I just posted a new blog on my joint blog, New Authors Fellowship. Come read it here!

New Authors Fellowship

Thanks!

Hello! To all of you who follow or have followed my blog in the past, I apologize for having been absent for so long.

This month marks a new phase in my family's life, as my husband and I made the decision to put our children in private school. As a side effect, I am hoping to have more time to work on things like writing and blogging, so please stay tuned for more!

Also, a fantastic development in my writing journey, I have been invited to join a group blog, the New Authors Fellowship, a blog featuring the as-yet unpublished authors of Christian Speculative fiction. I'll be posting there once a week or so, along with (I hope) resuming regular postings on this blog.

Please come check out the wonderful posts of my fellow Fellowshippers here! And if you want to read my first post on that blog, chronicling the mental gymnastics I went through to make the decision to put my kids in school, read School Daze.

Thanks folks! See you soon!

I just thought this was too cute not to share! Enjoy!

Greetings, Chums!


I am so thrilled today to be able to interview my lovely friend Shawna Kail Williams.


I had the privilege of meeting Shawna through a critique group, and have been able to enjoy watching as she has gone through the rigors of the publishing world to have her novel published. It is a pleasure and a privilege to have her on my blog today.



Let's get started!




Welcome, Shawna! Could you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Sure! I'm a Christian, a wife to a wonderful man and mom to three amazing kiddos. We live on a ranch in Mena, AR, and have an extended family of cattle, horses, goats, rabbits, cats, and dogs. I'm a writer (duh...), a homeschooling mom, and I design jewelry. I'm also interested in geology and history, and I love dogs and old houses.

When did you start writing? Why?

I started writing eight years ago after I had a really bizarre dream. The dream was like a story, and it came in "scenes," if you will, with me sometimes observing and sometimes as one of the characters (that's how I've come to think of the people in this dream). The whole thing made so much sense that I found myself thinking about it, all of the time, for about six months as I tried to fill in the periods between "scenes". It finally became so complicated that I had to start writing it out. It eventually turned into a very long and horrible book that sat as a file in my computer for a few years. Every so often I'd get the urge to revise it and attempt to make it better, and while doing that I'd think, "Maybe I'll try to get it published," but then I'd chicken out. This went on for six years, and then two years ago I decided to get serious. I started with books about writing, and then critique groups (Youch!), more books, more critiques. Finally, I started submitting short stories and did pretty well with the few I wrote, getting published fairly quick. This gave me the encouragement to keep after the book.

In essence, that dream is now two books. The first, No Other, has just released, and In All Things comes out in November of this year.

While my writing started because of that dream, I now have a head full of ideas. I also have a third book, not related to the dream, which will be published in December of this year. It's called Orphaned Hearts.

No Other is your newest release. Can you give us a glimpse into the book?

Absolutely!
No Other is a 20th Century Historical, Inspirational Romance. It’s set in a coastal Texas town during 1947, a couple of years after WWII. I really enjoyed writing a story set in this time period because, instead of focusing on how the nation recovered in broad terms, I was able to focus on how individuals set about recovering emotionally from such an event.


Jakob is trying to resume life and deal with his anger over the events of the past five years. His parents are German immigrants who were interned at a camp known as Crystal City during the war. As an American born child he feels betrayed and angry, not just at his communit

To all you Mommies and Mommies-to-Be out there, this is for you!

I couldn't find the video for this one, although I know it exists because I've seen it, but here's a fun Mother's Day story:

A man came home from work and found his three children outside, all still in their pajamas, playing in the mud with empty food boxes and wrappers strewn all around. The front door was open, as was the door to his wife's car, and there was no sign of the dog.

Proceeding into the entry, he found an even bigger mess. A lamp had been knocked over and the throw rug was wadded up in one corner.

In the front room, the TV was blaring a cartoon channel, the family room was strewn with toys and various articles of clothing.

In the kitchen, dishes filled the sink, breakfast food was spilled on the counter, the fridge was open wide, dog food littered the floor, a broken glass lay under the table, and a small pile of sand was spread by the back door.

He quickly headed up the stairs, stepping over toys and more piles of clothes, looking for his wife. He worried she might be ill, or something serious had happened. He was met with a small trickle of water as it made its way out the bathroom door.

As he peered inside he found wet towels, more toys, and scummy soap all over the floor. Miles of toilet paper lay in a heap and toothpaste had been smeared on the mirror and walls.

Rushing to the bedroom, he found his wife curled up in bed, still wearing her pajamas, reading a novel. She looked up at him, smiled, and asked how his day went.

Bewildered, he asked, "What happened here today?"

She smiled again and asked, "You know every day when you come home from work and ask what in the world I did all day?"

"Yes," came his incredulous reply.

"Well, today I didn't do it."