Torn Between Two Loves

The melody of the old 80’s song is filtering through my mind, but being ultra-happily married, I’m not really talking about “lovers.” I’m talking about things that absorb my time!

If you’ve noticed many of my Facebook posts, you know that I’m 

Life Makes Stories by Marie Wells Coutu

The Dog Daze of Summer continue! Find all of the books on sale, including Marie’s first novel, For Such a Moment, on Amazon or at Write Integrity Press. Winner of the Books of Hope Contest, For Such a Moment is a contemporary re-imagining of the story of Queen Esther. Her second novel, Thirsting for More, recently placed in the contemporary category of the Selah Awards.

I’m so loving getting to learn a bit more about the other authors that share Write Integrity Press as their publisher. And this Dog Daze project is a perfect time for that. Need a summer read? Oh, we have that covered! WIP link!

Indie Publishing in a Nutshell

Next week, the 4th book of my Grime Fighter Mystery Novella Series will release from Amazon and I’ve finally gotten my mind wrapped around this process of independent publishing.

I’m not talking about the “self-publishing” of a decade ago. Back then, someone paid a company to print their books. They might end up with a

News is Coming! Woohoo!

So much has happened. And I’ve got some big news to share with you – GREAT BIG!

But first

New Tools

As an educator, I always believed that the most important thing that a teacher could have is a tool belt of all sorts of ideas to help kids learn. Like a handyman’s tool belt has the right tool for the job, so the teacher had to find the right motivation to stimulate the process for each resistant learner.

And so is true for me this month. Not a resistant learner, but a stressed out and

#5 Top Benefit of NaNoWriMo

While I’m engaging in this month-long contest, I’m sharing some of my favorite things from NaNoWriMo. Yesterday I shared #6 on my list. Today, the benefit I’m thinking about is the connections I’m making.

I always thought that writing had to be the most

#6 Top Benefit of NaNoWriMo

Yesterday, when I shared my #7 benefit, I also explained what NaNoWriMo is. Standing for National Novel-Writing Month, the program challenges authors to complete their novels or at least 50,000 words of it before the end of the month. This translates to about

#7 Top Benefit of NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo (naa-noe-wry-moe) stands for National Novel-Writing Month. Yes, that’s a real thing. And I imagine that somewhere around the time that November was adorned with this auspicious title, a group of writers got together and began challenging one another to complete their novels during the month.

However NaNoWriMo got its start, it has

Writing with Intention

I had the most delightful few hours at a critique group meeting last week. Oh, how I have missed going to them regularly! At the beginning of my writing career, I joined 2 different groups and rarely missed a meeting for about a year. Then my girls joined volleyball and my schedule tightened. Some outstanding online critters have provided huge blessings since then, but there is something about sitting and discussing pages with other writers. I learn so much!

Research: Strange Questions

Writing mysteries and suspense, there are some strange questions that I deal with. I bet most authors could chime in and share some crazy questions they’ve had to research, or better, some interesting conversations they’ve had!

In the first