All Categories - AUTHOR MICHELLE LIBBY SASSY, ROMANTIC ADVENTURES

AUTHOR MICHELLE LIBBY SASSY, ROMANTIC ADVENTURES

A hurricane in the Upstate of South Carolina

12/2/2024

Getting my ducks in a row after the storm.

Well, this has been an interesting month at my house. On Friday, September 27, Hurricane Helene blew through the upstate of South Carolina. Being a minimum of 4 hours away from the coast, means that we don't have hurricanes and people here haven't had to deal with anything like that before.
The storm also continued up to the mountains of Asheville, North Carolina, where our kids live. The month has been full of hurry up and wait. Wait for power to return, wait for internet access, wait to hear from the kids, get water to the kids, stock up on supplies, do laundry. Everything was made difficult because of the trees laying across wires, roads being blocked by trees and downed powerlines.
In the middle of the craziness, my husband and I abandoned ship to Jacksonville, Florida, where we picked up the Carnival Elation for a 5-day cruise. We had planned this during the summer, so we had no way to know that we would be leaving our house with no power or internet.
After eight days, the power returned. The internet did not. We had water the whole time, since we are on public water and we never had a boil order, thankfully. This was good for us and for our kids, who here in mid-October are just getting water back. They can only use the water to flush toilets, so they come here for showers and to wash their clothes. It's a slow process, but at least it's progress and we still have our homes and our lives.
Our internet came back on last night, Oct. 15th. High speed internet is a blessing. I feel like I have no more excuses not to get work done.
On a cruise note, the trip was excellent. Who doesn't love it when people make your bed and cook for you. We also won our 24-carat gold, plastic ship on a stick for trivia. It's a goal every cruise to bring home the prize. We also won a first loser medal for a different trivia game. The Bahamas was warm and welcoming. We toured forts, shopped and swam in the crystal blue waters. I'm looking forward to the next cruise already, even if it hasn't been booked, yet.
Hey, what are you reading?

August is back in school in the South

10/16/2024

I love back to school time. I love the excitement that swirls around starting something new. I'm attempting to bring that energy to my writing this month. Here in the South, school starts at the beginning of August. And, since I'm not traveling this month, I only need to spend some time away from the pool and away from watching the Olympics.
Are you watching the Olympics? Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one watching, but I know my mom was watching because I was with her at camp, so she had to watch.
There have been so many exciting finishes and unexpected events at this year's Olympics that an author would be hard-pressed to write something like that. Summer can be so distracting. In Maine, we waited for winter to come so we could hold up in the house and write our little hearts out, but down here in the South, it's not the same. Winter in the South is delightful. My new friends will tell you that it's freezing, but I have yet to pull out my heavy winter coat. But, let's not think about winter...go spend some time outside, bring a book and I'll spend a little time inside writing my next book.

July is for...traveling

8/6/2024

Summer is in full swing and for me that means trips to Maine. I spent weeks with my mom at camp to help get things get up, then I flew home. I was home for a few weeks and then my husband and I drove up to Maine in the motorhome. We made a stop to visit his mom and our friends. We saw a great local Maine band, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, and played cards.
Now, I've arrived at camp and will be here for a week before heading back to South Carolina.
I miss my pool when I'm away and I miss the air conditioning, a necessity in the south, and this summer, up north, too.
I attended an online conference called RSJ, where I learned about a few things and met some new others. I was on a panel for romantic suspense authors. I panicked slightly, since I've never considered myself a suspense writer, but there is always some action or suspense lite in my novels. So, I embraced the label and will consider this when writing in the future.
Travel has preempted writing it seems. I haven't made a lot of forward progress, but I'm getting ready to do a challenge with myself to finish my cozy mystery and edit a book. So much to do...
My novel, Long Arm of the Law will be released on Kindle and in paperback in August. It's a reunion story about high school sweethearts who drifted apart after she moved north to save the world and the story also includes a fabulous older gentleman as comic relief.

June is awesome in the South

7/27/2024

I was looking forward to going to Maine to the annual Maine Romance Writers retreat. I wasn’t sure who was going to be there. I’d lost the list of speakers, but the main thing was to see my writer friends in person. Last year, I hurt my knee and had to stay home. The last time I saw them was in 2018. I missed getting together with other writers to share stories, ideas and motivation.

My husband and I drove to Maine in our RV. Two and a half days up and the same back. While I attended the retreat my husband stayed in the RV and visited with his mom.

The speakers we had were Jennifer Probst, Jamie Schmidt and Ellen Joy. All of them are successful authors in their own right. I learned so much from them. The biggest takeaway was to have a newsletter. I know I keep talking about starting one. These successful authors said that they have very robust newsletters. I don’t know how exciting mine will be, but I’ll add it to my calendar. Maybe I’ll send it every two weeks. My life’s not that exciting for you to hear from me more than that.

I’m back in South Carolina and now I’m helping with the election polls. I have never done anything like this before. I had to take training, two times, once for Election Day and the other for Early Voting, which I also signed up to help with. After those two classes, I have no idea how anyone could cheat in a South Carolina election…definitely not Pickens County.

There are so many checks and balances on every piece of paper that passes through a polling area that the whole center would have to be crooked in order to cheat.

Early voting has been slow, so I plotted out a new book and will continue to work on my cozy mystery, now that I know what’s going to happen.

The last thing I’ll mention is that I’m involved in a red hat challenge for the military. It’s a nation-wide challenge to see who can make the most red hats to put into care packages for deployed service members. I’ve been cranking them out. There’s only a week left to produce, so I’m trying to do a little bit of everything, writing, crocheting and planning three more books in my weather series.

June Updates: Early voting is the way to go. No lines, no waiting in most locations. The red hat challenge is complete and my family made 29 hats and two scarves. Thanks to Josh and Anne for helping with that fun and worthwhile project.

Early voting has been great for catching up on projects. Our precinct wasn't super busy, so I crocheted a few items as well as added words to the cozy mystery.

I head to camp in Maine at the end of June with my mom. It should be interesting since camp had a huge makeover this winter. I'll be sure to share some pictures.

On the road again

6/9/2024

This past week my husband and I finally made it to the South Carolina National Park. That's Congaree National Park, if you were wondering. It's a swamp. The park creators did a good job making the elevated boardwalk trail into a learning experience, but in the end, it was a swamp, and we didn't see any alligators. We hiked, picked up our magnet and patch and headed for our campsite at Fort Jackson.
It was our first trip since last August when we took my dad's ashes to Maine. We felt a little rusty, and I realized something major. It's so much easier when you live in the RV you're traveling in. You don't have to worry if you brought enough clothing or if you have paper plates. When we lived in the motorhome fulltime, we had those things because it was the only place we kept our goods. Now that we have a house, it's harder to remember what's in the house and what's in the RV. Yay! We had a can opening in the RV. Shoot, we should have brought more shorts. (Who knew it was going to be 84 degrees). We were just far enough out of the mountains of the upstate to enjoy the warmer temperatures.
It was exciting to be traveling again, but also nice when we arrived home and I had a nice desk to write at. I'm working on my story and figuring out new things about the plot every day. I hope that means that when you read it, it will be exciting for you to find out what's happening.
The pool made it to 67 degrees while we were away, but alas it is back in the fifties. When it hits 70 degrees, I'll go in. At least that's what I'm telling the fam.
I hope your spring is wrapping up and Mother Nature chills. I still feel bad for my Maine friends who were without power for days. But, then they got to witness the totality of the Solar Eclipse, so there are trade offs for living in the north.

March roared in like a lion

4/9/2024

I made this my home screen. I love the colors and of course lighthouses. This is in the Bahamas.

February is over already? Geez. I've been busy as usual, but February is the Write Away 30K challenge for the New Jersey Romance Writers and I have to be involved. We earn a little pin when we reach our goal, and believe me, that little pin is motivating. I reached my goal plus a little extra with a combination of editing and writing on my new project.
My novel "Long Arm of the Law" is being released on Kindle Vella this month. It's a reunited story of a police officer and his do-go high school sweetheart as they both try to make their way in the world and take care of the heroine's grandfather. So far, there are 19 episodes released. If you don't know Kindle Vella, now is a good time to check it out. The first ten episodes of every book will be free. You can start reading it here.
As far as traveling, I went on a Carnival Cruise out of Charleston, SC, with my two best girlfriends. It was both their first cruises. It went mostly well and we had a fun time laughing and enjoying each other's company. We stopped off at the Bahamas to admire the water (which was very salty) and to soak up some warm sun.
Now that I've returned to the real world, It's time to get back to writing and editing and submitting. I think submitting needs to be my next goal.
I hope you're having a decent spring. Bring on the warmer weather.

It's the most wonderful time of the year

1/22/2024

Advertising is never lost on me. The title of this post is supposed to mean Christmas, but I still see the dad rolling on a cart in Staples when school is back in session. LOL.

We are getting in the spirit of thing at our new house. We have more decorations than we need, and we've kept some questionable ones that won't make it another year. My husband has decided that the lights we've had for twenty years are no longer making the cut. The outside lights we've had for five or six years are also leaving after this year.

I've been volunteering at the community club with the tree lighting festival and the Christmas parade. The only Christmas parade I've ever been to was in Ellsworth, Maine. I remember a group of women, possibly nurses who did a dance to a Christmas song and featured folding chairs. It was clever and amusing. Considering it was twenty years ago, nice job ladies.

In the writing world, I finished my book that I wrote for an editor, but she passed on it on the day that I finished my first draft. Talk about timing. Now, I'm in editing mode. I'm working on both that book and one that I wrote a bunch of years ago and need to polish it up for publication. You have that to look forward to in 2024. After that, I still have two more of the middle grade books I wrote to edit. I'm sensing a theme.

If you haven't already read my short Christmas story. You can find it here. It's great for when you're standing in line at the checkout or the return line at Walmart.

I wish all the best for you this holiday season. We all deserve a little peace and joy.

It's Turkey Time

12/1/2023

It's fall in the south...they'd probably tell you that it's winter, since it's 43 degrees at noon. At the end of October, it was eighty degrees. Today, not so much.

We are putting in a cement pond (swimming pool) right now. They're out there digging a big hole behind our house. It's exciting and terrifying. Our friends who have a pool make keeping it clean look easy, so hopefully we'll be successful too. We don't think they'll put water in it until it is a consistent 65 degrees or warmer. My thought to have a polar dip on January 1, will have to wait until next year.

I've been writing away on my fiction book. I published a New Hampshire picture book this month and released my "7 Steps to Overcoming Anxiety" book and "Annie Get Your Gun" is available in paperback or on Kindle or in Kindle Unlimited. So many options.

There's more editing and creating to be done, which I'll dive into this month. I'm not doing NaNo, which is National Novel Writing Month, where writers write 50,000 words in the month of November. I will continue to output 500 words or more a day until I've finished this novel.

I actually began my newsletter, but it's still sitting on my computer half finished. I'm not sure which is more important, showing up in your inbox or finishing the next book for you to read. I'll let you decide.

November 01st, 2023

11/1/2023

The glamourous life of being an author

Hello friends,
Ya'll should know how exciting it is to be an author. I love when I hear someone read my book or I see someone reading in Kindle Unlimited. Good reviews are the life blood of an author's career. The more positive reviews, the more Amazon will show the book to more people.

I love the meme to the side. I just rewatched the movie. I love to be in the pirate universe. I have three books in a trilogy of middle grade pirate adventures. They're completed and ready for me to do something with them. I'm getting more excited about sharing these with the world.

As far as projects I have in pipes, Annie Get Your Gun is now out in paperback and kindle versions. Check out the cover done by Covers by Karen.

Emptynest Decluttering is out in paperback and on kindle. Next, I'll be putting my book about beating anxiety out this month. It will be a small, pocket-sized paperback. All three of those books are still on Kindle Vella, if that's your mode of reading.

I'm working on a picture book about New Hampshire and a few other activity books.

Personally, I've started working at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine as a standardized patient. I did the same thing back in Maine for a school there. It's acting and helping future doctors learn bedside manner. It's part time, but it gets me out of the house and meeting new people. Speaking of that, I have met new people through the crochet and sewing groups I am now a part of. I'm getting old sewing projects done and crocheting hats and scarves for school children in the area.

Thank you for all of your support.

And just like that, we're untheathered

10/4/2023

Hello friends,
It's been a long two months. August escaped my grasp and boom, were in September. I'd been taking care of my dad for the last seven months multiple times a day. So, when he passed in mid-July, my life was thrown into a tizzy. We had a service for him here in South Carolina and then another one in Maine, his final resting place. My husband, son and I spent a month traveling up the east coast for most of August. We saw friends in Maine, saw relatives and played at camp. (In Maine, camp is another word for house on the lake. Sometimes there's no running water, but in our case we have all the amenities of home, except a dishwasher.)
When we arrived back in South Carolina, it was nice to be home, but I have the itch to travel again after one week.
I have gotten back into writing after a brief hiatus to take care of Mom and Dad. I'm working on the project I mentioned a few months ago, but haven't said exactly what it is. I've started chapter 4.
I'm also attempting to organize my office, which is a lovely catch all for my projects. I might get to work on those later, but right now I have a plan to write and publish more. Annie Get Your Gun is completely up on Kindle Vella. Since it has been a month, I can now release it as a full paperback and kindle novel. I'm working on that presently. My book on anxiety is also heading to the Amazon store near you. That will be released as a kindle book and possibly a paperback, but it will be tiny, like the one about Emptynest Decluttering.
My second Civil War activity book will be released this week, hopefully. It's a word search and number search book. It follows the cryptogram book I created two months ago.
We're trying to get to know our new community. We stopped by the local library and visited an open house at the community center. Later watch for pictures from the balloon festival and the Farm Show. Those are two separate events we'll attend over Labor Day weekend. I hope you're getting out there to enjoy the last gasps of summer for some of you and the breathable weather for those in the south.