Liz Flaherty's Blog, page 77

Celebration Time . . .

. . . Come on! Got Kool and the Gang singing and dancing in your head yet? I do! It's not only my book birthday today, it's also my birthday! Yup Saving Sarah is releasing on my actual birthday--which is an amazing way to celebrate another year of living. I know, I know, the song is stuck in my brain now, too--we'll all be singing it all day. But that's okay because it is time to celebrate! (Man, I love that cover, don't you?)

 If you pre-ordered Saving Sarah, it should be on your Kindle...

Joy in the Morning

Weeping may spend the night,but there is joy in the morning. - from Psalm 30:5


I don't know how Monday got here so fast, but here it is and here I am. Mumbling away. I have a cup of Earl Grey in front of me and I'm sitting at my desk at 7:45 AM thinking it's going to be a hot one and not minding--because it's September-winding-down and we won't have many more hot ones.

I feel unsettled. Nothing new in that--my anxious feelings have gone on for one reason or another for nearly a year now. I keep...

Vacation Pics #NovaScota

Last week, I shared some of my vacation pictures and my adventures in Nova Scotia. Here's a few more pictures from the end of our holidays.

Baddeck, Nova Scotia, on the shores of Bras D'Or Lake, was Alexander Graham Bell's summer home for many years. Of course I knew he'd invented the telephone, but I didn't know about his other inventions and interests. He was a true Renaissance Man. The other thing I didn't know was his love story with his wife Mabel. After contracting scarlet fever, she'd g...

More Change! New Change!

Happy Friday! Last week, I blogged about change and either letting it ruin your life or dealing with it and thriving as a result. Ok, maybe that point wasn’t easily-deducted, but the timing of my topic was fortuitous: my writer friend Melanie Jayne had published the latest in her Change Series last Friday as well. In keeping with my theme, I wanted to take today and talk about her latest release. Take it away, Melanie!

Thank you so much for allowing me to share a little bit from my latest boo...

Story Wonders

by Margie Senechal
 
So, Liz started this thread on Monday and I'm going to jump in with my story-starters that I imagine to be in a big trunk that I open up every once in a while to take out and dream about. No comfy lavender sofas or tapestry chairs for me.

So here's some from my idea file:

Some are titles that conjure up ideas.
-Mystic Kiss
-Facebook Prom
-I Scream of Genie
-Power Proud

Some are opening paragraphs:

<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/> <w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> <w:Word11KerningPairs/> <w:CachedColBalance/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftIn...</w></w></w></w></w></w></w></w></w></w></w></w></w></w></w></w></w></w></w></w></w></w></w></w></w></w></w></xml><!--[if gte mso 9]></span></span>

#WW: On Refilling the Well ~ @AuthorKristina Knight

My friend Shay coined the term (at least in Kristina-Land) "refilling the well". I've used the phrase many times, and a lot of people take it as a vacation - sitting beside a lake or beach or mountain and simply contemplating the silence or a place in the universe. I suppose, in a very literal sense, it could mean sitting back and contemplating.

Every fall, our writer's group takes a long weekend to refill the well. We call it Brainstorming Weekend. Last year we brainstorming 20+ books, wrote...

Untethered and Adrift

Yesterday Liz talked about the little pieces of ideas that wander through her writer’s mind—snippets of conversations, words, things we notice that perhaps no one else notices. I told her I loved her lavender couch when we chatted this morning, which of course got us going on what kind of dream house we'd each have. It also got me thinking about where my random ideas rest—on a chintz chair, I think. Faded old flowered fabric on a huge overstuffed chair sitting in a sunny spot in my house....<![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]>

Population 62 and the lavender couch @Liz Flaherty

I was talking to Nan yesterday and we did a little unintended brainstorming. I'm not going to tell you what it's about because she might surprise you with it one of these days, but the conversation made me think of some little bitty seeds of information that had either made their way into a story--mine or someone else's--or are lying there on a lavender couch at the back of my mind taking root. Some of them have been there, dormant, for years, but I like them anyway. They remind me a little o...

Adventures in Nova Scotia

We're on holidays in Nova Scotia. Unfortunately, we got off to a bad start. Our first full day began with rain so bad that my husband was drenched to the bone when he tried to go out.  I woke to this scene out our hotel room window:


In case you can't tell, that's two cruise ships in the harbor. And it's raining. Pouring, actually. Margie, I wish I could have sent some of this your way.

In the spirit of making lemonade out of lemons, we decided to do a few things very close to our hotel in...

Change Stays the Same

Happy Friday, Wranglers! I normally try for a funny and upbeat Friday post (or at the very least, snarky). However, in light of Margie's post and the passing of her father-in-law, I don't want to be glib or careless. It all brings to mind the fact that change is the one thing in our lives that remains the same.

Having spent nearly two decades with my previous employer, I saw lots of change. And the way people reacted to change was always interesting. The merest whiff of change might drive some...