Hi Reader! I rediscovered a photo recently that has thrown me into all sorts of nostalgia and warm, fuzzy feels. The cake ๐ฐ Ty's family surprised us with at our engagement party. Yeah yeah, I know, the half-rotting woman on the right isn't exactly cuddly, but she's part of me. And she's a memory anchorโwhat I call a "ghost" in my story revision frameworkโthat takes me back to 20 years ago, when I first met my partner. If you're not sure what that โ๏ธ cake image is from, it's two player...
10 days agoย โขย 3 min read
Hi Reader! I just got back from a two-week vacation in Belize โต๐ด, and about halfway through week 2โas I was trying to find the tiniest shade to huddle away in from the โ๏ธ brutal UVโI had an Aha Moment... about myself. I wouldn't call it a good realization. ๐ฐ But it was an important one. And it explains so much about why I've been so unhappy for so long. Not like, miserable unhappy, but this low-key feeling that I'm just not good enough. I've always felt that way. I just assumed it was normal,...
29 days agoย โขย 3 min read
Hi Reader! How do you feel about tropes? (Asking for a friend. ๐ Just kidding, I'm actually asking for me. Because...) I LOVE tropes. What I DREAD is stereotypes. ๐ฎ๐จ Tropes are what attract us to the stories we love most. ๐ฅฐ They're the reason we choose those specific books. Like Friends To Lovers in romance. ๐ง๐ค๐ง It's supposed to feel familiar. That's part of the promise, and I want every second of that forbidden longing as our heroes realize just how right they are for one another. โ What I...
about 1 month agoย โขย 3 min read
Hi Reader! Writing this from the bathtub. Again. ๐๐โ๏ธ (That's what I get for trying to soak blissfully in silence: an invitation for my brain to do work. ๐
) And I have a confession, something that's been kinda bothering me for a few months now, but also kinda not? ๐ค (Keep reading. You'll see what I mean.) So here it is: I have a terrible habit of not finishing romantasy series. ๐ I'm totally hooked for the first three or four books, then when the final installment comes, I just sorta lose...
about 2 months agoย โขย 3 min read
Hi Reader! Recommending yourself is terribly awkward. And dubiously effective. "Hi, I'm great, book me for your event" reads about as well as it sounds. ๐
So I'm hoping you can help me out with that. ๐ Will you recommend me to your group's (or favorite event's) programming director? ๐ฅฐ I'm booking November 2026 through all of 2027, virtual and in person. And I'd love to spend an hour or two bringing inspiration, can-do energy, and Aha! Moments to your corner of the writing world. Now, I know a...
2 months agoย โขย 4 min read
Hi Reader! Romance readers are some of the biggest Feeling Junkies in all of fiction. Ask me how I know. ๐โ๏ธ We reread the books we love. Not to find out what happens, because we already KNOW what happens. We knew before we opened the book for the first time. That's the genre promise. ๐ We go back (sometimes again and again) to sit inside a very specific feeling. That's what a reread is. A reader choosing to feel something again on purpose. ๐๐ Listen to Episode 17: Feed Your Feeling Junkies...
3 months agoย โขย 1 min read
Hi Reader! Picture opening your editor's notes and finding this on a pivotal scene: "Needs more emotional impact." Cool. Cool cool cool. ๐ More how? Bigger reactions? Higher stakes? A tearful confession?? A writer I worked with got that note on her fake-dating romance. ๐ The flagged scene: Her heroine is at a spaceport, about to leave with a bounty hunter she barely knows, to play his fake girlfriend for a month. ๐๏ธ This writer's instinct was to go bigger, bolder, more dramatic. (Mine...
3 months agoย โขย 4 min read
Hi Reader! Close your eyes for a second (okay, AFTER you read this part ๐
) and picture this: It's Monday morning (or Friday night or whenever you like to edit). You open your manuscript to that scene. The one that's been fighting you for weeks. ๐ก And instead of the dread, your first thought is, "I know what this scene needs." Not hope. Not another guess that you'll rewrite next weekend. You know WHAT is wrong and WHY. โก That kind of knowing โ๏ธ doesn't hit you as one giant lightning bolt. ๐ช...
3 months agoย โขย 2 min read
Hi Reader! I just spent a week in Albuquerque at the Romance Writers of America national conference. And I am so glad I went. ๐ I haven't been to RWA National since 2019, and I have missed it. The passion for romantic fiction, the shared values, and the education that's curated just for romance writers is only part of it. The real reason this conference used to be the central event in my business (and, in some years, in my life) is the sisterhood. ๐ฉโค๏ธ๐ฉ RWA National is where total strangers...
3 months agoย โขย 5 min read