A Novel Creation www.WatersWords.com

  The Smell of Fresh Crayons I walked into a local store the other day to a barrage of school supplies. When you’ve been a teacher almost half of your life and a student of some sort all your life, the smell of fresh crayons and the colorful notebooks lining the store shelves feel like something akin to Christmas.  My husband would disagree.  But I loved school. I loved it so much I spent most of my life as either a student, a teacher, or a professor in a college preparing teachers to serve. When each of my daughters started school, I was thrilled. I knew what an exciting adventure was ahead of them.  While I was in college, I taught preschool part-time.  I did my student teaching shortly after my second daughter was born (Thank you Kathie Fuller for being our “nanny” of sorts.) When we moved to Ohio, I signed up to substitute teach. It was the best way to get to know the community and determine where we would purchase a house. One of my first jobs as a substitu...

  Of This and That The Umbrella Factor : Last week I posted about our drought. I shared how old timers often said, “What we need is a good hurricane.” (That is, a hurricane that brings a lot of water without much destruction.) I even posted pictures showing the low water table we’re experiencing. (If you missed that post, you can find it  HERE .)  Mike and I have been praying for rain. I’ve often felt like God’s favorite… but this week? Wow! We’ve had rain! Lots of it. It is beautiful! This is one of those weeks when I can honestly say “When it rains it pours.” Our water table is rising. Slowly, but steadily. The Media Kit : My new novel,  Corners and Straight Edges  will be released September 25 th .  I’m really excited about it, but writing the book is only part of the work. My publishers have a publicist, so now I have been putting my “media kit” together.  I had my new “headshots” taken and chose the ones I’ll need for various uses…like the ba...

  Of Hurricane’s and Waterways Mike and I live in Florida. I want start by asserting there is more to Florida than “the mouse house” in Orlando.  Florida is known for access to wonderful sandy beaches…lots of them. Our state is a peninsula. You can easily witness a sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean on the east coast and take a leisurely drive over to the west coast to view the sunset over the Gulf later that evening.  But saltwater isn’t the only recreational source of water fun. Florida hosts clear, spring fed, icy cold, and crystal-clear rivers, springs, and chains of freshwater lakes and waterways. I’ve floated in innertubes down some of those spring fed rivers and skied and fished in the freshwater lakes. The Lake in Floral City a few years ago. Of course there is more to the state I call home. Florida is known for the large production of citrus fruit, strawberries, and farm produce. We also host cattle ranches and huge chicken farms. Our economy is far more than touris...

  Ever Feel Discombobulated? Discombobulated. I’ve always wanted to use that word. Not live it…Use it. Authors like to throw things at their characters. Actually, we may not  like  to do so, but it is necessary for our characters to grow and essential for our readers to turn the page rather than put the book down. So, we have everything going along smoothly for our hero, then throw a monkey wrench into the situation. Books, movies, and good stories depend on tension.  And tension comes when things don’t simply glide along without a glitch in the life of the character. Red Riding Hood  is merrily skipping through the forest to see her grandmother when a big bad wolf appears out of nowhere and wants her basket of goodies. Tension. I often feel a bit discombobulated. Star Wars: A New Hope   starts with a battle.  Tension. Even  Shakespeare’s  Romeo and Juliet   begins with a description of the feud between two families.  Tension. ...

Hello! I invited a fellow author to craft this week's blog post. I always talk about how I feel I live a connected life. The people I know and meet. The opportunities I have had. The places I've lived. Even the two men God brought into my life. I met Bettie Boswell over ten years ago in Ohio. Now, we have reconnected through our publisher, Mt. Zion Ridge Press. So when Bettie talked about "connections," I was all in. Enjoy the post and be sure to share those "unexpected connections" you've experienced in your own life in the comments!     Connections by Bettie Boswell I'm very honored to be Rebecca's guest blogger this week. She was in the first writing group that I officially joined over ten years ago. At that time, Rebecca was a published author. I was a dreamer, hoping a piece I'd written would one day find a home. Many years and miles now separate us, but we still have a  connection  through social media. When she asked me to write the bl...

Rebecca Waters, a graduate of Tampa’s George D. Chamberlain High School and the University of South Florida, served over fifteen years as a teacher in the public school system in Fairfield, Ohio. During that time, she earned both her Master’s and Doctoral degrees at the University of Cincinnati. Rebecca then taught at the University level for fourteen years at Cincinnati Christian University where she was awarded “Teacher of the Year,” in 2010. Rebecca left her position in 2012 and penned her first novel, Breathing on Her Own which released in 2014. Rebecca’s husband of forty-three years died in a bicycle accident that same year. Rebecca stepped away from writing during that time and focused on, in her words, “breathing and putting one foot in front of the other.” Rebecca spent the 2017-2018 school year teaching fourth grade in a school in Prishtina, Kosovo. For her it was a time of healing. On her return to the United States in 2018, Rebecca’s second novel, Libby’s Cuppa Joe was relea...