Announcing a new release:
              Born in the Wayeb will be on sale December 15, 2014. 

The release of this book is a huge deal for me. I have been working on the novel for close to three years and am finally going to see it in print. It’s been professionally edited by Jennifer Caven of Mainly Words, who was willing to hold my hand throughout the process, and I am grateful to Brandi McCann for capturing the image I had in my head for the cover so beautifully. 

For anyone who knows me, the Mayan culture has always been a source of fascination to me and the idea of setting a novel in ancient Mayan times has been a long-time goal. I am eager to start on book two, which will require a bit more research into the Mayan concept of the Underworld. 

I want this novel to bring to life a bit of history and culture that is often overlooked in today’s society. I feel the Hispanic world is as rich a source of information for possible historical novels as those that are so aptly written based on European events. Plus, we need more diversity in books.  I hope readers enjoy discovering the characters in this book as much as I had fun creating them.  


 
 

 

 Once again, time has flown by, and I’ve been busy.

I've spent the past couple of months investigating the self-publishing process and I’m happy to report that I have successfully navigated through the steps of writing, editing, and creating a book cover and have a new book for sale on Amazon called The Paper Trail: Useful Charts to Organize Your Writing.

Why did I go the self-publishing route? There's been so much media coverage in the past couple of years on self-publishing versus traditional publishing that I was curious and wanted to figure it all out. Plus, I liked the idea of having complete control of the project from the original idea to writing the content to editing, proofreading, designing the book cover, and actually getting it out in the world. And I admit that I like the idea of receiving more money per copy sold for this book than my cookbook, which is sold at exactly the same price. And, I didn't want to wait 9-12 months or more to get this book to print.  The traditional publishing route is so very slow, what with sending query letters, waiting for responses, sending more query letters, signing contracts, etc. etc. I wanted this information available to writers right away, so jumped into the idea with everything I had. 
 
Over the next several posts, I’ll try to outline the steps I took to get to this point. I hope you’ll follow along and if you have
any questions, please feel free to post them in the comments. I have several other books I plan to self-publish, and I’ll keep you posted on those as well. 

Hello one and all,

For the past couple of weeks, I have been putting serious effort into coming up with a new blog name that more aptly represents what I am trying to do here, which is not to waste your time, but to inform and entertain you on the things that interest me: my life in Maine, my adventures in Mexico and Hawaii and travel in general, writing, books, living off-the-grid, being a mom of three rambunctious young men, cooking, gardening, well, you get the idea, just what makes me and my life tick.
So, after about twenty attempts, this is what I've managed to come up with: From the Leeward Side of Life: Where Books, Cooking, and Travel Converge. It was easier than trying to figure out some kind of  that would only make sense to me and some of the other titles I came up with have been used by other writers. Plus, I liked the play on words. So, there you have it. I hope you like it. I do and feel it will prompt me to write here more frequently.
With that said, I need to go check out the Notre Dame-Duke women's basketball game. I am a UConn women's basketball fan and need to see who they'll play against in the Final Four.

Hello! It's been quite awhile since I have written any kind of blog and for this, I apologize.
After reading any number of articles on blogging--ways to make them more interesting, ways to grow readership numbers, etc. the one overall item I came away with was that a blog has to be specific, that a person must find their "niche" of expertise and then only write about that one thing.
I was suddenly confronted with the idea that I had to narrow down my writing options to one, possibly two topics. Frankly, the whole idea paralyzed me to the point where I couldn't write anything. How could I only talk about Maine, for instance, or Mexico--both places are important to me. How could I leave out things like gardening, or being the mother of three teenage boys, or writing, or any of the other numerous things that hold my interest?
So, everything stopped while I tried to decide what my "niche" would be and after days of moping about, I realized I just can't do it. I can't specialize; as one friend recently told me-- I am a Renaissance Woman--interested in many, many things and capable of doing and writing about all of them, with interests that keep expanding rather than shrinking.
Instead of specializing, I am going to buck the current trend and continue to write about what is currently of interest in my life, whether that is the manuscript I have almost finished or the latest book I've reviewed or some other item that needs to be expressed.
So, here's to being contrary once again in my life. Cheers!