I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving. Yes, it was definitely different this year, but it was still nice. There was just my husband, his mom, and me. And plenty of food.  As is the family tradition, this morning, Hubby and the Nephew headed off to hunting camp. That will be different too since there will only be three men sharing the camp.  Meanwhile, I have set aside the next few days as my own personal writing retreat. No packing, no driving. Just me, Kensi, and my computer. And a big pot of chili. Hubby dislikes the stuff, so once a year, I cook up a batch and eat it until the hunters return home.  My plan is to use the retreat template my dear friend Ramona Long used when we all gathered at the Clare House near Philly.  The Retreat House Retreat buddies, Martha Reed  and Edith Maxwell My writing space on retreat Meditation and some yoga in the morning. Coffee and breakfast. Writing. Coffee and lunch. A walk. Writing. Maybe a nap. More writing. Supper. During and after supper, there w

I tried using the blog feature on my website, but it's just not working for me. I'm still at Writers Who Kill, although only once a month now. And things are starting to happen in my world, so here I am.  At some point late in October, I decided to do NaNoWriMo AKA National Novel Writing Month. The idea is to write a complete 50,000-word novel in one month. It happens every November, and while I've used the group energy to boost my word counts in the past, I've never done it on an official basis before. Two incentives pushed me into it. One: I needed a distraction from the political overload steamrolling our way in November. Two: I was 35,000 words into my current manuscript and was floundering. I figured 50K more would give me a completed first draft.  As of right now, I'm at almost 42,000 NaNo words (77,000 manuscript words) and the end is in sight.  In other news... Right after signing up for NaNoWriMo, I signed with an agent! Dawn Dowdle of Blue Ridge Literary i