Leonard LightTales From A Writer’s Life I don’t do change well. I like stability and loyalty, avoid dysfunction and distraction. If I were a tree, I guess I’d be some kind of Japanese bonsai, slow-growing, evergreen. I’ve always dreamed of having a bonsai collection. They are lovely plants in many variations, but I prefer the ones that look like small juniper trees. The angled, stretched-out branches always look so peaceful. Having caught the tail end of the sixties, I suppose peace feels good to me. Or maybe I am just a stream that doesn’t care for rocks to disturb my glass-smooth serenity. But despite this love of tranquility, I found myself putting my house on the market not once but twice this year. The first time was a misery. It was February, and we’d just gotten the toilet paper out of the lawn from a vigorous, enthusiastic rolling that had been performed in our live oak trees. Unfortunately, it rained violently right after the fabulous papering job, and the tissue paper glued to the rough live oak bark like white mold. Sodden clumps stuck to the pebbled sidewalk, a papier mache that was impossible to remove. It looked as if…

Leonard LightTales From A Writer’s Life Christmas is a time for happy memories. I have a lot of memories from different Christmases, most of them wonderful. My grandmother loved all the holidays. She always wanted decorations out for every occasion. For Christmas, Mimi had little red velvet reindeer she’d put on her fireplace mantel. There would be a turkey for dinner, homemade chocolate chip cookies, and a chocolate chip cake. I’ve tried many times unsuccessfully to make the chocolate chip cake. My kids have encouraged me to try again. We think the secret may lie in the heaviness of the bundt pan, but I am not so sure. Maybe it was the hands that mixed the cake. Mine hasn’t come close, not yet. Mimi made beautiful Christmas ornaments; she must have made hundreds. Years after she’d made them, and even after a fire in my childhood home destroyed our collection of them, the family is still swamped with ornaments. They are jeweled and tasseled, well over forty years old now. She made them in her basement, which must have taken months. She also needlepointed eight chair cushions for her dining room table, a floral pattern with a beige background that…

I love lists. I am a list-maker, a list-keeper, a doodling scribe of anything on any surface. My kids have picked up a dinner napkin as we left a restaurant because I had jotted a few ideas down on the paper. Bless their hearts, they were afraid to leave behind one of Mom’s Big Ideas. Lists keep me organized, make me aware of how much I get done in a day or not done as life may have it. I also love bestseller lists, especially when one of my books or a friend’s book makes its way onto the hallowed spaces. Recently, my four-book series, The Morgan Men, was fortunate enough to make a few lists, one book being first on the eharlequin.com list, and another staying on same list for about eighteen days in various spots. Throw in a Waldenbooks/Borders list for three weeks in a row for my March book—culminating in the #2 spot in the third week!–and I began to ponder the scattered good fortune in the universe. (Remember, I am a student of listing—I try to figure out these random occurrences, whether or not I can find an answer being irrelevant). Greater minds than mine have…

I love writing. I feel fortunate that I get to make my living at putting words to paper. It means that I get to indulge my love of doing what I enjoyed when I was a child, which was read every single word I could get my hands on. Now I get to read wonderful works by other authors and friends, and sometimes I feel like I have a front-row seat to the ever-changing publishing world. I see a book make a bestseller list and I think, “Wow! I met that author!” Call me perpetually star-struck because I suppose I am. I root for everybody’s careers and the state of the publishing industry because this is my team, the team that allows me to stay at home and do what I love to do most: Write, read, be a mom, a wife, a good neighbor and friend. Click Here To Read More Visit FreshFiction.com to learn more about books and authors.