Are you like me? Are you sometimes hungry to read something wonderful, but hesitate to start something new because it’s almost bedtime? You know if you start reading a  novel you might be tempted to stay up late and you really need to be bright-eyed the next day. Well, here’s a handy solution to keep in the digital reader on your nightstand.

Fifteen terrific and perfectly bedtime-sized stories from authors vetted by one of the web’s most notoriously particular and pleasantly discerning review sites. The 2016 Immerse Or Die Anthology: ALL THESE SHINY WORLDS is available free on Amazon.  Don’t hesitate. Get it right away.

And yes, I do have a story in it. Happy reading and lovely dreams!

Today I’m being interviewed on the fabulous blog, Get Lost in a story. Along with the interview you can read an excerpt from my new release, The Blue Breeze, and get a preview of an upcoming release. If you leave a comment , you will also be entered in a drawing for a $20 Amazon gift certificate. So if you’ve got a minute today, please come on over to http://getlostinastory.blogspot.com/search/label/Regina%20Richards

Hope to see you there!

note: the drawing has ended, but you can still visit the link to read excerpts from my new and upcoming releases.

Stanford University is doing a survey to track publishing trends for indie, house, and hybrid authors. That’s awesome.

Less awesome is the fact that they are (in ignorance rather than malice) still using the term “traditional” to describe house publishing.

If you are invited to complete this survey and feel so inclined, please consider politely reminding Stanford in the comments section that the term traditional is no longer preferred.

Indie and hybrid authors are no longer “non-traditional”. We are mainstream.

House publishers are no longer the standard. They are another option and a great one for many authors. But let’s use terms that properly describe and afford equal dignity to all – indie, house, and hybrid. Thanks. 🙂

Today while I was out shopping a little girl of about three and her mother passed me in the store. The little girl pointed at me and I waited patiently for the usual “why is that lady so big?”

It never came.

Instead she said wistfully, “That lady is wearing a dress. Dresses are pretty. I want to wear a dress. Why can’t I wear a dress? I like dresses.”

The child had on a t-shirt and leggings. Her mother wore the current uniform of our society, jeans and a t-shirt.

We passed each other several times as we shopped and each time the child eyed my ankle-length skirt and sweater set, and repeated her wish for dresses.

I hope Santa’s elves were taking notes and on Christmas morning she wakes to loads of pretty dresses under her tree.

Life’s been happening and I’ve been a little overwhelmed by it. The most recent knock was a virus that ate the five novels I’ve been working on. Yep, they were supposedly stored safely in the cloud. It got them anyway.

I’m grieving that and dealing with family members with health issues. So this girl’s gone and I’m not sure when, or if, I’ll return. But before I go, I want to thank all of you who have followed this blog for your loyalty and your patience. You’re awesome!

I wish you a terrific finish to 2014 and a New Year full of Great Joy and Success!

Wow! That went by fast. But it was a great summer.

The kids were home. That always makes me happy. Too happy maybe, since I wasn’t getting much done with all the wonderful distractions in the house. So I rented a tiny offsite office for two months. It was cheaper than office-ing at Starbucks (those drinks are way too tempting and can get expensive) and there were no calories to regret at the end of the writing day. I’m back home now, but I may do the same again next summer if the kids come home. Which I hope they will.

I also spent a week this summer on a writing retreat where I learned a lot about my creative self. One of the biggest lessons I learned is that I can be creative more hours a day IF I build in longish breaks for moderate exercise. For me, exercise not only prevents the tight hamstrings and sore fingers that haunt writers, it also allows the brain some down time and prevents burnout so that I don’t end up zombie-staring at the keyboard. Taking exercise breaks means I can sustain the creative process longer.

This summer Steve and I also celebrated our 26th wedding anniversary. On a blisteringly hot day we went to the ski shop to rig ourselves out for the snow vacation we’re planning this winter. Who’d have thought trying on parkas in 100+ degree weather could be such fun. Thanks for so many happy years, Sweetie. Laughing and cuddling through life with you is a blast.

So all in all it’s been a really good summer. But the kids are back at college now. Boots and sweaters are back on the store shelves and today the heat finally broke. We even got a little rain – Texas’s version of manna from heaven. I’ve thrown open the windows and I’ve been cleaning house and rearranging furniture all day. I may even go outside and wash the summer dust from the windows.

So Goodbye Summer. Welcome Autumn!

I’m on pins and needles.

In my May post I listed all the things that were happening in May and said that when I got past those events (which were wonderful!) I’d have the rest of the summer to write and sip mint tea on the porch. Well…

It’s summer. I haven’t written in a week. There’s been no mint tea on the porch. As usual I’m running around putting out various domestic fires (nothing earth shaking but all important to someone in the moment) and what I need to do for me is getting lost.

So my choices are: continue to eat flies all day for the rest of the summer hoping I can eat my frog in autumn when kids return to school…OR BUG OUT! (pun intended).

Banking on “getting it all out of the way” in May so I’d be free to write this summer didn’t work. The spring stuff was simply replaced by new summer stuff. If I wait for the summer stuff to end and the autumn peace to arrive, the summer stuff may simply be replaced by new autumn stuff. Because that’s the way life works. Mine anyway.

Here you may be thinking: just grow a spine and say NO! to all the distractions. But here’s the thing. The word no comes easy as pie for me to everyone except my husband and children. I so love saying yes to them! I just can’t help myself. So I need to be someplace where, for a few hours a day, the only person present to say yes to is myself.

That’s why I’m on pins and needles. This morning I have an appointment I hope will change the course of my summer – maybe even my life. Sounds dramatic, doesn’t it?

At my husband’s urging, I have an appointment with a real estate agent who I hope is going to locate an inexpensive office for me to work in – far away from all the wonderful yet derailing distractions of my home. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Never discuss religion or politics with your college-age children or there will be tears. Lots and lots of tears. And they will all be yours.

The first four months of 2014 have flown by and May seems set to do the same.

I’ll be attending the Don Maass and Les Edgerton workshops, DFWcon, my eldest son’s college graduation (yay!), celebrating several birthdays, moving the youngest out of her dorm and back home for the summer, sending her off to study in Germany, sending middle son off to Air Force ROTC Field Training, and that’s just the first half of the month. But it’s all happy stuff, so life is good.

In June DH and I are headed to Alabama for a few days and then the summer stretches before me full of lazy days of writing and sipping mint tea on the porch. At least that’s the plan. But my plans and real life don’t always parallel, so we’ll see.

Hope your May is Marvellous!!! And your summer is all you hope for!

As my mother and her siblings reached 40, they were fond of repeating the phrase “Life begins at 40”. It was from the title of a self-help book their parents (my grandparents) kept in the house while they were growing up.

My Uncle Charlie, one of the youngest of the seven siblings, was a great joker. Every time one of his brothers or sisters would say, “Life begins at 40”, he would laugh and say, “Yeah, and ends at 41”. The year Uncle Charlie turned forty-one he died of a heart attack.

He was much loved and is dearly missed.

As a child, I remember being struck by the fact that it was almost as if he’d incited his own death by repeating that phrase so often, even though it was just in jest. Perhaps for that reason, I’ve always paid attention to what I tell myself about myself and my life. I try to be careful not to put my attention on negatives, but to keep it focused to the best of my ability on positives.

And yet despite practicing this positive self talk since I was about ten years old, there are still times when I catch myself saying all the wrong things about myself to myself and I must correct course.

What about you? Is there self talk you do that could use a little editing?