Savannah's Blog

I saw it in a documentary first. Minimalism. These two guys talk about the trappings of a busy life and walk around in misty scenes with acoustic guitar music in the background. I feel my soul yearn for the, whatever the documentary is trying to sell me on. It speaks to me. And then come the tiny house programs. I've toured a few. Some make me roll my eyes. Who wants a automated bookshelf? Nothing simple about that, sorry. Life happens. Once upon a time I considered writing a blog called "Failing Minimalism." Because as much as I embrace the concepts, life manages to hijack my plans. Ask my daughter how many black cardigans I own. She'll tell you too many. And then I go and find another one. But I am pretty good about getting rid of stuff I don't like. I just like to keep several versions of what I do like. Coffee mugs are another weakness of mine. I am currently banned from acquiring more. So my daughter just brings them to me so her dad can't find ...

A few months back I had the honor of talking with Michelle Raab for her blog, Michelle Raab Writes. She asked me why I write and why I decided to begin this journey as an indie author. Check out our full conversation here.

My favorite cozy mystery series! Author Amy Vansant writes this fast-paced, hilarious series. I have read each of these books from Pineapple Lies to Pineapple Turtles and I have to say that these are some of my very books. I love these fun and light-hearted mysteries. Take a twenty-something young woman, put her in the middle of a retirement community, add in a dead body here and there and you have the makings of a terrific series. Charlotte (twenty-something, prone to disaster) lives among the elderly. Dead bodies appear and hijinks ensue. She meets a local hottie (Declan, the Irish heart throb) and his suave uncle, and Declan’s ex, who may or may not be from a serial killer family herself.       Check out the first book, Pineapple Lies, here on Amazon! (I am in no way benefiting from this shout out.)

So, when people ask me “what’s your thing” or “what are you into” my answer is boring. Incredibly so. I say “I write. I’m a writer.” Only, it usually comes out “I like werdz” with me smiling way too broadly. After the awkward encounter I feel like an excited preschooler gushing about eating paste or something. I know people who have countless amazing talents. I am not one of those people. I trip over my own feet when I walk. I’ve been known to slap myself silly when trying to get rid of a bug or a spider in my hair. I just put words down and sometimes they come out as a story. That’s it. I’m a one-trick pony. Once when I was much younger I tried to learn how to crochet. That resulted in several thirty-foot long braided strings scattered around my house. I owned a sewing machine for a short time. It ended up stored in a closet for about five years. I managed to sew one or two things, which is a generous way to describe the swatches of material that I managed to stick...

Each morning when I wake up and the weather outside permits I take my first cup of coffee for the morning right to the front porch, take a seat, and watch the sunrise in the eastern sky. Sounds idyllic. I live in rural central Missouri so that is a fairly accurate description. But idyllic isn't the only reason I choose to begin each day like this. For a long time I started each day planted in front of the morning news. Headlines. Politics. Commentary. Gossip. A little bit of weather. I was a consumer of all things breaking and exclusive. And I have been this way for a really long time. I recall following presidential elections in the 1980s when I was in elementary school. I knew the name of the man in the White House when I was in first grade. At 14, I walked into the local newspaper office and volunteered as an intern. Later, when my kids were old enough, I freelanced at my hometown newspaper, then moved on to a larger city paper. I knew issues, interviewed city and coun...

Why do you write?  Where do your ideas come from? How do you have the time? Those are the words people like to speak at writers. I have come to realize that many times the askers of these questions are writers who do not write, or people who really want to be writers, they just never quite find themselves doing the work for it. That’s not always the case, but I have learned to recognize the question for what it is. In fact, I use it to bring myself back to reality on those awful days when writer’s block is a real thing. Don’t worry. This isn’t some kind of “inside baseball” writer post for other authors. Actually it is a hat tip toward you, the reader. I used to think the answer to “why do I write” had a lot to do with me, with my needs. It does; there is convincing evidence that I would be nonfunctional if I wasn’t writing. The more I write, though, the more I realize the answer to this question has to do with the people for whom I write. I don’t write to live in...

It's Sunday. I'm writing, which means, distraction time. What better to distract one's writer self with than some more vintage campers. On with the cute...  During research for my current fiction series, this is one of the adorable Shasta models I researched.  Oh, and the curves on this one. It is tiny. It is adorable. I could see this as a writing office.  With this interior. Please, with this interior. The blue. That blue!  This one is a bit larger and I can see this as a nomadic forever home! More curves. More cute. I like the gray-scale, leaves more to the imagination.

Readers, I have a question for you. Do you typically choose the books you read based on the genre alone? So, here's why I'm asking. I have a soft mystery series (two books) in revisions right now. But like many of my other novels there is a bit of a hybrid nature to it. Many of my books straddle the line between cozy mystery and just plain ol' soft mystery. But these books have a bit more of a romance element to them. So, how would you describe the genre then? And does it really matter when you plan on a new purchase? At some point as an #indieauthor the book requires a specific genre description. When I go to check that box (or category) I'm not sure if this belongs under mystery or romance. But I have to wonder, does it really matter that much to the reader? Of course it matters in terms of the platform I pick to sell the novel. But for the reader themselves, I want to know how much the genre plays into their choices. I read a lot. For me, the genre doe...

I just figured out a title, and there isn't anything exceptional about it. I've settled on "Stetsons and Strangers." There we go. It's a title. And sometimes, it just has to be finished. My best friend's little boy made that statement once and it has stuck with me since. (Out of the mouth of babes?) It doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be done. And sometimes, done is better than perfect. Perfect is a demanding master. Perfect makes it difficult to a place where you can look back on your accomplishments, because nothing ever gets accomplished. So I have a title, and while it doesn't necessarily "pop" it is sufficient. On another note, I have reached a point in the revision of the novel that I can smile and think to myself: "You know, this isn't half bad." Perfection isn't all it's cracked up to be.

I am struggling to name the book I am currently revising. I wrote it int he last six months. There is even a second novel in this short series. And since I wrote this untitled novel? I have written a novella, two novels, and started on a third for another series. Yup, got titles for all of the books in the new series. But this one? I came up with the name of the series. (Middle South Mysteries.) I tried to be cute. "Cowboy Jake Me Away." That lasted about two minutes before I knew it sounded off. I even tried those gimpy online title generator websites. That was a bust. I got: "The Captured Roses." <no roses in the whole entire book> "Nothing in the Snake." <wut?> "The Lonely Spark." <I have nothing for this one> Right now I think I'm going with "Stetsons and Strange Corpses." Because why not? Only problem? I still have to figure out a title for Book 2.

I sort of think this is adorable. Incidental Nomads, to be released. Soon.

So, I have this little mystery series in the works. So far I'm one novella and two novels in with a third one on the way. (I feel like i just gave a pregnancy announcement. Which I absolutely would not be giving. Not even. So there. Hear that, Universe? NO. Just no.) Back to the new series. I'm calling it "Incidental Nomads" because the main cast find themselves living the nomadic life in their RVs. But don't think there isn't plenty of mystery to go around, but there is! (Hard as I tried that was the best I could do with that sentence.) So I thought I would share a few of the little gems I have found in my <ahem> dogged and time-consuming <ahem> research. It was RESEARCH, I tell ya! All in the name of research! Oh, those colors! And this!