Welcome to My Blog!
I inhale words and exhale stories. Sometimes, those stories are short and carry a life lesson. Welcome to their world.
Just Another Night at Work
Night shift yawned with boredom. Until it didn’t. In the economy parking lot at Portland’s airport, Jen caught motion out of the corner of her eye from shatterproof glass windows offering a 180-degree view. Lighted poles illuminated the covered lanes at the exit. Everything beyond them became a blank, black slate. But movement often jarred …
Meet the Family: Flash Fiction
Her family would ruin her chance with the perfect guy. At least, that’s the story Karina Meeks told herself as she walked up to her family home trailed by that guy. His arm brushed hers, their denim jackets announcing rare compatibility. Maybe her brother wouldn’t tease her. Perhaps her dad would be so engrossed in …
Flash Fiction Friday – Paying to Be Robbed
Hello, readers. It’s our favorite day of the month – FICTION FRIDAY. Read on for today’s story which was inspired when I wondered “What if one of those pretend robbery events became a REAL robbery?” They paid to have someone rob them. It sounds crazy, right? But their friends had spent their anniversary at a …
Merry Christmas! It’s Fiction Friday
It's fiction Friday on the blog! In the spirit of the season, today's fiction comes from Mary of Nazareth's story.
Four Tips to Fix Story Pacing
If you’ve ever got bored with a book, it was probably an issue with the pacing. How do you know what's the right pace for your story?
A Little Romance for Your Fiction Friday Freebie
This month I’m sharing a portion of THE UNEXPECTED HOMECOMING, a collection of three novellas about the soldier without a mission and the cowboy about to lose the ranch. It is the only story out of six that were written in Melissa Storm’s Sweet Grove that is still published. I adore the meet cute for …
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Counting my Blessings…again
Last year, one of the most popular posts on this blog was my recounting of blessings near Thanksgiving. This year, I’m counting them again. Did you know that humans have what’s called a negative bias? That means, when we recall things, our mind tends to focus on the bad or hurtful events rather than the …
Five Ways to Create Conflict in Your Story
Author and writing teacher Larry Brooks is famous for saying, “No conflict? No story.” But it can be difficult to understand what creates conflict effectively in your fiction. Because conflict is NOT melodrama. You know, when one character goes on a rant and steps on everyone’s toes and is basically a drama llama. There are …
This Month’s Free Fiction
This month’s excerpt is from the second book in my REFLECTIONS series. A Laboring Hand tells the story I imagined for Martha and her two siblings. We know a few things about them, but much of it always made me curious. Why was Martha in charge? Why wasn’t Lazarus in charge of their family since …
For Her Kids is an exclusive short story written just for those who join my email list!
