The Queen’s Gambit Call for Beta Readers

/ Writing

I’ve finished writing The Queen’s Gambit. Yay! I’ll still post a chapter a week (go ahead and cue the sad trombone sound), so I’ll have a brief slice of time where I could make edits.

This is where you come in.

Have you ever wanted to beta read for a Real Live Author™? Now’s your chance! I’m looking for two or three beta readers to read the rest of the novella and share their feedback with me. Let me know what you loved, what you hated, and what made you scratch your head.

What you get: the rest of the novella weeks early, my gratitude, and the envy of your peers. More importantly, if you turn out to be a sane, reliable human who provides good feedback, then the odds that I’ll ask you to beta again (say for Polaris Rising or PR Book 2) go way up. …

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Writing Advice No One Asked For

/ Writing Advice

Now that I’ve sold a book, literally no one is knocking down my door, asking me to impart my writing wisdom to the world, but I will anyway. Prepare yourselves, it’s incredibly profound:

If you want to be a writer, write.

See, I thought I was being very clever there, but a quick search proves that Epictetus is credited with basically the same quote and that dude was born in 55 AD. So, for nearly 2,000 years, the advice to writers hasn’t really changed.

I know you may be looking for the shocking #7 on the list of “13 Things Every Successful Writer Does,” but I promise you, the best thing you can do is write. (The second best thing you can do is read. Read in your genre and outside of it. Read everything.) …

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Christmas 2017

/ Life

My husband and I grew up in the same small town and our parents still live about ten miles apart, so we don’t have to choose which family to visit for the holidays, which is super nice.

Unfortunately, our hometown is about eleven hours away via car. And because it’s a small town, flying in costs an arm and a leg, so we usually drive. Eleven hours in the car is a long damn time. We make it bearable by listening to audiobooks.

This year we listened to a book that couldn’t quite decide what it wanted to be. It was definitely science fiction, but it also had splashes of romance (in fact, I thought it was a romance until I didn’t get my HFN/HEA), mystery, space opera, and military sci-fi. I didn’t love it, so I’m not going to name it, but it did get us to MO and back. …

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Kiss Cookie Season

/ Life

Just before Christmas, a few of my friends and I get together for a cookie exchange and happy hour. We may not always be the best about getting together the rest of the year, but we always do Christmas cookies.

Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies I went through a few cookies before I landed on peanut butter kiss cookies as “my” cookie. I make them exactly once a year, but I’ve been doing it for so long now that I have the technique down. It still takes a while to roll them all and top them with kisses, but the results are worth it.

I usually augment with a second kind of cookie or candy. In the past I’ve made peppermint bark and Christmas crack (aka saltine toffee), and other, lesser stuff that I can’t remember. :)

This year I decided on millionaire’s shortbread, which I’d never made before. …

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The Women of NASA Lego Set

/ Life

My husband bought me the Women of NASA Lego set as a “just because” present because he found it in stock and thought I would love it. And he was right! It’s like he knows me. :)

Women of NASA Legos

Look at it! Isn’t it adorable? You can click the picture to see the larger version, or there are a bunch more pictures on Lego’s site. The space shuttle even has removable rocket boosters. ?

I can’t wait to put it together—it will make a fabulous addition to my desk. Of course, that means I have to clean my desk, but that needed to happen anyway.

The set is a little hard to find right now, but it would be the perfect holiday gift for the people on your list who love Legos, NASA, science, and smart women.