Welcome to TNBT blog hop! What is a blog hop? In a nutshell, a blog hop is a tool that connects readers to new authors. It’s no secret that the publishing business is changing; bookstores have been closing and publishers aren’t promoting new authors as much as they might have in years past. Digital books are growing at a rapid rate. So it isn’t as common as it once was to meet authors at bookstores. I’ve provided links for...

You’re burning up. Your joints ache and your muscles hurt—even around your eyes. You lie down because you’re so weak, but then you sit up to cough, and watery snot rushes from your nose. Poor baby. You’ve got the flu. In honor of the virus that has helped me sell millions of books—(well, hundreds)—I thought I’d give you some fun facts about the flu. Every year, some kind of flu slithers up unsuspecting noses causing untold...

I first realized I had a rat problem when the bread rack in our school’s kitchen was attacked one night. The nasty buggers had gnawed through the plastic wrappers and pigged out on our hamburger buns. For fifteen years, I had been an elementary school cafeteria manager, but this was the worst destruction I’d seen so far.  The rats didn’t choose one pack and eat everything. No, they nibbled through several packs, contaminating the...

Hubby decided to treat me to a day at the spa for our anniversary. Little did I know that I would end up buck naked with lots of other buck naked women sitting in hot tubs. The Korean sauna (jim jil bang) hubby chose was no hole-in-the-wall Asian joint crammed between a dry cleaner and a Chinese Buffet. This was a Walmart-sized establishment that’s open 24/7. At the reception desk, we were handed spa wear (shorts & shirt), a locker...

“The average person touches their face three to five times every waking minute. In between, we’re touching doorknobs, water fountains, and each other.” Kate Winslet’s character in the movie Contagion. I couldn’t agree more with Steven Soderbergh’s premise of single touch transmission, first two people are infected, then four, then sixteen. Within just a few weeks, millions of people are carrying the virus. And keep in mind that...

The fallacy of that statement was never more clear than when I was in labor with my first child. I’d just had a contraction so strong that my water broke right there in the bed. As I flopped back on my pillow to catch my breath before the next wave hit, my doctor, (a man) sympathetically patted my knee and assured me he knew what I was going through. I wanted to yank off the fetal monitor strapped to my bulging belly and twist it around...

I didn’t do well with writers’ critique groups. As far back as kindergarten, my progress reports showed a propensity for uncooperativeness. But for years I tried attending gatherings where we’d read an excerpt from a story or discussed pages we’d been sent ahead of time. There are all kinds of people in critique groups. The pompous ass who thinks his writing, and opinions, are brilliant The nit-picker who deconstructs each...