HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

 First, let me wish you all a wonderful holiday season.  I know it's going to be different, but we have to do this to make it through safely to the other side.  I had an empty table at Thanksgiving and it will be the same for Christmas... as much as I'll miss the total chaos of the day; everyone understands and we all agree that staying within our home group is the right thing to do.  So please stay safe and well through these holidays.

Next is the excitement of my new book!  It has been well received and that pleases me immensely.  As a writer, you are so close to your story and characters that you're sure what you are releasing on to the readers. When "Dark Secrets" first came out, I wasn't sure how the story would be received.  I had struggled with how to create a story around the inherited apartment.  Yet, lo and behold, the reviewers loved it for many different reasons - setting, characters, plot and surprise and suspense, and my usual twists and turns :-)  So writers are never a good judge of their own work.  I function well in a writers group because I can see what to improve in some one else's writing, but definitely not in my own :-) 

And my new time travel manuscript seems to be working well so far... again partially based in France's Loire Valley and Boston.  I find that changing settings in the story makes my writing and character building better strangely.  Not sure if any of you find that?  But I'm still struggling with the next Oyster Point Mystery - I have a story but not sure yet how to solve the problem I've created.  But my two main characters, Jack and Jamie, are just as dynamic as ever and now we have the two "old" loves from the first mystery, She's Not You, appearing to stir up a little friction.

So, once I made it through the initial stages of this COVID isolation, I had many many hours that I used for writing which I love.  

Still keeping up with my walking and have had many too many Zoom meeting for different Committees I'm on.  Maybe it's that I'm on too many committees... maybe?

I built a gloopy wonky gingerbread house which was so much fun and so frustrating :-)  Many years ago I built one from scratch and this year I thought, why not use the kit!!  Should be easier, right? Wrong... LOL!

I had it all together when first one wall fell, then a second and one side of the roof and finally the entire house was flat on the table. 

But I persisted and made it whole again. 

So stay safe and well during these times when it's easy to let down your guard.  And enjoy your holidays doing fun things!  

Till 2021
Judi