​If you follow me on Goodreads*, you may have noticed this year I’m kind of into fairy tale retellings (FTRs). Those are super popular right now, but I’ve never been terribly interested in them, myself. I never hated or opposed them, either, but I just never got swept up in the obsession. (At no point have I felt the urge to write one. Fanfiction? Yep. FTRs? Still nope, at least right now.)

Wasabi, guys? (Remember that commercial?? ;P) Just whipping up a quick update this month because:

May is typically pretty busy for me, because it's spring - meaning I'm out of hibernation and thinking about All The Things that I need to do this year!! Prepping books for publication is a HECK of a lot of work, more than you'd think - more than I realized at first! Whew!...Don't get me wrong; I love doing it. Not complaining. The books are fantastic and I'm in love with them all! It's just, well, you wouldn't know "wasabi" unless I told you, right? (:

Plus, I have a super-huge proofreading job right now on top of Thinklings work and a chronic illness keeping my energy levels low. So, send thoughts and prayers! (And chocolate/caffeine...LOL...)

Last month, I did a fun blog post for Thinklings in which I made a list of superlatives* for all our books and their characters. It was so much fun, the Thinklings authors seemed to love it, and I really enjoyed writing it, so I decided to do one for my own book here in my blog!

​(That's quite a superlative moon above, isn't it??)

My birthday's coming up in two days! :) Since hobbits give other people presents on their own birthday, I decided to do the same and give *you* the little gift of posting a short story I wrote, answering a prompt from The Writers' Collective back when Thinklings was doing that.

All right, here it is: the obligatory Valentine's-Day-or-love-related post you're probably expecting for the month of February. LOL!

I just got over being sick and am still catching up on work, so I decided to simply throw together a list of . . . well, you've read the title of the post. And, since it's not a leap year, there are 28 days this month, so that's 1 thing per day.

The picture above may be silly, but it is true: I never dreamed of starting/owning/running a business. My answer to "What do you want to be when you grow up?" was not even once "an entrepreneur." Far from it: as far back as I can remember, I've wanted to be a writer . . . specifically, a novelist. Working alone in a quiet room, not having to deal with people. Introvert paradise.

​A little while ago on Facebook, I invited people to ask me questions about my book, my writing process, or anything along those lines. Several people responded (thank you, guys!) and here are my answers to the good, thoughtful questions they posed:

Music is something that has played, and still plays, a significant role in my life. About 95% of the time, I've got some song or other stuck in my head, and when I listen to my favorite music, familiar and comforting songs, it sends me to a warm, fuzzy, safe place.* I've been doing a lot of "nostalgic listening" lately since the COVID craze began: late '90s and early 2000s stuff, some of which I haven't heard since college!

Just a quick post for those of you who haven't seen this on my Facebook or Twitter pages:

In honor of the Hunter's Blue Moon, which is happening this Saturday (Halloween!), I put the e-book of Hunter's Moon on sale for 99 cents the whole week. Grab your copy here and tell a friend who likes gothic novels!

What can I say except "You're welcome"? I hope you have a Maui Halloween...wait, that pun only works with Christmas...ah well. XD

P.S. - Follow me on social media for lots of fun and news about sales, sequels, and more!

Do you like to read scary books around Halloween? In this post I'm going to briefly talk about my favorite spooky novels and why I recommend them. (Pictured is most of my collection. Sequels not included due to lack of space.)