Liz Flaherty's Blog, page 76

Once More With Feeling

To say it's been a bad week is probably an understatement. Shootings in Vegas, attacks in Edmonton, and the death of a rock icon. I decided to rerun the blog I posted in June, not long after my husband and I saw Tom Petty in concert. At the time I was concerned about the money the concert had cost, but since I'll never get another chance to see Tom Petty in concert again, I'm very glad we went. You just never know.  

www.tompetty.comA couple of weekends ago, my husband and I drove ei...

Lake Houses and Mermaids

I have a new release!!

With the local pools now closed for the season and the consistent nip in the air,
it's easy to forget the warmer days when I was hot and heavy into writing a short story for the mutli-genre anthology of the Crossroads writer group I'm in.

Yes, it seems like ages ago that I wrote a mermaid-themed short story for "The Lake House" anthology--a publication that raises funds for the group as well as for a local literacy-focused charity--but those stories are about...

Hoping for Goodness

by Margie Senechal

I love my country. I think we have enormous potential. And like all families, I think sometimes we get a little hung up in emotions and disagreements. 2017 is proving to be a very trying year for well, everyone, I think. It doesn't matter where you fall in the political spectrum, there is enough strife to go around.

After the incident in Las Vegas, we're reaching another boiling point. Lines are being drawn, sides are being chosen. I know which side I'm on--the same side I'v...

#WriteTip: Using Alternate Creativity To Clear Your Plot Problems

A couple of years ago, there was a huge push for adult coloring books. People said they were relaxing. People said they were creative. People said they were inspiring. I said I didn't like them. I even blogged about how much I didn't like it.

Today I'm blogging about being wrong about my feelings for adult coloring books.

Sort of.

I bought a new iPad about eight months ago and I love it. I especially love my iPencil - I'm now doing read-throughs of my books on my iPad, using my iPencil to mark u...

Meandering . . .

. . . because it's one of those days when I've got nothin'. This past weekend was chaos, ending with Husband and I stranded in the parking lot of our local grocery store because his 14-year-old truck died. We had to call our neighbor to rescue us. The truck is still in the parking lot and Husband is trying to make a decision about what to do with it. He's been down there several times with tools fiddling, listening, testing . . . I think it might be time for a new vehicle. At least that's my...

When life was slow and oh, so mellow...

"...when life was slow and oh, so mellow..." - Harvey Schmidt

Welcome to October! And, yeah, I'm a month off with my quote up there, but it fits so well. Someone said on Facebook, "October is my favorite color." I tend to agree. Regardless of how brilliant its colors are both here in the Midwest and in New England--and probably other places; I am literally "writing what I know" here--there is a mellowness to October that, if we let it, will lend ease to the most pained of hearts.

In my best Pol...

Finding My Motivation

I’m back from holidays, and it’s time for real life once more. That means back to the part-time day job, back to laundry and cleaning house, and especially, back to getting my three-book series ready for launching.

This is my first serious venture into self-publishing. I’m in awe of Nan and her Women of Willow Bay self-published series. (Just bought my copy, btw. Can't wait to read it.) Already at book 4! Amazing. I’m beginning to understand the effort it took to get there.

I’m currently in the...

All Good Things Come to an End

Unfortunately, for us as readers as well as writers, a book series must have it's end. It's last hurrah! For writer pal Jillian Jacobs, the final book in her O-Line Series is "Erik's End," which will be released at the end of October. But she has her awesome cover already, and I love it!

So I'm sharing it here. 
 
I won't give anything away, but I read a rough draft and it's a great story! First of all, Jillian does such a good job writing bad people, and "Erik...

Life Left a Mystery

by Margie Senechal

Today is the last day of my ten-day staycation. 

I began my vacation with this face on the patio.

I had big plans for my vacation--my first extended break since 2014. I even wrote out a to-do list which consisted of dump runs, cleaning out the garage, mowing the yard and getting the gardens ready for fall, organizing my desks--yes, plural...

If you know me at all, even just through my writing, you can probably guess that nothing on my list got done. 

I went to only on...

Sometimes, we need a reset - like the weather!

I know the calendar officially flipped over to fall last week, but I haven't seen it yet. Since the 'official' change over, what we've seen here on the North Coast is ... summer. 90s most days, incredibly blue skies, humidity. And falling leaves.

It's weird to see the leaves fall when it still - or again, as we actually *had* a week of fall weather before the calendar changeover! - feels like summer. Kind of like the weather has forgotten what it's supposed to be doing.

Kind of like writing a b...