 November 2023 Musings Thankful Happy November and Happy Thanksgiving my friends! What a beautiful fall we’ve had here in North Carolina. The leaves are exceptionally bright and beautiful, and the Red-tailed Hawks have been calling overhead from a clear blue sky. I watch from my kitchen window as leaves dance and twirl with each other in currents of air before landing on the yellow grass for their long winter sleep. I am always a little sad to see them go, and yet they are a reminder to live in the moment and soak in the beauty of each season before it is gone. I hope your fall has been beautiful as well, and you are looking forward to the holiday season! Before we say goodbye to this month, I wanted to take a few minutes to muse and reflect on the many blessings I am thankful for this year. Big blessings, small and simple pleasures, the magic in the mundane… I am thankful for: -You! If you are reading this, then I thank God for you daily. I know you are busy, and it takes time to read a blog post. I thank you for taking the time to read mine, and to journey through life with me and my monthly musings each month. You are special friends, and I am very thankful for you! -My children. My kids are my biggest blessing, always. My oldest son, Thomas, has been hard at work cleaning our wood stove, chopping wood, and getting us prepared for the long winter ahead. My oldest daughter, Lacey, just celebrated her one year wedding anniversary and came by to show us pictures from her trip and fill our house full of laughter. My youngest daughter, Georgie, is my best reading buddy and my very special author assistant. My youngest son, Jamie, is an enthusiastic birdwatcher. He would want me to tell you that Vultures are amazing and misunderstood. Check them out— they’re really cool!   
-My new Monarch family. For those who might be new to reading my blog, I had two manuscripts accepted for publication over the summer by the amazing Dr. Jennifer Lowry at Monarch Educational Services. Free Sings the Sea, my YA contemporary, and Monster Mountain, my MG fantasy, will be out in September 2024 and February 2025, respectively. I am so thankful for this blessing, not only because my dream of being published will come true, but because of my new Monarch family who love and support each other. If you want to check out some of the amazing books published by Monarch, you can do that right -Lollipops. Yes, lollipops! Because of severe food allergies in our family, we do not eat prepackaged candy around Halloween. Many years ago, I discovered a homemade lolly recipe, and now my kids look forward to it every year. Made out of only three ingredients, they are a fun fall treat for everyone to look forward to. I will put the recipe down below in case you would like to give them a try! Happy fall once again, and please return next month when I plan to share a Christmas short story. I hope your own list of things to be thankful for grows longer each day! Love, Stac   
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 October 2023 Musings Spooky Month Happy October, friends! It’s hard to believe another month has flown by so quickly. Fall is my favorite time of year, and I always wish it could go on forever. I hope you will have a great October full of fall joy, and thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to read my newsletter and spend a little time with me!  Since October is known as the spooky month, I thought it would be fun to give you a sneak peek into some of the spooky monsters who live in my middle grade novel MONSTER MOUNTAIN, coming February 2025. Monster Mountain is seemingly only a normal mountain with a beautiful hiking trail when the children arrive there. It is only when my main character Nicky, her little brother Ben, and her bestie Winnie slip through a magical portal that they realize something is very wrong! The first monster the kids encounter is a giant, saw-mouth bird! They barely gather their courage and begin to make a plan before they meet the next monster. By the end of their adventure, they will have met a giant spider, a lava monster, a Wampus Cat, and many other fantastical creatures that they thought were only myths and legends! Will the brave trio make it off Monster Mountain and back to Gram and Gramps on the ordinary mountain? I hope you will read and see… October is also my oldest son’s birthday month. As a baby, he was diagnosed with life-threatening food allergies to milk, eggs and peanuts. It was a traumatic time, and I often felt scared and hopeless. We quickly transitioned to a vegan diet, and our lifestyle changed for the better. What was a challenge at first, ultimately became a blessing. My family is much healthier today than we would have been, and my son is a strong young man turning twenty-three! I’ll leave you with the happy thought this month that today’s challenge may be tomorrow’s blessing. If you’re reading this because you are a writer, this truth definitely applies! There were many times during my writing journey when rejection made me wonder if I should give up, but I’m so thankful I didn’t! My YA contemporary debut FREE SINGS THE SEA will be out in the world in less than a year now. Whatever is scaring you this month, please just know that I believe in you. People may tell you that you’re wasting your time, or that you’re lazy. People will doubt you. YOU don’t doubt you. Love, Stac   September 2023 Musings Schooltime Happy September, friends! If you have just found my website or you are a return visitor, I am thrilled to have you here. Thanks for stopping by and taking time out of your busy day to read! Summer is putting up a fight here in North Carolina and refusing to make room for fall. The high temperature will be hovering around 90 for the next few days. Even so, my children and I have already decorated the house for fall and bid summer farewell. Everywhere I look, there is a pumpkin or a scarecrow setting the stage for the new season. The ancient Tulip Poplar in my front yard that we call Big Joe can hardly wait and is scattering gorgeous yellow leaves all over the yard. Fall is my favorite time of the year, and I plan to enjoy every minute! At our house, September also means schooltime. Yesterday I cleaned out and organized our school baskets. We homeschool, and any homeschool moms reading this right now are probably smiling. It’s the best feeling to clean out all of the old papers and pencils and toys that were meant to be put away in a bedroom, but found an easy hiding place in a school basket instead. Today my baskets sit on a bookshelf by the kitchen table with only this year’s books stacked neatly inside them. The special new school year organization will only last until the end of the week, when the baskets will be full once again with trinkets and artwork and snippets of stories and poems, but it sure is nice while it lasts! I have exciting book news to share with you! I have just completed developmental edits for FREE SINGS THE SEA, my YA Contemporary sweet romance coming out next fall. Publication is exactly a year away now! The editing process itself was arduous, but also enlightening and rewarding. I had the privilege to work with a gifted editor, and I cherish the time spent with her and the lessons I learned. And now FSTS is polished and shining and almost ready to come out into the world, and I can hardly wait! I have also been working on edits and mood boards for my middle grade novel MONSTER MOUNTAIN, coming February of 2025. This fantasy adventure is a fun, short read that I hope children will love and teachers might enjoy incorporating into their unit studies and lesson plans. If you are a teacher, parent or librarian, I would love to recommend that you visit Monarch Educational Services and take a look at the books and their content ratings. There you will find clean reads from picture books through young adult that you can feel comfortable and confident using as a resource or recommending to k-12 readers. September is synonymous with schooltime, and it can also be a glorious transitional month. Summer is just ending, but we are not quite into Autumn and the holiday rush yet. It is a good month to pause and take stock, to check in on your own mental and physical health, and perhaps make some decisions about the months to come. Are there some holiday traditions that no longer work for you, but rather leave you feeling irritable or exhausted? Maybe you could let them go and free up some downtime, or replace them with something that is more meaningful to you. However you choose to approach the fall season, I hope it will be with a sense of excitement and joy. Life is an adventure, and may yours be a grand one! Love, Stac  8/6/2023 0 Comments August 2023 Musings/Newsletter August 2023 Musings Reading for Fun Happy August, friends! Yes, it’s that month again- the month when summer winds on down to make room for fall. It’s back-to-school time and take those last dips in the pool time. I hope your summer has been all that you wanted it to be, and that you had a lot of fun. I have some fabulous publishing news to share with you this month! I have signed with Monarch Press once again, this time to bring you a magical middle grade fantasy! MONSTER MOUNTAIN will be out in February, 2025.  Monster Mountain was fun to write from start to finish, which is probably why I have been musing so much about fun and reading. My youngest son, Jamie and I were on our way home from running errands when the idea for this MG novel first came to life. I looked in my rear-view mirror and said, “Wouldn’t it be fun if I write a book all about some gamer kids who go hiking in the mountains and end up slipping through a portal into another world full of monsters?” Jamie’s eyes lit up, and he started brainstorming different kinds of monsters with me. We did that all the way home. I would later research North Carolina myths and legends and find that the mountains where I live are teeming with stories of fantastical creatures just waiting to be told! Monster Mountain being published and my son being so thrilled about it, has me thinking a lot about how we can make reading fun for children. This subject was also in the forefront of my mind when I was writing the manuscript. I wanted my story to be simple to follow yet captivating, and I didn’t want it to be too long and discourage reluctant readers. My dream is that kids will get lost on Monster Mountain right along with my protagonist, and be so immersed in the world that they feel like they have been on their very own magical adventure. My novel is only one of the many amazing MG books there are to choose from, including several from my publisher, Monarch Educational Services. I believe the most important aspect to consider when trying to help children find the fun in reading, is to guide them to the subjects or genres they are the most interested in. For example, Jamie was my first child to really love all things spooky! He was coming along with his phonics and doing okay with his reading, but I wasn’t seeing him fall in love with it the way I really wanted him to. And then we discovered the Goosebumps series by R.L. Stine! Once he started the first one, I saw the spark I wanted to see. He kept picking up the book and reading without any prompting from me, and he read many more after that. I really believe that when children learn to love reading, it can change their lives. There is magic in getting lost in a good story, a magic you can find nowhere else. If we stay attuned to the kids in our lives, we can discover what they love, and then help them find that special book. We can also help them experiment with different genres, reading levels and formats, such as novels in verse and graphic novels. And thanks to our incredible libraries, books are free and available to all children. When we give them library cards and see their excited smiles, we have done more than place a small piece of plastic in their hands. The library cards are actually tickets into worlds of imagination and adventure and magic, and nothing could be more fun than that! This month, I hope you enjoy the last of your summer, and when you choose a book for the little person in your life, choose one for yourself too! Love, Stac  7/9/2023 0 Comments July 2023 Musings July 2023 Musings Never Too Late Happy July, friends! I hope your summer has been amazing so far! We just celebrated the 4th of July with fireworks and fun, and the rest of the summer will fly by now like the Chimney Swifts that have been soaring through the blue sky over our house and then disappearing just as quickly as they came. Time is also racing towards the publication date of my debut YA novel Free Sings the Sea in fall of 2024. The anticipation has been so exciting, and I am living in the moment and enjoying every step of the journey. As I prepare to go through the editing rounds on my manuscript, the focus this month has been on building my author platform. I was already a member of the writing community on Twitter, a group of supportive friends who I love and who have been supporting me daily, and I also created accounts for Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and Goodreads. Those have been keeping me busy, and I have had the most fun creating edits and mood boards for FSTS. Spending more time with my characters has been a joy, and I can’t wait for you all to meet them. Time, in fact, is what I’ve been musing about this month. In our busy hustle and bustle lives, time is often something there is never enough of. And while it is true that the days fly by and we race to keep up with them, I find comfort in the idea that when it comes to meeting a goal or chasing after a dream, it is never too late. I thought that it might bring you comfort too. July is my birthday month, and I will be…55! Even I can’t believe it’s true. I have always loved writing, and many people have told me that I should be a writer. Life, however, got in the way. I was a busy homeschooling mom, and I was also dealing with complicated family issues and a difficult marriage. I didn’t know then what I know now, that getting up early and writing is good for my soul, and that no matter how chaotic life might be it whisks me away to another world and brings me peace. It all started, appropriately enough, one afternoon in the library. It was time for my baby son’s nap, so I paced up and down a quiet aisle with him in a sling until he fell asleep. And as I paced, the ending to what is now my women’s fiction second chance romance novel came into my mind. It was there, crystal clear and complete. I could see my main character and her children sitting around a fire, and the man that she loved lifting his hand in greeting as he walked up a beach trail. I fumbled with one hand through my messy backpack and pulled out the first scrap of paper I could find and wrote that ending down as quickly as I could. What a good afternoon that was! Not only did I leave the library with a bag full of books and a happy, rested baby, but my first novel had been born as well. When I got home that day, I pulled out an old spiral notebook. The next morning, I got up early and started to write. I have been up for the sunrise and writing every morning since then, and my baby boy will turn ten next month. It’s not an exaggeration to say that it changed my life. So the questions I have for you this month are: What is calling to you? What is your passion? Have you even thought about it lately? Because I have the best news- it is never too late! Don’t be afraid to try something new or follow a dream. It may take baby steps to get there, or you might have to make some major changes in your life to make it happen, but you will still feel better if you’re moving forward. In my forthcoming book, the love interest, Free, tells Shanna, the protagonist, that the opposite of ‘moving’ is ‘stagnant’. Stagnant water is still and putrid, there is no flow or forward movement. This month, I hope your creativity flourishes and you flow freely in the direction of something that is meaningful to you. It is never too late! Love, Stac 6/8/2023 0 Comments June 2023 Musings June 2023 Musings
Your Dream Happy June, friends! Summer will arrive this month, and I hope you have something fun planned! Here at my house, our homeschool year is wrapping up. I’ve been slicing cold, juicy watermelon for my kids every afternoon, which is a sure sign of summertime! This month, I’ve been musing about ways to encourage those of you who dream of being a published author someday. My message is for anyone who feels a little worn out and could use some inspiration to keep going. All of these suggestions truly helped me persevere for years, especially when I felt the most hopeless. I pray that you will find something useful, or at least find joy in the knowledge that you are definitely not alone! 5 Ways to Keep Your Dream of Being a Published Author Alive:
Love, Stac 5/20/2023 0 Comments May 2023 Musings May 2023 Musings
Book Blessings Happy May, friends! I hope you have been enjoying a lovely spring full of warm sunshine, beautiful blossoms and lengthening days filled with light. Here in North Carolina, the mountains are coming alive again after a long winter slumber, and the birds sing out the news from dawn till dusk that spring has sprung and summer is not far behind! This month, I have some very exciting news to share! My debut Young Adult novel FREE SINGS THE SEA will be published September 3, 2024 from Monarch Press! Dreams do come true. It has been a whirlwind week in my household with much celebration and rejoicing! My musings this month have been, oddly enough, though, on rejection. And that is because as writers we face a barrage of rejection at every turn. We have to be scrappy little fighters to persevere. If you are a querying writer, you are probably very familiar with form letter rejections that reject your work but try to soften the blow by telling you that it is a ‘subjective’ decision. I know from heartbroken personal experience that this line showing up in your inbox to haunt you is exhausting and frustrating. But I want to leave you with the thought that it is oh, so very true. When your heart, which is written all through your work, touches the heart of the agent or editor reading, then magic happens. It’s the reason why art in any form is special- it transcends the intellect and touches others in a very visceral way. Take courage, writers! Have a beautiful spring, friends, and please come back to visit often. I’m going to chronicle my publishing journey here, and we have many exciting moments to look forward to! Love, Stac 12/14/2022 0 Comments November 2022 MusingsNovember 2022 Musings I Hope You Dance Happy November everyone, and happy fall as well! It’s been a minute, as we say here in the south. I hope that you are all happy and healthy and looking forward to the holidays. I am definitely looking forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas, but I must say that what I have been doing the most this month is looking backward instead. My oldest daughter just got married! She married a wonderful young man of longtime family friends, and I couldn’t be more excited or happy for her. And yet… I find myself caught in an interesting moment in time that exists almost simultaneously in the past, present and future. I walk around my home doing ordinary chores and activities, but my mind seems to be mostly in the past remembering moments from my daughter’s childhood. And then my phone will chime, and I am back firmly in the present as she asks for my advice about a recipe. When we finish talking, I’m surprised to find myself in the future thinking about my grandchildren to come. But only until I visualize decorating a playroom for them filled with my daughter’s favorite old books and dolls, and then suddenly I am in the past again, having come full circle. Most of the people in my life do not realize that I am living in these multiple timelines, and I haven’t talked it over in depth with my daughter either. Not yet. I don’t want her to worry about me; I only want her to revel in this exciting season and look forward with joy to each dawning day of her new life. But when we do sit down with tea one day in the future, this is what I will tell her- It has been an honor and a privilege being your mom. You were a miracle from the moment you were born, the pediatrician present at my emergency c-section told me so, and you will always be a miracle. I used to see you hold out your tiny hand for the healthy snacks I made for you when you were little, and now I see you cooking healthy meals in your own kitchen. I used to see you draw in your sketch pad while I worked on my meal plan for the week, always trying to stretch a small budget over a lot of meals, and now I see you working hard to create your own budget friendly meal plan with creativity and love. I used to fold your small socks and dresses, and now I see you sitting on your bed folding your husband’s big work clothes. I see the love and nurturing that I poured into you being poured back out into your husband from a supply that I know will never end. I see your eyes lit up on Christmas morning, I see you on stage acting in the plays you loved so much, I see you singing ‘The Climb’ at your voice recital, and I know that your climb has just begun. I can’t wait to see you with your own children, but I will still always see you as a child yourself, running across the sun-dappled backyard in your sundress with your long, curly hair streaming behind you. I’ll hear your golden bracelets jingling on your arm as you come down the stairs with your Bible to sit at our sunlit table with me in the mornings. I remember when Grandma dedicated to you the song ‘I Hope You Dance’, and she also bought you a gift book with the cd in the back. We tucked the book away in your hope chest where it will stay now in your new home. Your hopes and dreams came true, and you are married to the love of your life. I am so thankful, and I agree with Grandma. What I desire the most for you is a joyful, passionate life full of love and simple pleasures. I hope you dance. So back to you, my friends. If you have children, love them well- even after sleepless nights, even in the hard times. Their years at home will go by astoundingly fast. The memories you are making now, will be the ones flashing through your mind in the future when you, too, begin living in multiple timelines all at once. Love, Stac
4/30/2022 0 Comments April 2022 MusingsQuerying Quandary April 2022 Musings Querying Quandary Happy April everyone! And happy spring as well! If you are here because you are a writer, I hope that the beautiful sunshine and longer days have been inspiring for you. If you are a reader, I hope you have found a sunny spot to curl up in with a book you love. I have been writing and revising every day. Oddly enough, I haven’t been querying much this month, but I have been musing on it more than ever. When I think about my writing journey from my first agent query to now, I find a close parallel in falling in love or beginning an exciting new relationship juxtaposed with the same relationship when the euphoria wears off and the hard times begin. You know that thrilling, dizzying feeling you have when you fall in love, when you are still so sure it was meant to be? I felt that way about my first novel manuscript. I don’t remember having any doubt in my mind that it would be published- in fact, I sent the barely edited first draft in a query to a successful agent at an established literary agency and then innocently waited for her to get back to me with an offer! I sent another woefully unready young adult manuscript to my dream agent. I read an interview where he said that there was no such thing as a dream agent, but I didn’t believe him because he was my dream agent. Confusing? Definitely. A quandary? Always. But it was so much fun! The breathlessly hitting send on a query and then waiting for the replies felt remarkably like the adrenaline rush you get when you are waiting to hear back from someone you are in love with. In those first stages of trying to become published, the real world fades away and you live in your own little writing reality, just like when you are in love and nothing else seems to matter. It’s a wonderful, heady time, and I do miss it! So there you are, wandering around in your writing daze, researching agents (so sure that their manuscript wish lists sound uncannily like your manuscript), sending queries, checking your email constantly, when…BAM! Yep, you get your first rejection. And then another and another. It never gets easier, and it always feels like someone just stomped around on your heart. The doubts set in, and the fear. Now the falling in love feeling is replaced by frustration and even anger, and your new relationship with the publishing world becomes more complicated. It’s a similar feeling to realizing as a relationship progresses that the person you love is not perfect all of the time. Real life begins to slowly intrude on your consciousness again, and it’s not always pleasant. In fact, the pain can get even worse as query rejections become rejections on full manuscripts. The only thing to do at this point is persevere. Just as when you are having relationship problems you can seek counseling, when you are having problems in your publishing journey you can find help from others. Query critiques are extremely helpful, as is support from other writers like the Writing Community on Twitter. If you are a writer who understands my publishing journey/love affair analogy, maybe even too well, then what I wish for you is that you get your Happily Ever After in the end. An HEA may be different for every writer. Maybe you will begin a new WIP and feel that first flush of new love again. Maybe you will find the best news in an email and receive an offer of representation from an agent who believes in you. Maybe you will decide to self-publish and love it. My hope is that this will be the month you get good news- whatever that means for you! Love, Stac 3/1/2022 1 Comment February 2022 MusingsDon’t Give Up? February 2022 Musings Don’t Give Up? Happy February everyone! And guess what? We made it through January again! I don’t know about you, but getting past January each winter always gives me hope. Warmer weather is coming! In North Carolina where I live, February is also the month that the beautiful Daffodils come out and brighten up the drab winter landscape with their cheerful yellow color and their promise that spring is on the way. This month I have been musing about three little words- DON’T GIVE UP. I like the words. I like what they stand for, and I tend to use them frequently with only the best of intentions. It has come to my attention, however, that some of you don’t share my fondness for the don’t give up mentality, and you have every right to feel that way. There are many on the “don’t give up team” when it comes to encouraging each other in the writing community through the arduous process of querying and trying to become published, but if that advice doesn’t resonate with you it is a perfectly valid experience. To illustrate, I am going to share one of my biggest parenting failures with you. When my oldest son was younger, he was involved in community theater with my daughter. She loved it, and he didn’t. During one play, he went through the audition process and was given his part. Then he decided that he wanted to drop out. Because I wanted to teach him an important life lesson, I encouraged him not to give up. I’m sure I gave an impassioned speech on how life was going to be hard, and how he had to learn to persevere even when he didn’t feel like it. You know the sort of speech- be strong, finish what you start, don’t let others down. Sounds reasonable, right? Well, he did learn his part and stick it out through that whole play. As I recall, he did so without complaining, too. But do you know what? Years later we drove by the old school where they had play practice twice a week, and my son told me that he still gets sick to his stomach every time he passes the building. It broke my heart, I can tell you. He hated that experience so much that it affected him mentally and physically, even years later. I respond well to DON’T GIVE UP. My grandfather taught it to me through many life lessons, and it has helped me throughout my life. It helps me tremendously with my writing and querying, which can be such a demoralizing experience. But my son did not respond well to that kind of motivation. You might be like me, or like my son, or somewhere in between. The point is that everyone does not need to be pushed at all times. And you don’t need to push yourself to the breaking point, either. If it is your personality to go hard and never give up, then draw on that strength to help you when you need it. But you are just as strong and special if you need to take a step back and focus on self-care for a time. If you are exhausted from banging your head against the publishing industry wall, it is okay to take a detour and do something else and look for joy elsewhere. If you love to write and it is your dream, you can come back to it, or take a less traditional route to publication. The moral of this long-winded blog post story is to live in the present moment as much as possible. Life is short. My son’s experience in theater was many years ago, and yet it feels like it was just yesterday. Use helpful advice and well-intentioned cheerleading from others if it resonates with you, and discard the rest. If you are the type of person who thrives on encouragement and who loves to be pushed when you feel like you might quit, then I will say it again- DON’T GIVE UP. If, on the other hand, you do not want to hear those three words again, then I understand. And I believe in you whether or not you ever get published, just because you’re you. Love, Stac |
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