Guys, something happened to me recently. It came out of nowhere. Completely unexpected. I became obsessed with regency novels. I’m not even joking! It started out of simple curiosity about a book I’d heard tons of people talk about but didn’t get around to reading when it first released: Edenbrooke by Julianne Donaldson. (Soooo good!) And it led into a full-blown …
Stuck on an elevator with a pirate.
Last week I attended the RT Booklovers Convention. My first time, and I had a blast. Got to spend time with so many cool writing friends (shout-out to Susie Warren, Rachel Hauck and Alena Tauriainen), chat with Bethany House folks who arranged a great “chocolate festival” event (shout-out to editor Raela Schoenherr and marketing veep Noelle Buss) and eat food. …
Two weeks until the mega fun begins
Hey guys! Okay, here’s the deal: I had plans to do some ridiculously fun things on the blog this month BUT I reeeeeally need to write book four. It’s in the works and I’m having a blast with it, but I need to focus hard core in the next couple weeks. So I’m stepping back from the blog for two …
Why I disappeared & fun surprises coming up.
There’s a good reason I temporarily disappeared from this blog. Several good reasons, actually. I was busy editing galleys for my next book, FROM THE START. I travelled up to Little Falls, Minnesota, recently to co-teach a couple writing workshops with my writing friend Gabrielle Meyer at this super cute library. I started brainstorming, plotting, and slightly nervously writing my fourth …
Heads-Up Seven-Up
Did anyone else play Heads-Up Seven-Up in grade school? That game made me SO nervous. I mean, if you were one of the seven people up front who had to go around and choose someone’s thumb to push down (if you don’t know the game, that sentence fragment probably made zero sense), there were just so many implications. If you picked …
How to stalk your favorite author at ACFW…
This is a post mainly for writers who are attending the ACFW Conference next week. However, for those of you who aren’t writers or are not attending ACFW, it’s possible you might still find a morsel of usefulness in this post…IF you have plans to stalk someone at anytime in the near future.* So feel free to keep reading. One of my favorite …
Friday headlines.
Well, I switched things up a bit on the blog this week and went with a devo-ish post on Wednesday. So in keeping with my rebellious schedule fiddling, today instead of doing a regular Friday post I’m going to play newsgirl and offer up a few headlines… Coolest Giveaway EverEarlier this week, Bethany House in conjunction with Jones House Creative, announced …
If Best = Random, then these are my best ACFW Conference tips…
If you are NOT a writer or are not attending the upcoming ACFW Conference in Indianapolis, I apologize for the irrelevance of this post. If you ARE a writer and are attending ACFW, then I apologize for the off-the-wallness of this post. So the ACFW Conference is coming up soon. This is one of my absolute favorite times of the …
The one thing you should never, ever say to a writer.
So, last week I got a review I was pretty excited about for my book. I might have squealed a little when I read it. I told a few people. And one person’s response went a little (or exactly) like this: “Oh cool. So you got almost as many stars as you could have.” Yup. 🙂 To be fair, I …
State Fair Fun (and…when did I get old?)
A fair photo from a couple years ago. On the right is my friend Mel. Fun story: Years ago, the first night we ever hung out (along with another friend, Maggie) we actually watched the movie State Fair. This weekend I’m heading to the Iowa State Fair with a couple friends. We go every year. Because, well, we’re from Iowa. …