Tag: Misty Dreams

  • Angels on the Ceiling

    A Christmas Bonus Excerpt from my novel Misty Dreams, Chapter 4. šŸŽ„āœØ Manhattan, Christmas Eve Richard Kelly had never been a believer. At least, not since he was five years old and still believed Santa Claus was a kindhearted old man from the North Pole who traveled the world bringing gifts to children. Angels, to…

  • WRITING LIFE: Excerpt

    WRITING LIFE: Excerpt

    I’m excited to share another excerpt of my work-in-progress, the Misty Dreams prequel. This scene is written from the perspective of twelve- and thirteen-year-old Richard and Tony. I hope you enjoy this glimpse into their world! Shards of golden light from the low-hanging sun burst between the tall buildings, casting a warm orange glow over…

  • Writing Life: An Excerpt From the Current Draft of ā€œFinding Homeā€ ā€“ The Prequel to ‘Misty Dreams’

    This excerpt is an unedited draft and may contain errors, inconsistencies, or changes from the final version. It is shared for early insight and enjoyment only. Thank you for reading! ā€œAre you okay?ā€ Max asked the boy hunched on the park bench. The kid couldnā€™t be more than twelve or thirteen. One sleeve of his…

  • Confessions of a late bloomer

    This article was first published in the online literary magazine Women Writers, Womenā€™s Books (booksbywomen.org) My name is Josephine Strand and Iā€™m the author of my first published romance novel, Misty Dreams, released in April 2021. Iā€™m what is known as a literary late bloomer. Three years ago, I was a soon-to-be novelist past the…

  • Finding inspiration in the simple things

    About a year ago I posted about my own experience finding inspiration in the places I visit: Have travel, Will write. That was at the height of the pandemic, when traveling was still a distant vision. But by this spring, my wanderlust was suffering severe withdrawal symptoms. One trip to Italy last September hardly qualified…

  • Tackling the second novel. From climbing a hill to scaling a mountain.

    Writing a book is hard work. I didnā€™t realize how hard until I started writing my second one. Writing my first book was fairly easy ā€“ like walking up a steep hill and slipping and falling a few times along the way. But that was all right, because no one was looking. I didnā€™t nurture…

  • My author interview on March 19, 2022, courtesy of author Jill Piscitello

    https://jillpiscitello.com/ INTERVIEW: What was the inspiration behind your latest release?  The idea for the story came from a series I wrote in my late twenties. In between caring for my daughter and helping my husband in his business, I wrote several novellas set in a vacation resort on a tropical island. It was superficial, frivolous…

  • An Unexpected Visitor

    Taking a page from an article I read on The Writer blog: Resurrect your darlings: How to recycle deleted material from your manuscript, I decided to ā€˜resurrectā€™ some of my deleted material from the original MISTY DREAMS draft and post it here. This is the second in the series. For those who have read the…

  • A Home For Misty

    This monthā€™s post is a piece I deleted from the first draft of my book Misty Dreams. For those of you who have read my book and have heard my story of how the first draft turned out to be a massive 360,000 words, this is one of the many scenes I regretfully had to…

  • Christmas in July

    Okay, this title has nothing to do with this article, but I couldnā€™t resist using it, even though itā€™s August. Every time I hear this expression Iā€™m reminded of my Christmases in South Africa, where the seasons were topsy-turvy and a ā€˜white Christmasā€™ was some ridiculous idealistic illusion we compensated for by ā€˜dressingā€™ the branches…