First of all, thanks to everyone who commented or contacted me last week in regards to the question of “What book should I talk about in my next Facebook Live chat?” The majority of those who replied requested that our next stop be my biblical fiction, so I’ll go through those four titles in the order in which I wrote them, beginning with…

A Stray Drop of Blood! So next Monday, May 8, that’s the book I’ll be talking about. (My husband says, “Wow, lots to talk about with that one–you might need a two-hour special.” LOL. Don’t worry. I’m sure we can cover it all in the usual less-than-one.

Stray Drop is now in Kindle Unlimited, so if you haven’t read it but are part of that program, you’re doubly in luck! Since quite a few asked for links, here they are:

Now, on to the fun stuff. =) As many of you no doubt saw, I just got home from my 2017 writing retreat! As always, it was a lot of fun to hang out with my best friend/critique partner, Stephanie Morrill, and to just have days on end when I had to think of nothing but story. I arrived in KC on Thursday afternoon, we checked in to the gorgeous apartment we’d rented from HomeAway, and wasted no time in getting all set up.

Here are a few shots of our work space, the beautifully appointed apartment that made settling in for a weekend of “What, there’s an outside world?” so very easy. (Okay, so we left for food twice. And even took two walks!)

The ever important coffee machines deserved a picture unto themselves, of course…

I ended up with the master bedroom, solely because the other one wasn’t as close to the kitchen, and therefore Stephanie would not be so easily awakened by her crazy morning person roommate who insists upon getting up at 5:30, even when on “vacation”…

We had packed up and were ready to lock the doors behind us when we finally remembered to take a picture of US.

I’d love to give you the blow-by-blow of the retreat, but honestly, it’s pretty boring to report on, LOL. I did so many random Google searches that it occasionally made me laugh (Cockney rhyming slang, teas good for arthritis, how far X in London is from Y [about a hundred times–I’m becoming quite versed in London neighborhoods, which is just weird for this country girl], whether Rolex-founder Hans Wilsdorf had children, etc.), we paused occasionally to share interesting tidbits we were learning/questions we had, and Stephanie is especially awesome about started each meal/walk with the question of, “So where are you in the story now?”

The fellowship and dedicated time is always such a blessing. And it’s so rewarding to see those word counts tick up and up. I started the retreat with a mere 14,537 words in my manuscript (I’d hoped to be so much farther along!), but I ended it with a solid 57,908, which is half of this particular book. For those of you who don’t want to do math, that’s 43,381 words written in 3 full days and 2 travel days.