Category Archive

Arms of DeliveranceChapter 1 Katrine squared her shoulders and instinctively pressed a hand to her stomach as she stepped through the open doors of the café, past the yellow sign that read NO JEWS ALLOWED. She paused as the strong aroma of coffee and cigarette smoke hit her face. Men and women clustered around tables. Beautiful people in the height of their glory. Looking around at the room’s flocked wallpaper, ornate light fixtures, and marble flooring, she found it hard to believe that not too far away a war stormed. Not only battles for land and power, but a war against a people—her people . . . or what used to be her people. Tucked between France, Holland, and Germany, …

I’m thrilled to host as my very first authoer interview, TRICIA GOYER, for her Arms of Deliverance blogtour. I’ve visited many others who have participated in this blogtour, and while they may hold some claim to fame on knowing Tricia, I don’t. But that’s kewl by me. 😀 I love WWII-era historicals and totally flipped over Tricia’s. Her stories are intriguing and her characters, compelling. On the ACFW e-loop, Tricia sent a teaser for this book, and I positively drooled at her characterization of those characters, how in one paragraph she could make me care about a girl I’d never met!! I e-mailed her and told her I loved, loved, loved her writing. Well, she said just for that, she …

Well, since Blogger is being so doggone finicky…I’ll post these pictures separately. SIGH. First is me and bestest bud, Neen. *sigh* Nothing like feeling complete — after all, we are emotional clones. 😀 Right, Neen? She’s da bomb, y’all. And I’m keeping her–and I get downright possessive. tee-hee. Sorry, I’ll behave. (maybe) This other photo–well, we’re fast-forwarding to the ultimate purpose for our trip. Brian’s sister, Julie, got married July 11. She and surfer (now-)hubby Mike said their nuptials at the beach you see behind us in this family photo. Following the ceremony, food and cake were served. We won’t mention the chocolate cake taht started melting and was soon dubbed, Lava Cake. :- After the wedding, we all downshifted …

Well, I won’t unneccessarily bore you. 😀 After Truckee, we headed back to San Rafael where we had a 4th of July/Ciara’s birthday BBQ. We watched fireworks from the train tracks across the street. By about this time, we were having vehicle problems–again! Last year, we made this same trip, but with Brian’s parent’s travel trailer and luxury van. Sadly, the van broke down because of a mechanic’s error in prepping the van for travel. *sigh* anyway, so this time, we arrived in our 1997 Expedition–which was shuddering as if she had a bad cold. It’s not a good thing when the CHECK ENGINE light comes on–it’s worse when the thing is blinking at you like a sparkler! So, anyway, …

Wowzers! it’s been eons since I posted, but I have a legitimate excuse…I was on vacation. We left Texas early the morning of July 1, which was my eldest daughter’s 13th birthday. With that note, the first picture I’m posting is of Ciara (pronounced KIRA) and some of her birthday celebrations… The girl is amazing. She’s already 5’6″ and has this very “exotic” taste in clothing and style (which she was born with–imagine matching your clothes at 2 years of age, when other children are worried about which wall to use markers on!!). Ciara is a very laid back young lady, except when it comes to spiders (tee-hee). She’s very into nature and animals, and oh–let’s not forget her obsessive …

Jeff Gerke is guest blogging at: http://rebeccaluellamiller.wordpress.com about his un-hostile takeover of the editor’s panel discussion at Mt. Hermon. Because I write often in this genre, my bestest bud, Dineen Miller told me about Mr. Gerke’s comments, as did Camy Tang. Naturally, I savored these nuggest and his borderline-prophetic claim that Christian sf/f would make its comeback in 2-5 years. If you’re looking for encouragement in speculative fiction, check out this blog entry. ———————————————————————————– Dear friend Beth Goddard gave me an idea Friday. I think i’ve made her uncertain about approaching me with ideas, because I tend to horde what little bit of “free” time I actually have after homeschooling and college work every day. But this idea…it restored my …

Did that title grab you? Well, what if I told you a man slaughtered so many animals that the number was too great to count?? Unbelievable? Read on… This morning, in reading from the Bible, and something hit me. It says in I Kings 8: v.5 – and King Solomon and the entrie assembly of Israel that had gathered about him were before the ark, sacrificing so many sheep and cattle that they could not be recorded or counted. I thought, wow, thousands? Well, I’d have to guess no, since at the dedication of the temple, scripture later says: 62then the king and all Israel with him offered sacrifices before the Lord. 63Solomon offered to the Lord: twenty-two thousand sheep …

GOAL!!!!! YES! I did it. The hardest manuscript I’ve ever written–and last night I wrote the last chapter and epilogue. Midnight Zone was the most technical story I’ve ever written. It’s hanging in the balance with an editor right now…actually, I looked at my submission track last night and remembered it’s at TWO. Maybe one of them will give this story a shot. it’s really amazing (well, at least to me *wink*). I have to say, this story gave me a run for my money–and energy. Of course, now that I’m done, I realize it needs some restructuring and layering in (I realized in the last 1/4 I slipped back into my knack of leaving out the setting–UGH!). But for …

Reader Beware: this is a recurring theme. 😀 The more I pray and seek God’s will, the more I pray that I can learn to be flexible (a dangerous prayer in its own right), the more I see the hand of God moving. And it blesses me to realize how very active our God truly is. You hear often that we need to stop and smell the roses…what about concentrating on the ever-present activity of the Lord? See, I’ve known that God is working in my life, but I always had a detached sense about it. Now, I wonder if I ever truly believed it. Kinda like one of those things where you say, “sure, sure.” so everyone will leave …

Well, I’ve delved into the Deep…got into the zone…THE MIDNIGHT ZONE this weekend. for those who don’t know, that’s the title of my latest WIP. The seedgerm of this idea hit me last year while I was preparing for the 2005 ACFW conference. But I never really got terribly serious about it–until this last month. It’s a rockin’ story, set in the Deep Ocean–a layer called the Bathypelagic or Midnight Zone. I didn’t get any writing done at all on Saturday, but on Sunday, I burrowed in and wrote from about 3pm until just before midnight (no pun intended)–and got a LOT done. I wrote over 12,000 words, bringing my word count to just below 75k, which was my goal …