Veronica Cline Barton's Blog: Mistletoe and Mayhem: Yuletide at Castlewood Manor listed as, "One of the best suspense books of all time." - BookAuthority, page 5
April 26, 2023
Veronica's #WritersDiary: Elements of a Best Seller; How Does Your Story Stack Up?
"I don't know. I don't know at all. And that's what's frightening the life out of me. To have no idea..."
Agatha Christie, history's best-selling novelist (billions of copies sold)...
"Best Seller" A status almost every writer would be thrilled to achieve. As writers, we pour our heart and souls into each creation. Weeks, months, years of time, planning, and creative flow go into our stories. Many strive to pen 'the great American (insert your country here) novel', the question is, what makes a ...
April 12, 2023
Veronica's #WritersDiary: To the Top of the World!
Det finnes ingen snarveier til steder det er verdt å resie til – There are no shortcuts to anyplace worth going...
Norwegian adage
The countdown is on for our next travel adventure! This time we're heading to the top of the world (literally) as we cruise up the coast of beautiful Norway, to the tip of the Arctic circle, and over to Iceland. We leave in May for our 15-day cruise on Viking's Arctic Explorer journey. I'll still get my cold weather (yay!) and we'll be treated to the experience of th...
March 29, 2023
Veronica's #WritersDiary: Author Chat: Branching Out to a New Audience...
“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”
– T.S. Eliot
As this first quarter of 2023 draws to a close...I've been thinking... #GASP
I celebrated my 5th year as an Indie writer this quarter--my first two books, The Crown for Castlewood Manor and Cast, Crew, & Carnage: The Filming of Castlewood Manor became published realities in 2018. #TimeFlies I've learned so much since then and finding your audience and reader tribe is a never-ending quest. I'm in the...
March 15, 2023
Veronica's #WritersDiary: Southern Road Trip #InspirationResearch!
"Road trips are the equivalent of human wings. Ask me to go on one, anywhere. We'll stop in every small town and learn the history and stories, feel the ground, and capture the spirit. Then, we'll turn it into our own story that will live inside our history to carry with us, always. Because stories are more important than things."
Victoria Erickson
Hard to believe it's been three years since our last southern states road trip. I'm hoping this time no viruses or global shutdowns occur! For this ...
March 1, 2023
Veronica's #WritersDiary: Book Chat: What's the Future Hold for Your Fav Genre?
"A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called "leaves") imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shack...
February 15, 2023
Veronica's #WritersDiary: #NewRelease Murder on the Runway: Fashion Week at Castlewood Manor!
"With the right pair of stilettos, a girl can slog through anything..."
Collette Valentine, Editor of Le Chic Vie
Well, hello Book 8 in My American Almost Royal Cousin Series! Murder on the Runway: Fashion Week at Castlewood Manor is available on a seller platform near you! Get those stilettos ready, are you ready to walk the runway?
https://video.wixstatic.com/video/87cb7f_77393fb445d842c78283afd3dc27f70f/720p/mp4/file.mp4In this latest tale, Gemma makes her London Fashion Week debut by co-hos...
February 1, 2023
Veronica's #WritersDiary: A Whale of a Time!
“There she blows!-there she blows! A hump like a snow-hill! It is Moby Dick!”
― Herman Melville, Moby Dick
Last week the OH and I had the pleasure of checking off a super fun bucket list item. We went whale watching for the first time with Capt. Dave's whale watching excursions off the coast of Dana Point!
I cannot believe we waited so long to do this. The weather was glorious after all the rain and Santa Ana winds we'd had. We opted for the raft cruise this go round--the sleek craft scooted up...
January 18, 2023
Veronica's #WritersDiary: Book to Stage Productions, What Can Get Lost in Translation?
“Try fighting with your head for a change...
it's a good one, even if it does resist learning.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
I've been blessed to see a few book-to-stage productions in past years I thought were stellar translations. Both were Dame Agatha Christie mystery tales I enjoy very much: Witness for the Prosecution and Murder on the Orient Express. In Witness, the play was actually held in a courtroom in the London County Hall--giving you a bird's eye view as a trial spectator I ...
January 4, 2023
Veronica's #WritersDiary: 2023, Here's to a Fabulous New Year!
Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything. Maybe it’s about un-becoming everything that isn’t really you, so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place.
– Paul Coelho
Well, hello, 2023 and a very happy January to one and all! This is a special month for me, because yesterday, I turned another year older. #Capricorn
It was the BIG 6-5 this go round. A good time was had by all at the Ritz in Laguna! It's tough being an early, January baby--before you know it, Christmas ...
December 28, 2022
Veronica's #WritersDiary: My Top Reads of 2022!
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Happy Almost New Year! As another year comes to a close, and a new one set to begin, I'm going out on the reader limb once again and highlighting books that for me, were Top Reads in 2022!
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They range from a speculative look into the future--which may be closer than we think; a collection of ghostly tales in one of my fav southern cities; an irreverent (but highly accurate) dictionary of words and terms we all now know--for better or worse;...
