My editor, whom I adore, is feeding me notes. These are only page one notes on “Free for All,” book 2 in the Lexi Fagan Mystery Series. It's why you must be strong of heart and have a will of iron to write. Not every page is this rich with notes but every note is important. As daunting as it seems, it’s also exciting to feel a draft become a book. Finger’s crossed, I will have a second draft to a copy editor to check my corrections and re-writes and then publish before Christ

When I was a kid growing up in Alaska, our only path to retail was the Sears/Roebuck catalog (which dates back to 1888). My sister and I would open the big book of stuff and circle the toys we wanted, tear out the pages and leave it on the coffee table for our mother to see. Or, we skipped that step and just shoving it at her when she got home from work. When we moved to California, I was a teen and the place to shop was Macy’s, the anchor store in every mall. It was expensiv