Yesterday would have been my mother's 72nd birthday. Yeah. She's been gone for 12 years now, and so she never got to know her granddaughters.... and now I'm 50 and looking at gearing up to send my own kids off into the world in the next 5-10 years. Oy. Can't I just have them live with me forever? (Anyway.... not really a fan of March, y'all.)

Okay... if ANY of you notice me messing with THESE COVERS.... EVER. AGAIN. Please come to my house and slap the crap out of me. I'm done redesigning this series, and so next up is book #4 and it is a DOOZY! 

Elliot and Sky are going on an adventure -- to save their family, and not get themselves killed in the process, but they just might end up saving the world. Not too shabby for a couple of kids from the Oregon Coast. 

Now, Finding Mallory also got a new cover... that should be live tomorrow for the ebook and then the paperback should be caught up tomorrow afternoon at some point. I love this cover.... there's Mallory, setting off to find herself, find safety, find her future without giving herself away this time. 
YOU GO, GIRL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My background is English literature. I was an honors English student throughout high school, and then into college... English literature classes were my Safe Zone as I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I graduated with a wildland conservation degree from the College of Forestry at the University of Washington, with only needing a Shakespeare class for the double degree, but after seven years in college and nearly 200 credits, I was done. 

It all worked out, because after I graduated, what I wound up doing was newspaper reporting. Funny. I was writing. A LOT. FOR YEARS. I worked all over the Pacific Northwest, writing whatever they needed for the paper -- house fires, Baby New Year stories, school districts, city council meetings, Santa in the parade.... on and on and on. Everything. I wrote everything. And read everything. I read three or four books a week, lived at Half Price Books, had stacks of romances, mysteries, and thrillers PILED all over my house... and then I became a mom. And my thoughts turned from writing the news to writing stories. 

So, the point of that little trip through the past is, I landed on a book on craft and story structure that explained the anatomy of a story in ways I had NEVER thought of before, which is crazy. Shawn Coyne is the author of The Story Grid. After working as an editor for the Big Six/Five in New York City 4-EVER, he has poured his knowledge into this book... and blown MY mind. 

I'm currently writing COMBAT IN THE COLD.... I should have been done already, according to the little time frame thingy I had written for myself at the end of 2017. I had started it and had about 25,000 words done... when I started reading The Story Grid.

NOW, I have stepped back and plotted out the entire story -- I know what my inciting incidents for every Scene, Act, and both Story A and Story B are. Because they all have them --- every level of story has to have an order to it, because that's how our minds process a story. Derp. I have also mapped out my Complications, the Crisis, the Climax, and the Resolution for every of those sections as well, and it's GLORIOUS. 

So, NOW I am going to write that book and see how the Story Grid's road map works as I hammer out the last thriller in Elliot's story. I have to hurry, because they are traveling to the Arctic Circle and it's COLD UP THERE. 

Once COMBAT is out the door and Elliot and Sky are put to bed, I will be busting into my new series, currently titled THE CORDELIA SERIES (but that may change). The first book is THE WONDERLY GHOST, and it is also about 40,000 words done -- but now that I have the Amazing Plotting Plan from The Story Grid People, we'll see how it all comes together after I reopen that file. 

Peace! Oh, yeah.... and go see BLACK PANTHER!!!! 

April showers, and oh what showers we had in April. And March. And OMG January and December... all the way back through to October 1. We're approaching 90 inches of rain in Astoria since October 1, and up in the hills above town, the measurement soared past 112 inches sometime last week. That's a ton of water. 

But April showers bring May flowers, and this is our third day in a row of real, honest-to-Apollo sunshine. But May will also be bringing something else back into the world: Treetangle books to Amazon. ​

I'm trying to work faster, more efficiently, but there are always things vying for my time and energy. Like, my daughter was treated horribly at her track meet over the weekend, but then we had dear friends visit Saturday night, but then Sunday morning while I was still pissed over the track meet fiasco, I dropped my cell phone in the pancake batter of pancakes that I can't even eat because of my pre-existing condition. BUT -- the sun was OUT and every day is a new day with no mistakes (thank you, Anne Shirley!). 

​And now these babies are heading back to market, all shined up and fancied up and soon their cousin books will be finished and published too. Because you can't make a career out of one book. (Unless you are that guy who wrote about Matt Damon being stranded on Mars.) 

I've made a little checklist and will be clicking off each book as it once again hits Amazon in ebook and paperback. 
A checklist that will sit here mocking me if I'm unable to check off every damn book by the end of May. So bug me about it! 

Four have been out there before, but Chaos at the Coast is new. It was so funny going through all of my novels prior to their re-release, because I'd forgotten so much about their stories, it was like revisiting old friends. They all missed me and are screaming at me for sequels. Of course. Adds that to the checklist. 

Don't miss that I have the first chapters (or two, in the case of Six Dates with Jenna) here on the website to read, and also don't forget to sign up for Treetangle Talk, the newsletter associated with Treetangle Publishing. 

Be well and keep reading.