I love to bake. I love the fact that I can take a bunch of seemingly random ingredients and turn them into something tangible and delicious like a loaf of home made bread, brownies, a savory dinner or a pizza pie! A key to baking well is having and using the right tools. We just moved across the country and I'm happy to say that my new home has a fantastic place in it to have a baking station. I was unable to do that in my last kitchen and it was always a challenge. Now, with my baking station, I can whip things up quickly and easily on a whim if I want. Today, I found a recipe for "Gobs" aka "Whoopie Pies" and decided to make them while my boys studied in my home school. They turned out great!  My baking station, always at the ready, made quick and easy work out of baking up the wonderful treats. My favorite baking tools include my wonderful Kitchen Aid Artisan Stand Mixer, my Pampered Chef microplane, parchment paper, my vintage mixing bowls and my home made v...

It's been too long since I posted on the Total Writer, but we just moved across the country, so blogging had to take a back seat. However, I have thought of all my fellow writers, my writing students and others who read the blog, so know you were not forgotten! Just yesterday in the mail, I received copies of my latest articles published by Regular Baptist Press . I've been a regular writer for RBP for over 25 years and have thoroughly enjoyed the process. It never fails, no matter how many times I see one of my articles published, I get a big smile on my face. It makes my day. My two latest: Writing articles is a great way to stay fresh, get published, keep your name out there in front of potential readers and stay in practice as a writer between major projects. If you haven't before, I strongly encourage you to write articles. Search out different publications which might be looking for writers and start submitting your work. You might just be surprised at the ...

Revision is a necessary tool for successful writing. We write, we edit, we revise. Then, we revise again. And again. And again. Sometimes, our content needs less revision than our title, however. This was the case with my new e-book, Writing for Publication .  I wrote, edited, revised, had an outside editor look at it, revised again, rewrote part of it and updated other parts. After all that was done, I created a title page, using my own photography as I always do on my e-books, and uploaded the project to Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing . I waited a couple of days, then did a search for my e-book. Clicking through to page five in the list of books on writing, mine simply did not show up. I gave it another day. Nothing. My e-book still did not show up in any searches! So, I had to rethink my project and revise once again.  This time, revision involved my title and book cover. I spent a little time searching for writing e-books and made notes on what was showing up in sea...