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I decided to try something different for my blog, focus less on the specific craft of writing and spend some time talking about the entire creative process.  I realized that creativity doesn’t start and stop when I type up my stories.   It’s no accident that crafting, writing, singing and other creative arts are often found in one person.  I grew up on a steady diet of broomstick crochet, macramé, knitting, crocheting, tatting, embroidery, piano lessons, vocal lessons and the like.  I love to read and I do love to write.  The only thing that I didn’t do much with was drawing/painting.  I can draw a tree and that’s about it.   Sparking creativity is a must if one wants to write and write well.  In former blog posts, you’ll see that I don’t believe in writer’s block.  Why should I believe in something that blocks my creative flow?  Why… Continued

Sister Suffragettes, my contribution to this awesome anthology is inspired by an incident in the life of Ida B. Wells-Barnett, a Black journalist, newspaper editor and leader in both the women’s suffrage and the civil rights movements. Because of her outspokenness and refusal to “play nice”, Mrs. Wells-Barnett often found herself at odds with the women’s suffrage movement. As a result, the leaders of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) insisted that she not march with the Illinois delegation at President Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration, where they were demanding the right to vote. The reason? A black woman marching alongside whites would offend some Southern women. But Ida had other plans. On March 9, 1913, she watched the parade from the crowd until the Illinois delegation had passed then joined in, protected from angry Southerners by white women sympathetic to the plight of all women, regardless of race. Please read on

I’m fortunate. I have an office to which I can retreat and type my little masterpieces. Let me give you a peek into what I look at every day. Enjoy!       A plant that I picked up for two bucks at the grocer’s.  Sale!!   A teapot that I fell in love with at a thrift shop. Had to have it for 5 bucks.    Coffee (or tea)  cup – one of many.   Makeup bag.  It’s pretty psychedelic!    And packed full.   Harley Teddy!  He doesn’t really have a name. Any suggestions?      

As a romance author, I’ve written quite a few short stories and read even more.  I’ve read short stories by industry authors as well as the “classics” by Edgar Allen Poe, O. Henry, Richard Matheson and Stephen King.  In addition, I’ve read anthologies of short stories.  As an author, I feel that I am in a constant state of learning and try my best to expose myself to a variety of writing and writers. There was one thing I noticed about the good short stories:  they didn’t explain me to death.  Nothing bothers me more than a short story that tries to tell me every detail of each character’s back story in the first three paragraphs.  It bores me.  It bogs me down.  Ditto to the over-explanations after each character does something. “She brushed her hair, something that she had done for years and her mother had done before she