Understanding Cemetery Symbols (Book 1) PRE-ORDER

PRE-ORDER - only $2.99

Understanding Cemetery Symbols: A Field Guide for Historic Graveyards
(Messages from the Dead Book 1)

Even though many of our ancestors were illiterate, they often placed symbols on their headstones with meanings that have become forgotten over time. Understanding Cemetery Symbols: A Field Guide for Historic Graveyards is a photo-filled field guide people can toss in their car, then reach for when they visit a historic graveyard. 

Learning the meaning of these forgotten symbols can greatly enhance your visit to a historic cemeteries. Not only is it fun, but it creates a unique connection to history.

Perfect for history buffs, genealogy searchers and anyone with a love for obscure trivia!

Price goes to $9.99 once live!

Old News & New News

Just a short update - really no new news. Sorry! Due to my impending eye surgery, I haven't been writing or editing.  Yes, I'm falling way behind but once July hits and both eyes are healed, I will be able to really tackle my backlog.

Here's my current WIP list, in order of projected completion and publication:

• Paradise Dead, novella two in my Lei Crime Kindle World trilogy - writing first draft
• 7 Days of Seven, compilation of middle grade fantasy stories - final edits
• Almost a Touch, book three in my Klondike - starting edits

My goal is to have all the above live on Amazon by early fall. Keep your fingers crossed for me. Once these are done, I will be tackling the third Lei Crime Kindle World novella, Paradise Drift, which I hope to have out by early November.

At that point it will be holiday season as well as the time of year when we move our rolling home from our house in TN to our RV lot in Florida. At that point, I will be deciding if I will continue writing (other than my blogs) for publication. So I guess that's the new news, I may retire from writing after this year. Not definite, but under consideration.

FREE BOOK: Just in time for Mother's Day

Home Again, FREE romance book
from 5/14/17-5/18/17

Tomorrow is Mother's Day and I'm happy to announce my small town, clean & wholesome romance book, Home Again, will be free starting tomorrow, May 14th, and through May 18th. If you haven't read it, I hope you will grab a copy. Please be sure to share with all your friends, too!

Tomorrow, be sure to join in the fun at my new blog, Shopping, Just for Fun, and enter for chances to win one of three Amazon gift cards. Pass the link along to all your family and friends, as well.

Commenting Change Effective Immediately

Well, the vote is in and I think everyone who participated. I will be moving away from Disqus commenting and back to the standard Blogger commenting. What does this mean to you? Hopefully things have improved since I made the change in 2015 and you will be able to comment without issues. Also, hopefully you will start commenting again.

I had noticed in the last year that comments were rare. After participating in the A-Z challenge, I realized (based upon input I received) that Disqus might be the problem.

Sooooooo - effective today, I am making the change. The biggest downside is all the comments from the last 18 months or so will be lost. All my recent IWSG comments are the biggest loss, but there is no way I can change that. Blogger stopped synching to Disqus some time ago.

Thank you for understanding!

#atozchallenge My Look Back

Well, the challenge is over and thanks to my writing and pre-scheduling, I survived. This is my third successful A to Z and probably my last, for several reasons. But first, here are some conclusions about the event from my perspective (your mileage may vary, if you participated).

1. I'm still not a fan of the new 'leave a comment' method of linking. For one thing, it meant I had to post every day, part of what I was trying to avoid by pre-writing and scheduling (due to my heavy schedule).
2. I found I spent less time finding new blogs from the comments (both in Facebook and on the A to Z Challenge blog. In the first few days, I browsed and clicked. About half of what I looked at was of interest, partly because there was no standard way people were categorizing their blogs.
3. I did comment on 6-8 blogs every day, some regulars and some new. Many never visited back to comment.
4. I had way fewer visitors and comments posted than in previous A to Z challenges. Most were from:
• Facebook friends who were in a support group I created for the event
  
• Blogs I visited and commented on
  
• The least amount were from random visitors
5. I had fun connecting back with friends from 2012-2013 A to Z challenges. We had lost touch since I rarely use Twitter other than sending out posts from my Facebook author page. Now we are friends on Facebook and I have their blog links again.

So, while it was fun and definitely worthwhile to find old friends, I doubt I will do it again. The payback for me isn't there, this was time I could have spent working on my current WIP.

A to Z - thanks for the memories!

#IWSG for May 2017: Resilience

I almost missed the last two months posts for the Insecure Writer's Support Group. Imagine my surprise when I dreamt about the one for May coming due soon!

It's been a crazy April. First we moved the RV from our lot in Florida to our new house in Tennessee. We shuffled things in and out and quickly got settled. Chores galore, but I was getting in some good writing time.

Then I got sick. Twice. The writing stopped. The stress started. I had a May first deadline to have my new novella, Paradise Dead, ready to publish for the Lei Crime Series. We had company coming. We had things, financial and legal, that had to be done. We had...well, you get the idea.

I finally realized the deadline was artificial. It was a personal goal, set for a reason, but still personal. What was the worst thing that could happen if I didn't meet the self-imposed dealine? Would I lose sales by not making the deadline? Yes. The push from the marketing promotion I planned to join would give the book a big boost. But I knew that wasn't the end of the world. There would be another promotion in the fall and I could use the push then.

So I sat back and relaxed. The book could and would wait. I took a huge jump and I landed okay. The stress is gone and I'm taking care of all the personal things I need to address right now. Getting ready to move the RV to Maryland for two months and dealing with cataract surgery on both eyes. I have no idea how much reading or writing will get done during that month.

So my word for the month's IWSG is RESILIENCE, because that's what I need to have right now.