Category Archives: Family

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Best writing block busters of the year :)

I usually post regularly until recently. Lots going on in RL. I’d love to share some good news though, it looks like after surgery my mom is going to be cancer free and that she won’t need chemo! Woot! She sure is a strong woman, especially for her mid-eighties. I admire her strength and courage so much. If your mom is still around, give her an extra hug today for me, OK?

And with RL in overdrive, I’ve had a rare bout of no writing. It’s like anything, I guess. (not like a “real job” certainly where you have to get things done no matter what’s going on) Certain things have to get done and those things have, but what disappears pretty quickly is the ability/desire for/time for/focus for writing. And when there is time and I’m trying there is the ever scary, every intimidating blank page! Que scary music: Dah-dah-dah-dah!   EEEEEEEP! (scream) I rarely have this problem. I’ve always prided myself on the fact that I could write any time, any where, no matter what. Well, that’s just not true this time around. I even avoided ever saying the words writer’s block, because I thought they had some kind of magical powers…like saying Valdemort in HP, ya know?

So…what to do? Phone a friend. Or Facebook them. Ask for some help. When I put the word out to my Lady Army (sorry Adam and those few guys that are actually a part of this amazing group of supportive authors and thus I need to find another name for these fabulous friends/writers/authors/book reviewers/editors, but like I said….I got nothin’) they had a few suggestions and I wanted to share them with you.

K. A. Tucker, author of the casual enchantment series and Ten Tiny Breaths (have you read this? buy it! you will love it :) ,  was one of the first to respond. She said to buy a bottle of wine and get a good book and don’t leave your chair until one of them is finished. Excellent idea K. A.! You are amazing. Can’t wait to try this one. (I did have a glass of wine on the flight over to Florida while reading–not the same thing–but I never drink and fly and this was just fun because it was different for me. Got a lot of reading done too!)

Carol Kunz the “C” part of fabulous mother/son author team CA Kunz kicked my butt and gave me a deadline. This ALWAYS works with me. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this one, but it is sort of hard to give yourself a deadline, isn’t it? Anyhoo, she said by the time she sees me today she wants 3K more words typed out on my WIP. YES MA’AM! Anything for Carol. So I have a few hours left and I’m 2K short. We’ll see if I get there :) But I because of this deadline that Carol gave me I typed out 1K more than I have in a VERY long time, what feels like an eternity, in fact. Thank you Carol! Up until that flight a good day was 100 words, and believe me I’ll take them. 100 words is great! But 1000 is better :) Right? (too bad I can’t count the words on this post…LOL!)

So excited to be going out to lunch with the fabulous authors TIffany King, author of Wishing for Someday Soon, The Saving Angel Series, Forever Changed, Unlikely Allies, Miss Me Not. Carol and Adam Kunz of CA Kunz authors of The Childe series, and the trilogy The Modified—-SO GOOD. Pick up any of these and find out why I love their writing so much! Squeeee!!! Nice to be out of the hospital today to enjoy this beautiful Florida sunshine with friends.

Thanks for all your love and support!

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Beginnings

Happy New Year! 2013 roared in, in many unexpected ways for me. Here’s a picture of the New Year’s Day hike I took with my husband in Big Sur on the Skinner Trail, at Devil’s Peak.

Happy New Year from Big Sur, CA

Happy New Year from Big Sur, CA

I have a love of surprises. On the drive down to Big Sur we saw whales spouting in the ocean, a huge pod that seemed to stretch the length of the coast as far as our eyes could see. On the drive to the trail head a bobcat jumped into some bushes at the side of the road. The hike went from an elevation of 2000 ft to 4500 ft. Here in California on the coastal ranges we didn’t expect to be hiking in snow, but that’s what we found. Our dog had never seen snow before and he delighted in it.

Joy!

Joy!

This year finds me beginning the writing of a new novel and beginning an inward journey as well. I want to share some quotes that inspire me in these promising days of 2013:

“He who bends to himself a joy

Doth the wingèd life destroy.

But he who kisses the joy as it flies

Lives in Eternity’s sunrise.”

- Blake

And Carrie Bradshaw from Sex in the City on relationships:

“There are those that open you up to the exotic. Those that are old and familiar. Those that bring up lots of questions. Those that bring you somewhere unexpected. Those that bring you far from where you started. But the most exciting challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you find someone who loves the you you love––well, that’s just fabulous.”

Are there any quotes that have inspired you in this new year? I’d love to know what they are.

What I’m listening to: Queen’s One Vision

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YA Indie Carnival: Off to college

Today I thought I’d re-post a personal story about our “off to college” experience with my youngest. She moved from LA to Manhattan at the age of 17 to go to school….


So at our hotel in Manhattan, The Hotel Chelsea “A rest stop for rare individuals”.

Over the years The Hotel Chelsea has been home to many famous residents: Mark Twain, O. Henry, Dylan Thomas, Thomas Wolfe, Janis Joplin, Andy Warhol, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Bob Dylan, Allen Ginsberg, Arthur Miller, Patti Smith, Sid Vicious and his girlfriend Nancy, Ethan Hawke, Dee Dee Ramone, Jack Kerouac and Madonna. 

The crowd outside the hotel includes two puppies and a film crew. I walk through the crowd to the front desk, side-stepping a large dog in the lobby, Continue reading →

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The exploding chicken dinner

Sometimes you just HAVE to laugh. It was late in the day yesterday. Hubby was smoking a cigar on the deck and I was in the kitchen getting a few things ready for our BBQ. When the kids grow up these kinds of family dinners are few and far between. We live in the hills that overlook a valley with one road in and one road out.

Hubby thought he heard an accident on the main road and wanted to go check to make sure it wasn’t the girls who were with our nephew, a high schooler in town for Spring Break. The three of them [and two dogs] were expected any minute. So hubby drove down. When he didn’t come back, I drove down too. It was a bad wreck but thankfully our kids weren’t involved. Joe stayed to help a while and before long we get a call that the kids are stuck in major traffic. It took them about an hour to get to our house, a drive that’s normally ten minutes from where they were stopped.

We had big hugs all around and were chit-chatting about the huge surf on the coast that day and catching up with each other’s lives. We had just sat down to eat, grateful they had missed that accident and talking about the 30 ft. waves they’d taken videos of on their drive when our smoke alarm blares.

That’s random, I think. I hadn’t burnt anything. We were just sitting around the table eating. One of our daughters runs for a ladder to check on the smoke alarm. I tell the kids to go outside as the sound was so loud. I’m on my way into the kitchen to see what’s up when hubby picks up a pyrex off a burner on the stove that I had left on and it literally explodes in his hands. APRIL FOOLS! Thank goodness he was okay. Just a little rattled. He reaches for the broom and I shush him out of the kitchen to go salvage what he can of dinner with the kids and our nephew.

Glass makes such a mess when it explodes. It was kind of hilarious. There was one breast sort of plastered to the front of the oven full of glass chards. It almost looked like artwork.

Anyway, I might have ruined dinner, but the homemade ice cream was pretty tasty :) And now everyone’s laughing about it and requesting exploding chicken next time we get together :)

Congrats to all the winners in the YA SCAVENGER HUNT!

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Transfer Student Blog Tour | Behind The Scenes : Wish Upon A Star

Congrats to @Jwitt33 winner of today’s TRANSFER STUDENT EBOOK! Good luck to today’s tweeters :) To read a review and get the scoop on today’s EBOOK/SWAG Giveaways visit the next stop on the tour, the wonderful Epilogue Review!

Over the next few days I’m blogging about the inspirations/challenges of TRANSFER STUDENT.

I wrote the first draft in 2006 after my father-in-law died. It was a crazy, sad time. I was working at The Los Angeles Times on the re-opening of the Griffith Observatory [it had been closed for five years for renovations] and we were back-and-forth between LA and Fresno [a four hour drive from LA], more and more frequently as my father-in-law got worse and worse, eventually ending up on life support. His name was Ray. I named the Reathan word for “year” in his honor. After Ray passed, just hours after, it was late at night and my husband Joe, his mom and I all sat out on my mother-in-law’s patio and looked at the stars. She said she knew Ray was up there, one of the stars. And that’s all it took. I had the beginnings of a story about souls that traveled, that starjumped, through space. And I wanted to explore the idea of a parallel planet similar to Earth, a sister planet. Retha is that planet and an anagram for Earth.

Tomorrow I blog about why I decided to write the story from Two POVS, that of a teen girl Earthling and a teen boy alien from the planet Retha.

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Married on Valentine’s Day

It was 26 years ago today that I spent my last night as a single girl. As you can imagine, I was incredibly excited. The weather was going to be perfect. As it turned out, at 5pm on Valentine’s Day in a little suburb of Chicago the snow began to fall. I like to call it our Dr. Zhivago wedding. I always loved the scene in Dr. Zhivago where Lara & Uri flee to Varikino in the heart of winter. The romance of seeking refuge in the ice. And so it was at our reception, after our vows in the beautiful garden chapel in the church where I grew up, we watched the snow fall all around us through floor-to-ceiling glass walls. It was a dream come true. Of course, I believe most brides feel this way on their wedding day. But, I did so love the snowstorm. My husband’s family from California really froze, poor things. And after all the dancing and our friends’ shenanigans my hubby and I started our honeymoon. And another dream come true. I flew out of the snow and into The Tropics.

This year we celebrated by visiting one of our favorite spots on earth. This video reminds me of the feeling I have when we spend time there. xxooLaura

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On the road to Deltona, FL for The Paranormal Plumes YA Book Tour

The Paranormal Plumes Society

The Paranormal Plumes Young Adult Book Tour hits Deltona 1/30-1/31

I landed in Tampa last Wednesday night and have been hanging with my family here for the past few days. Tomorrow my sister and I head north to Orlando where we’re going to Harry Potter’s Wizarding World. After Orlando we’re meeting up with The Plumes in Deltona for dinner. We’re SO excited!

Today went WAY too fast :) We saw my niece play in her B-ball game, that’s my bro-in-law coaching!

Then we all went for a run! Soooo much fun. After that we pampered ourselves….with a Mani-Pedi!

Happy Birthday SIS!!!!

Then we had a FAB BBQ with all the fam :) But not before I snapped this photo!

Tonight we’re packing our bags and are super excited about losing ourselves in the world of wizards & young adult books :)

CONGRATS Jessica McLaughlin winner of the kindle edition of Pyxis by K.C. Neal! So excited to have hosted the Ariel-Arson-Pyxis tour, thanks so much to all the people who entered!