A Gold Mine of Information

Ned McNeil wanted to know about Marvie and she found the person who was a gold mine of information! Excerpt from Murder By Moonlight. It was one thing to say I wasn’t interested, but it was another to actually mean it. All that trouble at the deserted farm had happened a long time ago. Mrs. […]

Tea and Cake

A frog and a toad have inspired generations of children and adults.  Although they existed only on the pages of books by Arnold Lobel, these small amphibians taught real life lessons. Frog and Toad were friends and never a day went by that one didn’t go visit the other and, over a piece of cake […]

Not Just the Facts

Remember the old black and white TV series, Dragnet, and the phrase, “Just the facts, Ma’am.”  This unflappable team of Jack Webb and Harry Morgan spent a whole thirty minutes ferreting out the bad guys and getting to the facts of the case. But, fiction writers can have fun fiddlin’ with the facts. In writing […]

The Bear Hunt

The Bear Hunt

Elizabeth pulled an apple cake from the oven and set it on the table. It was beautiful and it made the whole house smell good. She glanced out her kitchen window at the cloudy spring day and did a double take.  A bear! A bear was waddling quickly into the woods with two small cubs […]

Tom the Terrible

Tough Tom the Barn Cat             Tough Tom was a barn cat. He really didn’t start out to be a barn cat. And, the Day family who lived on the farm didn’t think they needed a cat, but there he was. It all began on a cold, windy, sleety winter day. When Chris went to […]

I Heard a Little Voice

I Heard a Little Voice

I talk to the characters in my books. They have personalities and minds of their own. Sometimes, it’s a struggle to decide which would fit best in the story I’m writing–my thoughts or my character’s. Usually, my character is right. Me: Ned, I don’t believe you would go off hunting for an Indian message tree […]