Hello! For some time I’ve been playing with the idea for a story for Shadow’s cousin Lobo/Laura. Maybe you remember him? He and his faithful Beagle first made an appearance in Wolf’s Glory. We saw him again at the end of Gina’s Wolf, and there he had a mate. So how did he meet his mate? Well, tomorrow night you can learn all about it!
Lobo’s Mate After the Crash 4.5 is a 30,000 word novella that takes place between Eddie’s Prize and Ellie’s Wolf. I am sending it out in my newsletter tomorrow night. This is a freebie that I wrote as a thank you for you, my readers. If you’d like to read it and are not signed up for my newsletter there is still time to sign up (see the image at the right). The newsletter will go out tomorrow night around supper time. The holidays get so busy, but maybe you can sneak in a few hours to read.
Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday!
A sight Lobo and Gen saw on their trip to Kearney -Photo by Jon Fiskr Larsen
So… back at the end of October I promised you an update. This is long and if you don’t want to read a description of my cancer journey, you should skip to the WHAT AM I DOING NOW? section at the end. Everyone else, buckle up. 🙂
Some of you may know that I was diagnosed with stage 3 colorectal cancer in July of 2020. We did infusion chemo, followed by radiation and oral chemo, and then surgery to remove the tumor, a section of my colon, and some of my lymph nodes. It appeared to be successful and I was deemed NED (No Evidence of Disease) as of March 2021. Very excited and feeling great, I started writing a fantasy romance called The Storm King. Quarterly CT and MRI scans in June, September and December looked good so the scans were extended to every 6 months instead of every 3 months.
In early 2022 I started feeling tired again. I put the Storm King aside. The scans in June 2022 showed Cancer had returned and was growing in my liver. Now I was Stage 4, colorectal cancer with mets to liver. That was treated with ablation in August 2022. They shot microwaves into the tumor and ‘cooked’ it. The scan in September looked good. I started a little freebie novella about Lobo and his mate, thinking I would put it out for Christmas 2022. Scans in December 2022 still looked good. I was once again NED.
But I didn’t feel well. I was told that was normal. My body had been through a lot so it would take some time for me to get back to “normal”. For instance, the chemo from 2 years ago had given me neuropathy. My foot from the ball to the toes were numb, and so were my fingertips. It’s hard to type when you can’t feel your fingers on the keys. My deadline for Lobo’s Mate came and went so I put it away.
In March 2023 I went to have my regular quarterly scans and they found a tiny spot in my lung they thought was suspicious. Too small to biopsy, we decided to take a wait and watch approach and see what the June scans showed. In June the spot had grown, so it was deemed to be cancer and I was sent to a radiologist to set up radiation for the lung. However, he detected a second, smaller spot in the different location in the same lung. He didn’t want to do radiation and then find out that more nodules showed up later. So we decided to wait until the September scans to see if any more spots showed up.
I HATE waiting. The summer of 2023 was miserable for me. I kept imagining the worst case scenario, where the September scans would show my lungs loaded with sinister little spots with glowing red eyes and fangs ready to devour me. But the scans showed only those two spots, slightly bigger, but just those two.
In October 2023 I had the radiation. It was not painful, it didn’t take long, and it was only 5 treatments. I was EXHAUSTED. I was utterly exhausted until about November 3. It was like I turned a corner then. I cleaned, I was social, I stayed up until my usual bedtime! The next scans in January 2024 will show if radiation was effective.
I don’t know what the future holds. Maybe the cancer is still growing in my lungs. Maybe it was come back in the liver. Maybe this is it and I am truly NED. God knows and time will tell.
WHAT AM I DOING NOW?
I have picked up Lobo’s story again. I love Lobo. He’s not good with words, but he’s found his mate and in true Wolf Clan tradition, he is going to protect her and help her even if she never accepts his mate claim. And she needs his help. She’s been living mostly on her own for the past three years since the plane crash, and a local farmer is done waiting for her consent to marry him. At 17,548 words, I am 3/4 done with the rough draft. My personal deadline for the rough draft to be complete is 12/2. Then it goes off to the beta readers while I play with cover art. Then I make revisions, format it and send it out in my newsletter by 12/22/23. I do not plan to publish it on Amazon or Barnes & Noble. This will be an entirely free novella just for my readers. I am not putting in a ton of history about the plane crash and what life is like in 2067 because only people who have read some of the other books will be reading it. Probably. I am writing this for you as a thank you for reading my stories.
I will be back in a few weeks for my annual Christmas Stocking Giveaway!
It has been a long, long time since I posted, and I’ve had a lot going on. I will post again soon to catch you all up with what is up with me. But meanwhile I will give you a little Halloween shortie story I wrote about Glory and Shadow about a year after Wolf’s Glory ended.
Hello! I have been SOOO busy. On January 1st I started the Just Get It Done Sewing Room De-Clutter Challenge. It was supposed to wrap up on January 21, but I am still going. I am a pack rat. What can I say? I got it from my mom.
NOTE: I don’t care what Marie Condo says. Keeping no more than thirty (30!!) books is ridiculous. I love my kindle, but there are some books that I NEED to have in paper. And Audio. And Kindle. So there.
But the end of this insane de-clutter really is near. This afternoon I took the boxes and bags of yarn, fabric, patterns, books and magazines to the thrift store donation door. I can see the sewing room floor! All I have left is to find homes for a few really nice (empty) storage bins and tidy up. Today was going to be Clean Everything Day. Vacuum, dust, sweep and mop. But I have run out of steam. Maybe tomorrow after work I will start the Cleaning Frenzy.
Here we come to the end of another weekend. 🙁 The weather here was a bit chilly, but the sun was out and the sky was blue, which for January in North Dakota means a nice weekend.
I have been busy with a De-clutter challenge. The challenge is meant for quilting and sewing stuff, but I have been de-cluttering my sewing/craft/guest room in general. Some of what I found was some author swag I’ve had for years. I expect to find some more, and when I am finished, I will hold a mini give away, so watch for for that in a newsletter at the end of January.
Click below for chapter 3 of Lobo and Gen’s story. Hope you enjoy it!
Happy Saturday! I have joined a 2023 Sewing Room De-Clutter challenge and now there is a little more space in my sewing room. Unfortunately, all that stuff that I am going to throw away, donate or sell is now cluttering up the rest of my apartment. Oy! Hopefully it will all be gone by the end of January. Maybe. We’ll see. 🙂
Don’t worry, even though I am spending 20-30 minutes a day in my sewing room I am still working on Lobo’s Mate. It is supposed to be a VERY short story, but that darned Lobo keeps complicating things. Gen is more than ready to move past kisses but they are on the road and their circumstances aren’t very comfortable so he wants to wait until they reach the den in Kearney. Sheesh. Quit being such a gentleman and make a move, you moron.
Here it is, seven days into the new year and I haven’t read at all. I have several books waiting on my kindle, but between working, the de-clutter challenge, knitting to finish late Christmas gifts, and writing, I haven’t had time to read. I hope you have many lovely books to dive into this year.
This is the time of year when we traditionally reflect on the past year and list our hopes for the new year. Seems like Every Single Year for the past few years I predicted it would be better than last year. Man, I suck as a prophet!
2022 started out great for me. I had beat the colorectal cancer and had written a big chunk of a new fantasy romance called The Storm King. But in June I had a routine scan (routine being that I had moved for quarterly scans to scans every six months) and a spot was found on my liver. I had a biopsy that confirmed it was cancer and then in July I had ablation. That is where they shot microwaves into the spot on my liver to cook it dead. (sounds fun, right?) In September it looked like that was was successful. A few weeks ago I went for my regular routine scans (I am back to scans every three months) and things look good. There is a spot they want to keep watch on, but it has not grown in the past 6 months, so they don’t think we need to do anything about it unless it starts to grow. So watch and wait, with scans scheduled for March 2023. Right now I am stage 4 with mets (metastatic cancer) to liver. But there is nothing that needs treatment right now so maybe this is the end of it. Maybe not. Time will tell. I feel pretty good.
In late October my baby brother Rob died of a heart attack. He was way too young. Here he is last Christmas. I never even knew that he was proud of me being an author. I did know until I met some of his co-workers at his funeral and they told me that he bragged on me to them all the time. He wasn’t a perfect guy by any means but he had a big heart and I miss him.
So. 2023. What are my plans for the next year? I am going to try to ENJOY myself more. Stress about the day job less. Knit more. Make a Mood Blanket. Take days off work for the fun of it instead of only taking time for medical stuff. Finish the little short story Lobo’s Mate. Finish writing The Storm King and The Fire Prince. Start The Ice Lord. Read for the fun of it. Have more fun.Life is too short to not enjoy it!
I wish you all the very best 2023! I won’t predict it will be better than 2022, since that seems to be a curse. 😉 But I hope we all find less stress and more fun in the new year.
If his eyes were blue and the tattoo was a wolf with a long stemmed rose in his paws, this would be Sky. Maybe. OK, not really, but I like the image!
2022 has been another challenging year. But let’s not worry about that now. This weekend I am going to relax and enjoy Christmas. Due to the nasty roads I am not having family come for Christmas. That means all those cookies I made will have to be eaten by me. Sad day. LOL
I am working on a short free read called Lobo’s Mate. Do you remember Shadow’s cousin Laura the Lobo? The loner wolf whose best friend was his Beagle? I am about 2/3 done with it. This story is just a little gift for my readers. It will not be professionally edited or formatted, and it is definitely not a good place for someone new to the series to start. The expectation is that the reader will be familiar with the world so I don’t have to explain the plane crash and how society has changed since the Times Before. I had fully expected it to be done in time to post for Christmas day. But remember how I said 2022 had been a challenging year? Well, the cancer is back and has spread. My baby brother died of a heart attack. His fiancée caused a lot of trouble for us, his siblings. So I did not get the story done in time for Christmas. I am so sorry for that. I will post a chapter a week, and then when it is completed I will send out the whole thing in my newsletter in a format that you can download to your kindle, kobo or nook.
Hello, everyone! Last weekend I attended the Annual Reader & Author Get Together. I have attended that convention every year since 2011, except for 2020 and 2021. So this was the first time in a few years. I had a blast. It was so good seeing people.
Some highlights for me was the raffles. All the money raised went to Cancer Free Kids. In less than 30 hours the raffles won a total of $44,086!!! Isn’t that awesome? I made the T-shirt quilt to raffle off and that was won by one of the hardworking volunteers. And I won a basket too! A coffee lover’s basket. See? One of my favorite things in the basket was the cup. 🙂 There were several books and you will see some of those in an upcoming newsletter giveaway.
Another thing I enjoyed was the book signing. Being a shy introvert, I am always nervous about signings. But at Lori Foster’s con it is pretty easy because everyone is so nice. And it helped that I had a team of helpers to carry my books and swag, fetch me water, help me with making change and putting ‘signed by the author’ stickers on the books I sold. Huge kudos to these gals! Christine, Jessica and Alyssa are the best.
My table at the signingChristine, me, Jessica, and Alyssa
I came home with a a lot of swag. I won blackout bingo hosted by Brian Feehan. His mother, Christine Feehan, was unable to attend but she still provided a bunch of raffle baskets, sponsored a meal, and sent prizes for bingo. I won and so did a friend, Jessica Bowes. The grand prize was a lovely big bag stuffed with great swag. Jessica and I split it. I think we were both happy with the results.
So I came home with a bunch of great stuff that I plan to share in an upcoming newsletter giveaway. I also came home with Covid. I think it is a pretty light case, but all the fun things I planned to do this week on my vacation have been put on hold while I take multiple naps and read some of the books I got at RAGT. I hope to get a newsletter sent out during the last week of June with links to enter the Books & Swag Giveaway.
I hope you all are doing well and having a great summer, or winter, for those of you on that side of the world, and finding time to enjoy a few books.
I have been busy with all kinds of things these past few months. I have been knitting, spinning, and quilting as well as reading and writing. And of course, I’ve been working the day job. I can’t wait to retire! But that’s still a bunch of years away. Sigh…
I am working my way through Ruby Dixon’s backlist. It is extensive so it is taking some time. If you haven’t ready Ruby Dixon I recommend her. Her heroes are frequently rough and even brutal but never, ever to the heroine. To their ladies, they are big protective teddy bears. Someone once told me she thought I was like Ruby Dixon. That is a huge compliment to me. I’m also enjoying Ann Aguirre, Michelle Diener, Sharon Lee & Steve Miller, and Emma Hamm.
My next big thing coming up is Lori Foster’s Annual Reader & Author Get Together. It takes place near Cincinnati, Ohio in a few weeks. The book signings are open to the public. I will be signing on Saturday June 11 from 3:00-5:00pm. If you are in that area I would LOVE to meet you! For the location, click the link above.
One thing they always do at the RAGT is a wonderful raffle. SO MANY people donate terrific raffle baskets. The proceeds go to Cancer Free kids. You can imagine that as a Stage 3 cancer survivor, I am all on board with donating to this wonderful cause. My cancer treatments were challenging. It was a year of pain and exhaustion. I honestly did not know if I would live to beat cancer. Really, can you say Not Fun? I cannot imagine going through that as a child, or what a horrible thing it would be for the parents of a young cancer patient. I plan to buy LOTS of raffle tickets. I would love to win something, but knowing the money goes to helping juvenile cancer patients is well worth it. And I decided to donate something too. I took old T-shirts from the event and made them into a quilt. I sent it off to be professionally quilted and I chose the Hearts and Cancer Ribbons quilting pattern. I thought it was appropriate. I just need to add the binding. What do you think? I hope this raffle quilt will raise a bunch of money for Cancer Free Kids.
The Reader’s Quilt for RAGT22
Writing News!!
You may know that I am working on the first book in a fantasy romance trilogy called The Lords or Erabir. I’d decided to write it in first person from the heroine’s point of view. I was all excited and writing along very speedily for the first 30,000 words. Then… Well, I don’t know what happened. I started to be a little dissatisfied with it. I forced myself to keep going, but it was hard. I brought it to my local critique group and we discussed it. Some of them suggested that maybe first person wasn’t for me. I was stubborn though. I already had 30K words! I didn’t even want to THINK of re-writing so much. So I kept plowing on, but it became harder and harder and slower and slower. Finally, at 50,000 words I admitted defeat. 1st person just isn’t for me. Two months ago I began my re-write.
I am happy to report that I am back on track. I still have 2300 words to review and re-write and then I will be writing fresh stuff. At 57,000 words I am about 3/4 done with the first draft. It feels good to be back on track. I have added three scenes from the hero’s point of view. I think that is one of the things I was missing in 1st person. In all my other books I have several scenes from the hero’s point of view. It lets the reader know what the hero is thinking and how he feels about his lady.
So, that is my update! I hope everyone is enjoying a lovely May. Wishing you all many lovely hours of summer reading!
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