Here you’ll find progress on current books, behind-the-scenes insight and story inspiration, as well peeks at my life on rural, (usually) rainy East Hawaii Island.
The Blog Menu Dropdown highlights three categories, Hawaii Life(pretty self-explanatory), Stories I Love (also pretty self-explanatory, but includes books, movies, and TV), and Magpie Moments (bits I snatched from real life and incorporated, magpie-like, into my fiction).
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You’re leaving us alone, aren’t you? Alone to face the lava and acid rain… That’s what my dogs’ faces said to me this morning as I closed windows. Let me be clear. We do live in lower Puna, but approximately eight miles from Leilani Estates. We are in no danger of being engulfed by lava. And I’m pretty sure the dumping rain outside was not acidic, or at least not of the Raiders of the Lost Ark, face-melting variety. But those were my dogs’ words (and not me projecting, I swear). Kilauea 2018 (I know, lousy T-shirt) continues here on Read more…
This morning, I was awakened by loud, endless dog licking. But after that, I was nudged (you’re still awake, right? because the dog’s still licking) at around 6:20 a.m. by a military-sounding helicopter. (A pair flew so low earlier this week, I could feel it in the floor and had flashbacks to Airwolf. Ahh, Stringfellow Hawke…) A few minutes later, someone in our neighborhood starting mowing with one of those monster machines big enough to mount a gun turret. Who mows before 6:30 a.m.?? My mower husband’s answer: someone who wants to get it done before work. But back to Read more…
I know, this is supposed to be an off week for the Blog, but I thought I’d share something anyway, in case you need a break from political crazy with real world, Hawaii Island crazy. No, we haven’t had another nuke scare, but we are circling back to a popular theme… Yesterday was the first sunny day we’ve had in weeks, if not months. I know, I see a lot of you people who suffer through snowy winters throwing objects at the screen, but maybe you didn’t hear about the poor people on Kauai who got just under fifty inches Read more…
Last month, I shared a couple of lessons I’d learned in my initial foray into audiobooks. The TLDR version (that’s too long, didn’t read for those of you who actually do read) is first, that an audiobook really is a different book, not just a different format. Think emu versus elephant rather than panther versus cougar. And second, I didn’t grok how individual a reading experience is until listening to my own story performed as an audiobook. You could read over my shoulder, and we’d each still be having a different adventure. Being a writer, essentially thinking your stories are Read more…
I planned my blog post yesterday, but got caught up in writing writing instead (things are getting real in Dead Hollow) and left it until this morning to draft. Except today I’m a little frazzled because—you guessed it—we had intense thunderstorms and a trembling, medicated Rhodesian ridgeback (plus a totally chill cat) in our bed last night. I was going to write about how I can’t get anything done because of the trouble-inciting Ninja Kitty. Except today, it struck me that the weather is the root of my problem. When we moved to Hawaii a dozen years ago, thunderstorms were Read more…
