Real Life is Better Than Fiction

This next year I want to focus on one word each week. I've asked for your help in coming up with words, and so many of you obliged and came up with better words than I ever would have thought up. I'm going to call these my Monday Meditations. Make sure you follow the blog to get automatic updates or check back each week so you don't miss one. I hope you will get to know God and me a little more through these posts that I pray will be spiritually uplifting and fun at the same time. Looking forward to spending 2019 with you!

I am honored to have fellow author, Nike Chillemi visiting with me today. Keep reading to find out more about her and her newest book Courting Danger . Q:   Give us an insight into your main character(s). What does he/she do that is so special? A:   In COURTING DANGER, both Det. Katerina "Kat Andruko and forensic psychologist Dimitri Garmonin have a Slavic background and so do I. This gave me an opportunity to draw from what I know (culture, food, religious attitudes), what I grew up with. Though parts of my psyche are imbedded in each of them, neither of them are me…not even close. They are defined personalities I created. They both share a few very special attitudes and values. Each wants to protect the innocent, find justice for victims, and keep Pelican Beach, Florida (the fictitious city they live in) safe. Q:   How much research do you do? A:   COURTING DANGER is set in northeastern coastal Florida and that's where I live, so I know a great dea...

This 2019 calendar features a Bible verse for each week in creative fonts that can be colored in. A wide variety of holidays are listed, both traditional and unusual. (Do you know when Appreciate a Dragon Day is? How about Lost Sock Memorial Day ?) You’ll have plenty of room to record your activities and appointments in the section for each day and week. After every month, you’ll find word puzzles featuring key words from that month's scriptures and holidays. Prepare for a year full of coloring and fun that will help you hide God's Word in your heart in 2019 without even trying! Click here to buy this 2019 coloring calendar from Amazon now! Now take a look at some sample pages! (In the actual calendar, each page is 8 1/2" x 11".)  Clicking on a picture will open up a PDF of the left-hand page (just the part with the Bible verse, not the calendar week) that you can print and color. Click here to print the coloring page for this verse. ...

I read something interesting the other day. Chinese Bamboo takes 5 years to root before you see a sprout come to the surface. When it does, within 6 six weeks, this bamboo shoots up to 19 feet tall! Nature is amazing. That waiting period is a nourishing period. While it may seem like nothing is going on, in fact, everything is going on. The root system is hard at work building a firm foundation. Writers can apply this to their work as well. I know so many people who want to spend a few weeks, maybe a month, writing a book and then expecting to see amazing financial results overnight. Yeah, it doesn’t work that way. Writing is an art. It takes time. You need to build a foundation of followers who enjoy reading what you write. It takes a lot of effort and time. I spend one day a week concentrating on marketing. I hate it. It’s the worst part of my job. I don’t like to promote or talk about myself, but how am I supposed to get new readers if I don’t? That is part of my foundation. Ano...

Anyone who knows me, knows I enjoy quilting. It's my "thinking time" for writing. I grew up watching my mother sew. In fact, many times she sat me down at the other sewing machine and gave me a project of my own on which to work. Sometimes she gave me work to do that I didn’t like and wished that I were doing something else. Now that I am an adult, I’m glad that my mother taught me to sew. I enjoy making gifts for other people, especially quilts.  My mom did make a few quilts in her lifetime. We all had quilts on our beds to keep us warm on cold winter nights. Quilts are my specialty. While sewing one day I thought about all the quilts that I had made for people over the years. Some I liked, some I didn’t, some I hated to give away when they were all done!  I was making a quilt for someone one day, while the neighbor girls were at our house playing with my daughters. One sat and watched while I cut out all the pieces that I would need. She asked, with a rather disgu...

I have just released another book in the Spiritual Insights from the Classics series. This one is a companion to Charlotte's Web by E. B. White.  In honor of the new release, I thought we could have a little fun today. Here's a quiz for you to learn how much you actually know about Charlotte's Web by E. B. White. Take the quiz and post your answers in the comments. I will then choose a random winner to receive an ebook version of my devotional book based on Charlotte's Web. Enjoy! 1. What does Fern ask her mother in the first line of the book? 2. Why does Mr. Arable set out to kill one of the piglets? 3. Who wanted to keep Wilbur as a pet? 4. How does Fern sometimes take Wilbur out? 5. What sort of a pig is Wilbur? 6. How many times did Templeton the rat get words for Charlotte? 7. What did Charlotte write about Wilbur in her web? 8. Who won the blue ribbon at the fair? 9. How many eggs did Charlotte...

Thanks to Nanette Bergevin for helping me with the picture! This door may not look like much, but oh what wonders it held for me. Behind that door was more doors in the form of books, books, and more books. Countless summer days I would pedal my bike as fast as I could the mile to the library and check out a book or two or three. I would then ride my bike another mile and a half to our community pool (This is back in the days when I was in shape). I would spend the afternoon alternating swimming with my friends and reading my books. I truly had the best of both worlds. My family didn't have a lot of money while I was growing up, and the library offered me free books galore! I had already developed a love of reading at home, but entering this door set that love in place for the rest of my life. I am now bound and determined to create a library of my own - you know, like the one in the Beauty and the Beast movie. It's a fact that one can never have too many books. I ...

Home. That's a word that has different meanings to different people. To me it was always a good word. Perhaps that's why I don't mind being at home now as an adult. This is the door to my childhood home. I was five months old when my parents bought the house and I stayed until I got married. This door was the entryway to family and love. There are a lot of good memories behind that door. While there are a few negative things I can remember from my childhood, there are really very few. I remember when my dad told us he had lost his job. Yes, things were uncertain, but we stuck together as a family, and our church family at the time stuck with us as well. I remember when my mom told me her father, my grandfather, had passed away from a heart attack. This was another sad time, but again, we were together. There were fights among us siblings. There were also the three day long Monopoly games. There was the occasional argument with one of my parents. The one tha...

Click the cover to go to Amazon As a writer I am always on the lookout for new ideas. Last summer an idea came to me while sitting in church. Our pastor was preaching on the heart. For one of his examples he read from The Wizard of Oz and the backstory of the Tin Man. That was when a light bulb came on in my head. I love reading the classics. There's something about them that is different from today's writing. As a homeschooling mom for 20 years, I was always looking for things I could incorporate into school, but also looking to double up as there were only so many hours in the day. I wish I had thought of this when my kids were still in school. Oh well! It's here for your kids. I am starting a new series of books. These are devotional books that go along with classic literature. After reading one chapter of the classic, you would then read one chapter of my book, which is a short devotion.  Reading through classic literature with new eyes, I've discovered...

Once again, a new year is upon us. A new year that will hold joys and sorrows, trials and triumphs, new opportunities. Each new day will offer a new door for us to walk through. Most of those doors are physical, but some might be symbolic. That will be the focus of my posts this year – doors. I'll share some doors I have walked through and tell a little story about each one. Some will be happy, some sad, some full of reminiscing. Some doors will be a challenge to walk through, but with God's help, I'll get through all the doors He wants me to if only I take the necessary steps. While I share my 2018 journey with you, I'd love to hear about yours. Where will doors take you? Feel free to leave comments on any posts that touch you in some way. Make sure to sign up to receive my posts by email if you don't want to miss one. You can find that link to the right of this blog. I'm looking forward to doing 2018 with you!