Castle in the Clouds

Merry Christmas! It's Christmas Eve and the gifts are not only purchased, they're wrapped! Unbelievable. I'm usually up until the wee hours of the night wrapping and wrapping and wrapping...not this Christmas Eve, though! Ken and I sat down yesterday and finished the immensely irritating job. Of course, the annoyance I felt no doubt stemmed more from the nausea and cramping--compliments of my son's flu bug--than the actual wrapping. While I'm at work today Ken and the boys are going to make sugar cookies. What an awesome dad. Sometimes the man just leaves me breathless. After all, how many grown men would stoop to rolling cookie dough and using whimsically shaped cutters in order to bring a smile to a four-year-old's face? Not many. But mine will. How cool is that? After I get home (and sample one of those yummy cookies), we have to go to my Mom and Dad's place for their gift exchange. After the gift exchange some of my Dad's family

Writing Last Thursday I finished Chapter One of A Secret Well Kept . It works. More than that, I think it works well. I've introduced one of the driving conflicts in the story--chattel slavery of the Lainir in its infancy. My MC is not only horrified by the inhumanity of it, she realizes intuitively these slaves will never meekly accept this new lot in life. She's off to convince her father to ban them from sale in their city. The next chapter, which I hope to start during the holiday break, will focus on that confrontation, an unpleasant discovery, and an unexpected visitor. Can't wait! Holidays -Got most of my shopping done. Just a few more things to pick up for the hubby. -Going to make cookies with the kids this weekend. Okay, so they're not going to be from scratch. I'm using frozen cookies and letting them decorate. Yep, it's cheating. Yep, I don't care. -The interior of the house is adorable. Lights, scented candles,

Surprise! I actually managed to pass my last quiz! Unbelievably I got 19 out of 20. Don't know how....but I'm grateful. And I promise to study my tooshie off for the final next week. Writing Started Chapter Two of Heart of a Dragon . This one is from Kade's POV as I want to distinguish him as the hero. He's just about ready to confront Adara with his suspicions. This should be fun! As for A Secret Well Kept , I don't know how major others (mainly Holly and my classmates) would consider this change I've made but, boy, oh boy, have I veered from the scene list. In fact, the first scene I wrote has been deleted. For some reason the story wasn't working for me and I couldn't get past the first chapter. Isn't that sad? How long have we had to work on this story and here I am still laboring over Chapter One. Talk about anal. But there it is....I'm very anal about first chapters. After that I tend to fall into the flow of the st

Wow! It's been a loooong time since I've posted to my blog. A whole month! For shame, for shame. The Holiday Season has officially started. Hope everyone had a yummy Thanksgiving. I know I did! We cooked a turkey in the deep fryer and I made pumpkin cheesecake. Yum, yum, yum. We also had a birthday party for my baby. Hard to believe the little guy just turned two. Soon he'll be five and off to school. (Better believe I'll be home with a box of kleenex when that day comes!) Writing: I'm working on two novels: A Secret Well Kept and Heart of a Dragon. Secret has been bothering me. I know the beginning isn't right. I'm going to rework it a bit and see if that helps. Developing Davne's father in more detail and bringing the crux of their difficulties into full light. I want to make him just as three-dimensional as Davne. Maybe that will help.... Heart of a Dragon is fun. I'm not allowing myself to work on it exclusive