really. Really!!! Lol. I've had this post on my list to write since I published Straight to the Heart: The Hawk Book Three in September. Yet I waited because I was planning to release Home and Far Away: The Enran Chronicles Book Four relatively soon. Which turned into the end of October, but in our crazy world, what's a few weeks? Hopefully if you have the ability to vote, you have exercised that right. (I'd put while you still can but that sounds dramatic, defeatist, and well, yeah.) Anyways, those plugs out of the way, here is what I think of Draft2Digital's self-publishing routine. It was fine. Really? That's all? I look around, but I don't see Future or Past Me. Past Me is checking the pork meatballs in spaghetti sauce, as I made meatballs but not with beef, trying to keep red meat out of my diverticulosis diet, you know. Future Me is.... She'...

There's a full moon under all that glow. And yes, a little star to the left. Keep an eye on that star in the next picture! It's been a longish day. I was up early, but I got to enjoy the moon, although snapping a decent picture of said moon is a crapshoot and today, well.... It's an okay shot, and a few minutes later I went outside again with a different phone that didn't give me anything better, lol. And now it's ten hours later, and I just finished formatting Home and Far Away: The Enran Chronicles Book Four , which might be one of my all times fave novels I have written. And not to get too distanced from Straight to the Heart , but man, I am one lucky writer to have crafted such tender yet witty tales. That I considered myself lucky doesn't begin to explain how I feel about this craft. I'd say blessed is a far better adjective, as it's solely by God's grace that I write anything, including this post. But some people aren't comfortable with ble...

It's always a PLEASURE to announce a new release! Straight to the Heart: The Hawk Book Three continues the saga of Eric and Lynne Snyder, as well as their best friends Sam and Renee Ahern. Add Stanford Taylor, Laurie Abrams and newcomer Marek Jaworski to the mix and this women's fiction/magical realism/historical fiction drama proffers joy, intrigue, and heartbreak all in a tightly knit 90K. And best of all, it's FREE! (Unless you get it on Amazon; then it's ninety-nine cents.) Set in spring of 1962, Lynne and Eric are about to realize their biggest dream, as parenthood knocks on their door. This thrill isn't theirs alone; Renee and Sam share in their exuberance, until Sam's sister Frannie makes a startling announcement. Meanwhile, Seth's continuing status in Minnesota stirs concern in his cousin Laurie, who doesn't believe Seth is being fully honest. As Eric and Lynne draw closer to their new pastor Marek Jaworski, truths surface about that man's p...

The quilt I was working on perhaps at the time the excerpt below was written, May 2015. On a day when sixty-two years ago Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech, as well as the day after two young children were murdered in yet another horrific shooting, I sat to read aloud chapters of a novel first written perhaps a decade previously. I've said many prayers for those killed and wounded in Minneapolis, their beloveds and caregivers too. I've pondered the state of Dr. King's dream, how far away we seem from such solidarity and freedom. And I've smiled at words gifted to me by grace, gathered in a manuscript , and now close to being released for whatever purpose God has in mind. Here's the chapter I just read. Set in October 1962 at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, an Oregon artist and a Polish pastor hint toward the truths of their pasts and how life works in such mysterious manners.   Chapter 77   When Marek woke that m...