Kirjahaku

Like the Pirates' Code, many alleged "rules" of writing are more like guidelines...But don't believe anyone who insists there are NO rules for writing. There are rules: the mechanics. The craft, as opposed to the art. The tools for sculpting clay or stone, or spinning and dyeing thread for weaving, or learning to play scales and read music and keep your instrument in tune, when creating music. The rest -- the "art" portion -- is flexible and adapts to what works best for YOU the writer. The technique for playing the instrument, the point of view and voice for the story, the genre you write in, the images you create from stone and clay, the pattern of the cloth you weave, and the colors you choose to use.When you understand the why of the rules, then you can bend or break them.So Do Yourself A Favor and learn what's hard-and-fast, and what is flexible. It'll save you pain and effort and wasted time in the long run.This collection of advice started as blog postings (read: semi-rants) while editing people who had something to say ... but didn't take the time to figure out how to say it. Basically, whenever I ran into something noteworthy in my own writing journey, or things I encountered too often in editing, I blogged about it, hoping the things that frustrated or fascinated me would be helpful to others. Along with those blog posts, revised because of timeliness or to cover a broader subject, or to fit in new discoveries along the way, or because I repeated myself ... I offer bits of advice about topics that other authors have found worthy of discussion. Or argument. Or mockery. Or complaint. Or wailing. Or amusement of the I'm-losing-my-mind variety.

Eve was sure that God had created her for ministry rather than marriage, thanks to a bunch of guys who swept through her life with various levels of damage and frustration. Every time she thought about getting rid of that stupid wedding dress, something happened Guys such as: A patriarchal bully of a cousin who thought he owned her -- and could sell her, for his own benefit. Her college sweetheart. The guy she bought the dress for -- it didn't suit him any more than it suited her. The guy she was dating on the rebound -- and didn't even know it until he dumped her. A wacko who tried to terrify her into running into his arms. A hero who pretended to be dating her to protect her from the guy she thought she didn't want.It wasn't until she finally got rid of the dress, and the attached dreams, that true love came into her life.Who says God doesn't have a sense of humor?

There's a special place called Crooked Creek. Only boys and girls can go there.Most of the time, they visit in their dreams, after they say their prayers and kiss Mommy and Daddy good night and go to bed and close their eyes.Bitty Mouse lives there with his ten brothers and eights sisters and Mama Mouse and Papa Mouse.

Dinah doesn't want a new man in her life, after her current boyfriend seriously blew their first Christmas together -- and became her ex-boyfriend. She has to find a new church and job, after being fired from her position as church secretary (and dealing with the church politics fallout). Then there's the suitor who insists they are perfect for each other, despite the fact she never filled out a profile at "A Match Made in Heaven." The worst part in all this is that the man running the job matching service seems to be interested in her, not her profile -- but he doesn't do anything about it. What's a good church-going girl to do when everything seems to go from wrong to weird, and the crazy old lady who insists on helping her find true love doesn't know the meaning of "No " or "Not ever "?

Heretic's DaughterSarai's Journey, Book 1 Sarai knew her life's path from childhood. Daughter of a wealthy, respected rabbi, she prepared herself for marriage to a man of equal wealth and status. Her father indulged her curiosity, and provided her an education rare among women of those times. She used the healing talents Adonai had given her, to serve others. However, her father's teachings about the Messiah were in conflict with the high priest, and many in the Sanhedrin. He believed the Messiah would first come as the Suffering Servant, not as a triumphant warrior to rescue Judea from the tyranny of Rome. He was labeled a heretic, ostracized from the Temple. When he died, Sarai's world disintegrated. Her suitor vanished, along with all his sweet promises. Reduced to nothing, Sarai devoted herself to the man who kept his promises when everyone else abandoned her. Then she encountered a rabbi named Jesus, from Nazareth, who fulfilled everything her father had taught about the Messiah. As Jerusalem was split by the question of who Jesus was, Sarai faced the most painful decision of her life. The man who risked everything to rescue her, or the duty she owed to Adonai? Break her promises and lose everything she had regained, or destroy her soul?

Inn of the HealerSarai's Journey, Book 2 Sarai refuses to renounce her faith in Jesus, and her husband, Simon divorces her. She finds shelter with other followers of Jesus amid the turmoil after the crucifixion and news of the resurrection. When her friends decide to journey to Damascus for safety and to establish an inn, she joins them. Discovering she carries Simon's child leads to painful decisions. She claims to be a widow, and prays Simon will not hear the news and take her child from her. Within the safety of the inn family, she builds a new life for herself as a healer. The Inn of the Three Sisters becomes the gathering place for the slowly growing fellowship of Christ's followers. Sarai puts her education to good use, recording the memories of those who walked with Jesus and heard Him teach. Then her old life in Jerusalem reaches out to claim her, calling on old loyalties and friendship. Returning to her former home to help those she still loves means risking discovery, possibly condemnation. Her duty as a healer, and as a follower of Christ, requires a step of faith and courage that seems beyond her. The consequences of her decision will change her life, and the life of her daughter, forever

High school is rough enough, but the town of Neighborlee, Ohio, has traditions that make it even harder -- culminating in Senior Prank Night, when some seniors try to ensure they never walk through graduation. Lanie and her friends even have to cut short their own Senior Prank Nights to protect their classmates. It's rough being a semi-pseudo-superhero, especially when you don't even get a costume or a cool name. Lanie and her friends grow into their duties as guardians. The threats to Neighborlee grow darker as enemies gather from many different directions. Other worlds. Other dimensions. Possibly even the Lost Kids who were stolen years ago. The guardians do whatever it takes to protect their home. And sometimes the guardians pay the ultimate price.

Athena Longfellow and Doni Halliday are granddaughters of one of Neighborlee's guardians, Ford Longfellow. When danger threatens Neighborlee, the girls awaken to their duties and their gifts, and slowly grow into their heritage. Athena, the computer whiz, finds and experiments with an unusual video camera at Divine's Emporium. She records Doni, and then records a room at the shop -- and inadvertently opens a door to another dimension. Properly frightened, she shuts down the program behind firewalls. Enemy invasion thwarted. For now. She doesn't realize she also created a virtual copy of Doni, until an advanced computer class in college, when the artificial intelligence that calls herself London Holiday "moves into" her team's class project. Athena suddenly has a good idea how Dr. Frankenstein felt. The question is: If she has to pull the plug on London Holiday ... how?

Living Proof (That No Good Deed Goes Unpunished)Neighborlee, OhioBook 4 Lanie saved her student's life on Senior Prank Night, but broke her back and blunted some of her semi-pseudo-superhero powers.Now it's four years later, and Lanie's orderly life is starting to fall apart.Her brothers are living with her while their parents are out of the country on another book research trip.Not so bad, but their parents have missed two check-in phone calls already.The newspaper where Lanie works has been taken over by a conglomerate she now refers to as the Evil Empire -- and she loses her beloved school sports beat, to write the (gag) lovelorn column.Then Col. Hayward shows up to say their parents have vanished ... near the Bermuda Triangle.A series of increasingly nasty pranks lead her to believe someone is out to get her.But worst of all, Christmas is only a few weeks away and she hasn't started her Christmas shopping or her holiday baking spree. It's enough to make a semi-pseudo-superhero hang up her cape Oh, yeah, she never had one to begin with ...

The shadows from Lanie's past continue to haunt her and her friends as Neighborlee moves from Christmas to New Year's Eve. Something or someone is tampering with the magical defenses of the town. Things and people disappear and reappear, with no explanation, and gaps in memories and time. An age-old nemesis is gathering its strength for another attempt to shatter the door that Divine's Emporium holds shut. Sylvia Grandstone returns, and she's got her sights set on Daniel, Lanie's new boss. It's the same old Grandstone scheme to gain power and wealth by any means possible, including marriage. It would be easy to blame Sylvia for the new problems and mysteries, applying the Jessica Fletcher theory of crime-solving: the most famous guest artist is the murderer. However, Sylvia's years in Hollywood never got her anywhere near star status, and no one would ever believe she could be a criminal mastermind. Or so the guardians would like to believe. As New Year's Eve approaches at Eden, the Neighborlee community center, the disappearances and time gaps increase. Instead of trying to convince town officials to cancel the New Year's Eve party, the guardians prepare for a showdown, and brace themselves to do what they have always done: defend the people of Neighborlee from the outside world, and defend the outside world from the magic and wonder and general weirdness that is Neighborlee, Ohio.

Dracs: the gift that keeps giving. And making life very interesting for the crew of the AFV Defender. A spatial anomaly near the drac homeworld, a forbidden island, and signs of a civilization that self-destructed are just the tip of the iceberg. When spoiled brat Ambassador Vitiarre's plot to get his hands on dracs is foiled, he sets out to make trouble for the Defender, and especially Chief of Talents M'kar. His long-standing feud with her father, Ashrock, just makes everything worse. Then a new Chute opens up near the drac homeworld, leading to a planet with dragons in its legends. Despite no dragons present on the planet now, Vitiarre breaks regulations to invade and claim his own dragon. His schemes lead to the Defender being sent to mend the trouble he made with the matriarchal society of Castitarus. The misfit luck of the Defender is hard at work. Male crew are kidnapped. The dracs develop allergies. Female officers are offered diplomatic gifts of men. And the crew race to find a cure for a disease that turns grown men into children -- starting with Security Chief Decker, and Ashrock. A typical mission for the crew of the AFV Defender.

Engagements have become a contagious disease in Neighborlee In between helping friends plan their weddings, Lanie deals with a dog (that is much more than a dog) that has moved in with her.Then there's an unwanted match from a dating service that might be planted by enemies of the guardians.While the guardians slowly make contact with possible allies, they sift through warehouses full of information about their enemies, the Rivals, and discover a new problem: Daniel, Lanie's new boss, might be an enemy spy ...

Maurice used his Fae magic to help the downtrodden and abused. But when he went too far, the Powers-That-Be decided he needed to learn humility, self-restraint, and mercy. They took away most of his magic, shrunk him down to five inches, and slapped wings on his back that no self-respecting Fae would be caught dead in. Then they exiled him to the Human realms, to work out his sentence helping Humans. His destination: Divine's Emporium, a curiosity shop touched with magic, on the edge of the odd town of Neighborlee, Ohio. His parole officer: Angela, the proprietress of Divine's Emporium, touched with magic and a shadowy past of her own. His sentence: Help the Humans who come into Divine's to find answers, freedom, their own magic, and true love. Not necessarily in that order. His problem: How does a five-inch-tall Fae, invisible to most Humans, win the heart of the ugly duckling who has caught his interest, his sympathy, and then his heart -- when she can't see or hear him?

Christmas in Neighborlee means magic. This year more than ever. The Fae have come to visit. And hide. And seek true love. Lori is allergic to mistletoe, thanks to a traumatic encounter with Dickens. She comes to Neighborlee to hide from matchmaking relatives.Bethany just wants a quiet Christmas with her dad, but her rising stardom is getting in the way. Her double magical heritage just complicates things.Harry might be able to help her, thanks to a malfunctioning invisibility spell.Wilfred and Philomena are best friends, have been for centuries, and want to be much more. Do they have the courage to admit it to each other?Then there's Maurice. The terms of his exile interfere with his courtship of Holly, the librarian who can only see him in her dreams. They all need a Christmas miracle.

Equinox: Maurice has a day of full-size freedom to spend with his true love, Holly. Their day of fun ends in panic, when Angela is attacked and the defenses of Divine's Emporium are breached. In the search to find out who hired thieves to steal books full of inimical magic from the shop and provided them with magic charms to do it, Angela's memories are stirred. Strange dreams disturb her sleep and she asks questions she hasn't thought of in decades.Ethan Jarrod, a particularly gifted P.I. with some mysteries of his own, joins forces with local P.I. John Stanzer to identify Angela's enemies. Is Jarrod the knight from her dreams, or the final weapon of her enemies, to destroy all the magic of Divine's Emporium and Angela herself?

The guardians face their greatest dilemma, when a New Age cult threatens to drive the Grandstones out of Neighborlee -- and take their place. Better the devil they know than the one they don't? Saving Neighborlee Children's Home from foreclosure, and stopping an invasion from otherworldly forces could all depend on Pastor Rocky "getting the band back together." Problem: everyone else died in a fiery crash. Or did they? Multiple enemy forces unite to attack the town of Neighborlee, attempting to turn Pastor Rocky into their newest weapon. Big mistake.