Blog

Shalom!

I've been thinking a lot about stories lately, not only the ones I write, but the ones I want to talk about. I have a YouTube channel, and I want to do more with it: make it a place to sit down with you, tea in hand, and share what I'm learning as an author and believer in Messiah.

I've started writing scripts for video posts. I’ll attempt to post twice a month and if that goes well, try it weekly. My first topic is a simple question:

Why are hardship, and even tragedy, so important in...

Shalom!

This season has been a full one, and I wanted to sit down and tell you about it. Life has been moving fast, and I'm learning again that God tucks small gifts into the busiest days if I slow down enough to notice them.

The last worship, and the long drive south

Before we left, Mark and I helped lead worship one more time: Mark on hand drums, and me on flute and background vocals. Then came hugs goodbye and a long afternoon and evening on the road through Connecticut, New York,...

It's official: Training Ground (Book 2 of the Terra Colony Project) is now available as both a paperback and an ebook! The colonists-in-training are clearing ground and learning to build their first homes. Now you can hold their story in your hands.

I've also been giving the website and my book pages a fresh look, with a Hubble starfield behind the covers. The series order is settled too: Terra Colony Dreamers, Training Ground, Terra Shalom, The Stowaways and Flight of the EsCargo.

And the gap...

Doctor William Makis MD has been doing research for years, and has made available a dosage chart for people with cancer who want to beat it. Even the medical profession will tell you that chemo is palliative. It doesn't cure cancer it suppresses it. Chemo does not kill cancer stem cells so after a few years, usually around five or six, the cancer comes back. At this point it is often faster growing and resistant to the chemo. I've watched it happen over and over with friends and friends of...

Yes, I started with AI, (So, beat me with pejoratives) but I did two weeks of work on it, and changed so many things, AI just doesn't do it all.

To create a cover for my paperback book, I needed to use the eBook cover my son-in-law made for the front and find or create a picture with AI for the back cover and blend them together on the spine. I had a terrible time trying to match his blue Oregon forest with the rust and sunset colors and the completely different scene at the bottom. By the...

I've been sick so I got behind on my editing and rewriting schedule, but I'm back! I've made it to chapter 39 and will get a couple more done today.

My pepper seeds didn't sprout, so I bought a couple of pepper plants, banana and jalapeño. The less spicy ones for me! Jalapeños for my husband Mark. I also planted tomatoes. We'll see how that goes, they don't do well here as it gets so hot in the summer. I planted them in part shade, maybe, we'll see!

On my Ream site I added more chapters to the...

It's been so dry! We've already had a local fire burn 550 acres. It's not supposed to be like California here!

(Row of long beans!)

That said, we have a small patch with a soaker hose on a timer that waters it. I stuck to that small garden last year, and I guess this year too. This morning I planted six sweet potato slips, and a row of long beans. We still have last years collard greens producing so that's three vegetables so far.

I'm soaking some pepper...

Under the sukkah this October, preparing to lead worship with my daughter, Kerah.

Work has gone well on my project of turning ‘The Dreamers’ into three separate novels. I finished parts one and two during the summer. Right before we left for our vacation in October, I finished part three (or at least I thought so!) However, the re-edited part three of The Dreamers, renamed Terra Nova, was only 30,000+ words, fine for a novella, but not a novel.

As I read...

Oy, This shouldn't be so difficult. So many choices, so many ideas, and it must be done.

I've learned so much about creating the optimal Author Website. I'm taking a video course on this. Bless Adonai for video learning! And podcasts where you have the opportunity to learn from others mistakes and not make them yourself.

At 69, I don't have enough years left to learn from my own mistakes, so I do a huge amount of research so I can get things right the first time (or second!) Therefore my...

I've traveled to Central Florida for a health summit, to Oregon for a week, for my father's funeral, a sad time, then back to Central Florida for a camping trip (it rained the whole time, happy anniversary honey!) then north to Connecticut for a week to help my middle daughter with the kids while hubby went to a wedding. The baby got sick the day after I arrived and was miserable all week, poor little guy!

Well, I'm home now and it looks like August is...

I clicked on a YouTube video today out of curiosity, looking for something to think about while I made dinner. Uncertain if I would learn anything that could help me sell more books, I took a chance. It had one of those click-bait titles The 7,11,4 Hack That Turns $1 Into $10K Per Month! The 7, 11, 4, Hack That Turns 1$ Into 10K Per Month! Big whoop!

Usually the ideas are well known, and the years needed to begin accruing that kind of income are more than I have left in my life. Besides, I'm...

(Photo of the new cover)

The count-down has begun, as Adrielle and I go through the proof copies ‘one more time!’ with a fine-tooth comb, weeding out any errors I missed in past edits. This book finishes the story of the Stowaways, carrying them through their years and changes on the EsCargo.

The next book ‘The Migration’, will bring in some of our favorite folks from ‘The Dreamers’, as they meet and befriend some of our stowaways. Before I start on that, I’...

Shalom, shalom!

Life is good! More than good, great! But sometimes even great things can impede us from reaching our goals in a timely manner. I just spent a wonderful two weeks with my eldest daughter's family. This encompassed my grandson's Bar Mitzvah, and the feast of Purim. Needless to say, a great time was had by all!

I've had three deadlines for the release of this book. The first was last October, but the book wasn't ready.

In November we had family come for Thanksgiving and stay two...

I’m on the finishing stretch of book III of my series, Flight of the EsCargo (Now Book 5). I’m excited to get the finish product published and into your hands. I’ve been working on the cover alongside editing and filling out the book, and am happy with my progress.

This book follows the Stowaways from book II and their struggles to fit in with this ship full of God Fearers. You saw in book two that a couple of them, through Serena’s influence are already fairly certain that there must be a...

Wow! My new book has been late twice now as I continue editing. Every time I read through I find more mistakes, Oy! The editing process can be tedious, but it's very necessary. I'm reading it aloud to one of my daughters to help me with the process. My husband always gets the first read-through, so for him its start and stop to edit, then start reading again. Poor guy, he gets the rough version!

Been working on the cover with a graphic artist. It's been rough working with someone I don't know,...

Click "See More" below. Then "View Original" Above to see Cover Art

All the final editing is finished. The cover is done. The inside of the book is formatted (Chapter numbers and titles added, paragraph indents set, Fonts chosen, scene breaks divided with a decorative line etc.). There's much work to be done that you never think about till you write your first book and start to publish it!

I struggled a bit with the title for this one. It had always been...

The manuscript for book two, ‘Flight of the EsCargo’ is finished!

I’m now working hard editing it. I decided to do the book in two parts, rather than have it as long as book one ‘The Dreamers’ (400+ pages!) and have it another six to eight months late on the goal I set for its release. My goal was to have it finished by October 1st, but I don’t want to put out a less than excellent book, and matching ‘The Dreamers’ quality is important to me, so I’m hoping to have it out by November first. I’m...

(This blog was written before I split Book 1 The Dreamers into 3 separate novels, so now the book numbers are different!)

Book one was so much fun, and so fulfilling to me. It was the book that launched an author! Now I'm working on book two of the Terra Colony Project series (now book 4), and having as much fun with this one as I had with book one The Dreamers.

I just finished chapter eight, and though it's been tough as my time is very limited and divided between my writing and other...