If I Had a Million Dollars

What 5 things would YOU buy with a million dollars?

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Please pop over to Bits & Bytes: Romance...the Writer's Way and share. I'd love to hear all about it.

A Villain-ing We Shall Go

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Happy Halloween!

Looking for tips on creating villains?  Or maybe you have tips of your own to share?  I'm over at Bits & Bytes: Romance..the Writer's Way sharing some tidbits I scared up online.

I hope you'll pop over and share your thoughts.

My Favorite Villains

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I'm loving this fall weather.  It's my favorite season.  Cooler weather.  Gorgeous trees.  (There's one down my street that is simply fabulous -- so far I've resisted the urge to go stand in their yard so I can soak up its yumminess while the red and orange colors are so vivid.)  Some of my neighbors have fun Halloween decorations out.  

Since Halloween often inspires scary, creepy costumes, we're blogging about our favorite villains this month at Bits & Bytes: Romance...the Writer's Way.  Today is my turn.  

I sure hope you'll drop in for a visit and leave a comment.  I'd love to hear who your favorite villains are.

Lexi's 5K!

Where has the summer gone?  Fall is my favorite season and I can't believe it's here.  And because it's here, it means Lexi's 5K is nearly here.  Sunday, as a matter of fact. Here's our billboard:

Pretty cool, huh. I've been meaning to write a follow-up post about our first 5K, but life got in the way.  This past summer feels like the summer that wasn't. 

Anyway, Lexi's 5K this Sunday, Oct 26 at 2 pm, will benefit Lexi's LAMB Foundation. My daughter founded this organization in 2007 after her daughter Lexi passed away.  We help provide comfort measures children in local hospitals and try to bring smiles and bit of normalcy for them.  

If you happen to see this and want to help us help the kiddoes, please check out our website or our facebook page.  It does my heart good to see the smiles we help put on the faces of the children in the hospital.

Rainy Day Movies

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This month at Bits & Bytes: Romance ... the Writer's Way we're talking about our favorite rainy day movie.

I do hope you'll pop over and share your favorite(s).

Character Connections...of the Intimate Kind

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It's the 31st day of the month, which means I'm over at Bits & Bytes: Romance...the Writer's Way sharing links.

The topic?  The stages of intimacy between the hero and heroine.  I hope you will pop over and share your thoughts.

If I Could Choose a Show From My Childhood to Bring Back

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Today I'm over at Bits & Bytes: Romance...the Writer's Way.  This month our topic is What show from your childhood would you love to bring back?

I hope you'll pop over and tell us what show you'd bring back.

My Apologies

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On the months with 31 days you can usually find me over at Bits & Bytes: Romance...the Writer's Way on the 31st of the month, sharing links to articles, blogs, web sites, etc that I've found helpful and hope you will, too.

Apology #1: I don't have a new post today.  I managed to knock myself out a couple days ago. Was there some really weird cosmic event on Tuesday afternoon?  The ER was crazy busy and was acting as overflow for another hospital. Nearly 8 hours after I passed out and smacked my head, I learned I did not have a brain bleed (yay!), the EKG & blood tests were okay and I was released with a couple prescriptions. The right side of my head and my rib cage area and side are still really sore. You'd think I'd been in a fight or hit by a truck.  The golf ball-sized lump over my right eye has gone down, but the pain is being stubborn about leaving.  My right eyelid is scary-looking: super puffy and droopy and I'm pretty sure you'll find every shade of purple there.  I never realized how often I touch the right side of my face...I keep smacking the owies.  Thank you to my wonderful daughters for taking such good care of me.

Apology #2:  Since I didn't pull together new links, I'm re-sharing the post I did three years ago today:  A Smorgasbord of Writing Resources.  Two of the links didn't work when I tested them. I found a replacement link for one but had to delete the other out from the post. Bummer.  She had lots of great articles on her site.

Which leads to the tip of the day:  If you find something online that you'll want to refer to again, print it and/or save it.  You never know when a site will disappear.

I hope you'll forgive me for recycling a post, but I think this one is definitely worth revisiting because they have tons of great info.

Catch you later.  I need to take another pain pill and go lie back down.

My Writing Process - A Work in Progress

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Today I'm over at Bits & Bytes: Romance...the Writer's Way.  This month we're discussing the process of writing.  I do hope you'll pop over and share your own process.

Plot? Pants? Both? Oh My!

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This month over on Bits & Bytes: Romance...the Writer's Way our topic is Are you a Plotter (outliner) or a Panster (seat-of-the-pants) writer?  Why?

Plotting doesn't come easily to me, so I went trolling online for some help.  I hope you'll pop over and check out the links I found and share what works best for you.

Hodgepodge of Writing Resources

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I'm over at Bits & Bytes: Romance...the Writer's Way sharing a few writing resources I stumbled upon. Please pop over and share your own favorites.

Favorite Heroes. 'Nuff Said?

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 Our May topic over at Bits & Bytes...the Writer's Way is What are your favorite kinds of characters to write?  To read?

If you have time, please pop over and share your thoughts on the subject.

Coming this October -- A 5K for Lexi's LAMB Foundation

If you're a regular reader of my blog or my facebook page, you've probably read about my granddaughter, Lexi.

I have a favor to ask.  On October 26th we are having our first 5K run to support Lexi's LAMB Foundation, an organization founded in 2007 by my daughter, Kathy, in memory of her daughter, Alexis Christine Sparks aka Lexi. You can walk. You can run. You can cheer from the sidelines. I'll be walking because I run only if something really scary is chasing me.

If you can be a sponsor or work for company who might be interested in sponsoring us, or if you can help find sponsors, we'd greatly appreciate it. If we get enough sponsors to cover the cost of the 5K, then the proceeds raised from the participants will all go to Lexi's LAMB. We are a 501(c)3, which means donations are tax deductible.

Kiddoes at Wesley hospital will benefit from this fundraiser. We provide comfort measures for the kids (and siblings and parents, when we can), keep Lexi's Closet stocked, make special visits at Christmas and Easter. (We're hoping to add Halloween this year. Wouldn't that be a blast?)

But kiddoes from birth through teens are in the hospital all throughout the year, so we need funds to help us to keep helping the kiddoes even when it's not a holiday. We provide more than toys. The hospital always needs things like sippy cups, undies, spiral notebooks/journals, bouncers, gently worn clothing (except socks -- they have tons of socks), etc. So many things are needed. If you can help, there's a more complete list here.

If you're able to spread the word and/or participate in our first 5K run, thank you. And bless you.

Herding Cats, er, Herding Ideas: Organizing Tips for Writers

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This month over at Bits & Bytes: Romance...the Writer's Way, our topic is Organization.  Today's my turn and I find that word pretty scary.  Will you pop over and share your thoughts on the subject?

Casting Your Characters

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This month over on Bits & Bytes: Romance...the Writer's Way we've been discussing who we'd cast as our characters if our books were made into movies.

I've pulled tidbits from articles about Casting Your Characters.  I hope you'll pop over and share.

Original Cast Members of Sapphire & Gold

Sapphire and Gold

Your book is a movie.  Who is your dream cast? 

That's the topic this month over at Bits & Bytes: Romance...the Writer's Way.  I'm over there today sharing my original cast for my Colonial America historical romance, Sapphire and Gold, as well as who I might cast today.


If you have time, I hope you'll pop over and share your thoughts on the subject.

Grandpa and Me

Today I'm over at Bits & Bytes: Romance...The Writer's Way.  This month’s theme is If you could have personally witnessed one event in history, what would you want to have seen & why?  I hope you'll pop over and share your thoughts.

It's a New Year. Yay?

Joel, Evelyn, Francois
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How do you feel about new years every time they roll around?  Are you all excited or do they fill you with dread?  

I'm blogging about this over at Bits & Bytes: Romance...the Writer's Way.  Please hop over and share your thoughts.