What a difference a year makes.....

Here we are a year later; my husband's back from Afghanistan and we've gone through the "re-entry" phases of integrating him back in to "normal" (whatever that is!) life, we got another Golden Retriever who's led us a merry dance for the past 11 months, my son's graduated, and now summer's half gone again.

Our dog, "Valour", has been quite the challenge to train. Although we got him from the same breeder, he's nothing like Tessa. He's extremely alpha, high energy, and stubborn, stubborn, stubborn. Not really a "Golden" temperment at all. He's what our trainer likes to call "a lot of dog". I meant to re-start this blog when we brought him home to follow his genesis for 9 weeks old to....whenever, but I spent the first two months sleeping on the couch with him as he fought food allergies and illness along with crate training.

We've done puppy class, Basic Obedience, and Nosey Scenting Level One so far. He's been ill a couple of times, to the tune of $$$$ in vet bills. He's 11 months old today and just starting to settle down a bit. I can also vouch for the fact that Cesar Milan's tactics don't always work - the "bite" Cesar advocates meant nothing to this guy! Still, it's a joy to have a dog in the house again. I can't imagine being without one.

It's a joy to have life start to seem normal again. Please stick around for some book reviews, doggie info, philosophy, and my writing process. And card-making, scrapbooking, and knitting. It's all grist for the mill, as someone famous once said. (or, if they didn't, they should have)

Thanks for stopping by!

Catching Up

Since my husband left once more for Afghanistan, August has been telescoped in to both fast events and the effect of rushing emotions pushing me every which way. In other words, this month has been bizarre! We're now at Labour Day weekend and although the kids and I have been alone for the long weekend we've managed to have fun shopping for school supplies and renting movies to pass the time.

This is my son's graduating year for high school, so two weeks ago we began the daily football practices at 8 a.m. My daughter's shown too great an interest in black and purple eye-make up (curse those YouTube vids given by girls with more time then talent!), so we've been practising make-up lessons every day to bring it down several notches to what mom's comfortable letting her out of the house in.

As far as writing, I've found a fabulous critique partner and she's helping me overhaul my current project while I get the enjoyment of reading her first draft of her current MS.

I'm taking an online course with John Foxjohn, who many of you already now. The course is "Scene and Sequel" and it's a great example of the fact that we can never stop learning our craft. I'm enjoying myself thoroughly!

And, I'm busy reading the six books I bought from Carina Press. http://www.carinapress.com/ These books are helping me get through having to suddenly put down our beloved golden retriever, Tessa. We had no idea she had inoperable cancer until she went in to organ failure. Holding her in my arms while she slipped away was agony. I still feel as though she'll be lying in the hallway when I turn the corner. Sometimes I put down her food bowl to call her for supper, then feel like an idiot when I realize she's never going to have supper again. I'm so glad the kids go back to school tomorrow and will be back with friends who've been away over the summer. (although I'll be searching my daughter's purse for that "midnight plum" eyeshadow! I wouldn't mind it so much, except for the "midnight black" shadow she loves to put around her lids till she looks like a racoon. Curse you, Twilight!)

I know I promised an excerpt from my medieval. Well, I'm re-writing it with the new things I'm learning in John Foxjohn's class, so please stay-tuned! And enjoy the rest of your long weekend. I love the beginning of school days, the crisp air, the new clothes and notebooks. In Canada, I think Autumn is the best season of the year.

A Review of SEA OF SUSPICION by Toni Anderson

Sea of Suspicion by Toni Anderson


My rating: 5 of 5 stars





The best thing about this book is not just the well-drawn hero, Det. Insp. Nick Archer, or the heroine, Susie Cooper, a marine biologist, it's the well-drawn setting of St. Andrews, Scotland and the Gatty Marine Lab. It's not often in a romantic suspense you can learn so much about another country, marine biology, and feel you're intensely "in the action".




Toni Anderson has made her setting of St. Andrews the third character in this engaging romantic suspense, her first with Carina Press. I love gothic settings, and while Ms.Anderson might not think she's pegged her setting this way, I found it reminiscent of Mary Stewarts older gothics such as "Wildfire at Midnight".




Secrets, revenge, a sexual attraction that won't be denied, and a dead University student, are a potent mix in this romantic suspense. Nick Archer is flawed, but not broken, and Susie is at odds with her past but proves she has the inner strength to match her hero.




Here is a shortened quote from one of my favourite scenes: their first true interaction with each other:

"Bloody hell." He pulled out a cell phone, adjusting it to read the display in the poor light. Swearing, he looked at her with an apology in his eyes. And regret. Because she was a sure thing. "I've got to go."


...She dashed inside and closed the door. Locked it. He could have her car, no problem. But he couldn't have her. She wanted a relationship, a future, a family. Nick Archer was a lousy bet for anything except orgasms and heartbreak, and not even the orgasms were guaranteed."




If you like dark, edgey, and sexy, this book is for you. I look forward to more from Ms. Anderson, and I'm sure after reading SEA OF SUSPICION, so will you.Toni Anderson

View all my reviews

The Joy of Writer Friends

Today I had lunch with a woman I met through my writer's class last fall. We had a lot to catch up on! If you've read to the end of my blog, you'll notice I've posted several times on the difference between "live" writing friends, and "internet" writing friends. It's great to have both kinds, but nothing takes the place of talking over lunch and discussing your writing projects and everyting writing related. It's easier to learn from each other when you can take some time to get to know the other person and what thrills them in their writing journey.

And I haven't forgotten my excerpt! I'm fine-tuning my opening and strengthening my heroine in a different way then making her the "kick-butt" heroine so in vogue the past couple of years. Elise is strong and determined but I want to go back to being in tune with who and what women in medieval times were like, the roles they played (and yes, some went to war and some defended their castles and estates while their men were absent), and what mattered to them as women. So, the excerpt might not be the opening of the book, but it will be up next week.

In the meantime, here's my "working photo" of Elise to keep me inspired and on track with her personality. I have no idea who the actress is, but I love her "look".

Now, back to revisions!

July 1st - New Years 2010

Not only is this CANADA DAY in our country, but I'm making it my personal New Years start-over. I've refurbished my site to reflect a new colour palette in my life, new interest in my stories, and a new yearning to obtain my goals. I'm re-working a medieval story that excites me and makes it easy to pound out those daily words. I've fallen in love with history again. I've fallen in love with this man as my hero....
except he's flawed, selfish, driven, and arrogant. He'll be redeemed against the backdrop of the Third Crusade, a fiery crucible of unimagineable horror between the clash of the dark, superstitious Western Europe, and the united tribal warlords of the Arab world.

I hope you'll enjoy the excerpt I'll be posting in a week or two.

Knowing When It's Time To Quit

You’ve slaved over your novel for months, perhaps years. You’ve re-written it, polished it, and your beta readers have thrown in their comments.


What happens when it loses its luster? What happens when you read it and find it flat, boring, repetitious, even pretentious in places?

This commonly happens when you’ve cobbled pieces of your WIP together, re-written your characters so often you don’t recognize them anymore, and forgotten what the theme of your book really was when you began it.

And, you know what? It’s okay to throw it out the window, under the bed, box it up to recycle, or use it for compost.

Just because you’ve invested countless hours, days, and months of writing to a project/manuscript/WIP, doesn’t mean you can’t toss it.

Knowing when to quit and start a new story, that takes courage. Pounding away on a story that’s dead or dying fast is like killing yourself slowly with cigarettes. So, take the Nicotine challenge with your book and quit! You can start again, one word at a time, one page at a time. Your new story will take shape under your fingers and you’ll fast forget the clunker you just rejected. You’ll wonder why you ever spent so much time on it in the first place. And, that’s okay. It was time to quit.

Canada's Olympic Heroine

Joannie Rochette suffered the greatest loss of her life this past week. Her mother died suddenly of a heart attack last Sunday morning, after arriving at the Vancouver Olympic Games to join her daughter and family. There was no warning, no hint of illness, before she arrived. It shocked everyone on Team Canada and skaters from every country.

In her mothers’ honor, Joannie skated in the Short Program Tuesday night, putting her in third place going in to the Long Program last night. She held her focus and concentration under unimaginable stress. No other athlete at these Olympic Games faced such a tragic event so close to their performance. Injuries, squabbles, and politics – all pale in comparison to having to skate shortly after your mothers’ inexplicable death. By all accounts, Joannie was extremely close to her mother. Mme. Rochette would drive hours to Montreal from their home in Ile-Dupas, Quebec, to watch Joannie train. Joannie knew her mother would’ve wanted her to compete, although it would have been so easy to exempt herself from the Games.

Last night, she skated a near perfect performance with only a slight bobble going in to her Triple Lutz. She grabbed the Bronze Medal, finishing only three points behind Mao Asada of Japan, who took the Silver Medal. Her father, Norman Rochette, was in tears in the stands. This was a personal victory of courage and strength. This was a performance in true Olympic spirit – overcoming adversity, pushing herself to her limit, and sacrificing her personal life in order to reach that height of every athletes’ dream: a spot on the Podium. In an interview after her Medal victory, Joannie said, “I felt so much love…to get here for myself, for my country, and for my mother.”

Canada does love you, Joannie. Never doubt it.