Last year, I stumbled upon an Instagram challenge that takes place monthly. 

#WriterFriendsChallenge

I saw someone I follow posting daily for it, but I don't remember who it was. (Sorry, if it was you.) I'm always looking for some kind of content to do for my Instagram, a way to promote my books or current projects without being too salesy or pushy, and I definitely enjoy connecting with other writers.

June was the first month I joined in on the challenge. Since then, I've participated every month and will continued to do so as long as the challenge keeps on going.

I learned a few things along the way:

1. You do not have to participate every single day. If a prompt stumps you, doesn't work with your books/projects, or you're just too busy, you can skip it. You can skip several. It's okay.

2. When you post, add the hashtag #WriterFriendsChallenge to be discoverable, but also click "Tag a Person" and tag the challenge's account @writer.friends.challenge. This is additional discoverability.

3. When you look for people posting, don't just go to the #WriterFriendsChallenge. Also go to the account @writer.friends.challenge and click on the tag symbol with the outline of a person. (Tip: It's directly above the posts, to the right. You'll see one other option that's 9 stacked squares. Tags is to the right of those 9 stacked squares.) When you go there, you'll find the other people who tagged the account in their post. This is the best way to find the most current posts since the hashtags do not give you the option to see recent posts as they used to, so you'll see posts for months and years past all mixed up. Not ideal when you want to see new posts.

4. Just like with a blog hop, the thing to do is to like the posts and follow the participants.

5. But you gotta build relationships. Liking and following is nice, but you have to do more than that to build a connection. Comment on posts and reply back to comments that you get. Sometimes, if you don't have anything to add, a simple, "Thank you!" is enough.

6. Just like with all challenges and relationships, it takes time. So, the first few months, I didn't have as much engagement. I also think that the challenge was a bit smaller then. It has grown since I started to participate, because the more writers who join it, even more writers are able to find out about it. Finally in October, I started to get real, genuine engagement on my posts from people who sound truly interested in my current projects. That was a HUGE change. It shocked me and equally delighted me.

7. Have fun with it.

January 2025 Prompts:

These were the prompts for the last four months of 2024:

Some of my recent favorite posts:

Clickable if you’d like to read the captions.

BEST OF WRITE WITH FEY 2024

Works-in-Progress:

Take a Peek into My Work-in-Progress: Find Ivy

Take a Peek into My Enemies-with-Benefits Story

Writer's Life:

My Writing and Publishing Roadmap

What Rejections Still Hurt?

Learning to Read was a Struggle

Blogging:

My Blog's Top 13 Posts of All Time

Chrys' Top 13 Blog Post Picks

Movie Love:

Movie Lists Fun (Childhood Favorites, Comfort Movies, All-Time Favs)

How Did the Movie Pitch Black Inspire me?

How Did the Movie UltraViolet Inspire Me?

How Did the Movie Matrix: Reloaded Inspire Me?

How Did the Movie Van Helsing Inspire Me?

How Did the Movie Gothika Inspire Me?

Author Life:

This Promo Thing Is Crap

Desperate Is as Desperate Does

The "Gift" That Keeps on Giving

It's Challenging, Don’t You Think?

Listen. I'm Saying It Again.

Random:

Let's Talk Taylor Swift

The Disaster Curse is now FREE FOREVER!

Space is Hard / Writers on the Moon

Grief Work & Healing Journey:

D - Donating

E - Epistle (Letter from Heaven)

F - Facebook Posts

G - Grief Share

H - Haiku Poetry

I - Imari

J - Job (New Job)

K - Kitchen Time

L - Ladybug Rocks #LadyBugRocksFL

M - Miracle Moments

N - Nature

O - Our Story (Keepsake Journal)

P - Playlist + Photo Collages

Q - Quiet (Reading) Time

R - Removing and Redecorating

S - Sammy the Teddy Bear

T - Tauren Wells "Joy in the Morning"

U - Use + YOU

V - Videos of Wildlife

W - Wellness Journal

X - X Out Certain Thoughts

Y - Yahtzee

Z - Zoo Trip

Looking Toward to 2025:

I have two post ideas to share in January, but as far as any other blogging plans for 2025...I don't really have any. I won't even be participating in the April Blogging from A to Z Challenge. It seems that I do it two years in a row and then don't participate for a few years, so I guess I'm on par.

For 2024, I didn't have a plan come January, but I ended up getting ideas for posts, as you can see with the lists above.

For 2025, my 13th year of blogging, I don't know what I'll be doing here.

I still have one feature idea that I've been mulling over for a couple of years now. This feature wouldn't be for writers/authors. They'd be more for girls/women. It'd be memoir style like Caitlin Moran’s How to be a Woman. So that means there will be stories about my childhood and growing up as the youngest sister. I mean, I have an essay about shaving, so yeah. HAHA. There's also stories about living without electricity and without a bed, etc. I'm still not sure if I'll do this, but I don't know what else I'll do with this content. Once, I thought I'd publish a memoir, but I don't want to do that anymore. My blog is the only other place I can think of sharing these essays. I'll continued to mull it over.

To get reminders about my posts directly in your inbox, you can subscribe here.

Also, please consider subscribing to my museletter. I share the blog posts for the previous month there, but you'll also get writing/author updates, exclusive content about works-in-progress, and more.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

I'm sharing a few posts for Ghost of Death and Witch of Death, the final stories I promoted this year in an effort to promote my published work that was an epic failure.

Yup, it's the broken record again.

How pathetic this made me feel makes me not want to promote my work on social media ever again. Especially when trying to get interest in works-in-progress is also an epic failure. It's a huge letdown how these platforms are run and how the algorithms ruin everything. I know so many authors/writers who no longer want anything to do with Instagram because of how their posts get buried or are never shown to our followers.

Anyway, the graphics below are clickable if you want to see the captions on Instagram.

This year, I participated in a lot of monthly Instagram challenges with daily prompts. It was a tactic I was trying to see if it'd help my engagement on Instagram. I didn't post every day in these challenges, although I certainly tried in the beginning until...

I noticed that my engagement wasn't much different, even when I did two challenges in the month of August (with some posts tying together both challenges). At that point, I started to just do the prompts I thought looked like fun, especially if they were about our characters or our stories.

I'm going to save those posts about my characters and works-in-progress for another time, maybe when I'm closer to publishing those stories *insert hysterical laughter here*, but here are some of the posts that I did that I really liked.

They are all hyperlinked if you'd like to read the captions on Instagram. 😊

Last month, I shared a few of my favorite posts for Hurricane Crimes, Seismic Crimes, and Tsunami Crimes from my failed promo efforts in this post: Desperate Is as Desperate Does.

The annoyance I have for my failed promo efforts from this year is the "gift" that keeps on giving.

Now, I am sharing a few posts for Flaming Crimes, Frozen Crimes, and A Fighting Chance. They are clickable if you want to see the captions on Instagram.

In my Thursday 13 blog post titled Movie Lists Fun (Childhood Favorites, Comfort Movies, All-Time Favs), I shared lists of movies, including my all-time favorite movies. Next to several of those movie titles there had been an asterisk, indicating that those films had inspired/influenced me as a writer. 

The Movies:

Pitch Black 

UltraViolet

Matrix: Reloaded

Van Helsing

Gothika

The FINAL movie spotlight is for...

Gothika

How did it inspire me?

Every single moment Miranda (Halle Berry) is locked up in the psychiatric hospital.

In one scene of Gothika, Halle's character has a possessed moment. Well, my character experiences something kind of similar...but not. LOL

I'm not sure what else to say about this movie except that I simply love it.

The Plan:

Last year, I had the idea to promote one of my published stories each month this year while offering the eBook on sale for 99 cents. I'd create pretty and cute graphics with some of the best quotes from my stories to post on Instagram and Facebook. I'd even planned to create a couple of reels, too.

(I love it when authors I follow do this. There's been many cases when I've added a book to my TBR list or bought it because I continued to see their posts and enjoy the teasers they shared. My hope was to generate the same outcome.)

The Plan Ruined:

Well, my plan immediately unraveled when my publisher said that they no longer mark eBooks on sale for 99 cents UNLESS the author is doing a big advertising push and paying for advertisement during the sale.

Look, I'm single. I live alone. I'm on a budget. I cannot afford to pay for advertising.

Hearing that was such a HUGE disappointment. 

I'd already created a lot of graphics for my stories, so I thought I'd still go ahead with my plan, minus the sale.

The Outcome (so far):

In January, I started with 30 Seconds, my romantic-suspense novella. The first few days, the engagement was decent. Then it dropped.

Lesson Learned: DO NOT do a month-long spotlight. LOL! I had too many quotes that I liked that I'd wanted to share, but that was my mistake. I should've parred it down to two weeks of content, four days per week. 

February, I moved on to 30 Seconds Before, the prequel to 30 Seconds that can be read as a standalone. I thought the engagement would be decent, again, like how it started out with 30 Seconds, but it was well below par. 

March through September I spotlighted a story a month for the Disaster Crimes series. And that was just...brutal. *sigh*

Lesson Learned: Promoting an older published and completed series is HARD, especially if you're promoting each book separately. I honestly have no clue how to promote my series now.

Instagram's Sucky Algorithms:

Now, I know this problem is not just with me, and it's how Instagram's horrible algorithms bury our content and never show us posts from accounts we follow. Ever.

My posts now get a handful of likes. (Don't get me wrong. I am grateful for all of my followers, although I'd prefer it if IG let them SEE my posts, and I am grateful for the likes I do get.)

Sometimes, though, I get just two or three likes no matter what I try. 

And I've tried it all: more hashtags, less hashtags, different hashtags, same hashtags, trying to hit high engagement days/times, Canva graphics, photographs, censoring words that romance authors use a lot so that I don't get put on some naughty list, but nothing makes a difference. 

Instagram just hates me.

It is incredibly discouraging, and I know I'm not alone in this.

Some Content for Fun:

Because my posts weren't seen by many, I thought I'd share a few of my favorites for 30 Seconds and 30 Seconds Before in this post. They are hyperlinked if you'd like to visit the post on IG.

30 SECONDS:

30 SECONDS BEFORE:

In my Thursday 13 blog post titled Movie Lists Fun (Childhood Favorites, Comfort Movies, All-Time Favs), I shared lists of movies, including my all-time favorite movies. Next to several of those movie titles there had been an asterisk, indicating that those films had inspired/influenced me as a writer. 

The Movies:

Pitch Black 

UltraViolet

Matrix: Reloaded

Van Helsing

Gothika

Once a month, I am going to highlight one of those movies and reveal how it inspired/influenced me.

This month's movie is...

Van Helsing

How did it inspire me?

Dracula and his ball.

In Book 2 of my Secret Book Baby Series, vampires make an appearance. One of them is a vampire king. The Dracula in Van Helsing influenced this character. I do not picture this Dracula as my character aside from the hair and pale skin, nor does my vampire king have an accent, but I created my character during the time when I was especially obsessed with this movie.

And the ball...my vampires have a ball...and my FMC is forced to dance with the king. So, yeah, see the similarities with that? It unfolds all very different, and it's not a masquerade ball, but the influence is plain, and I'm not hiding that.

Van Helsing, for being a low budget film, is fabulous. It doesn't get nearly as much love as it should.

Dear Blog Visitor,

I haven't visited many of your blogs in a very long time.

That is why I suck and why I am sorry.

Since I started my full-time job last June, I've found it harder and harder to visit other blogs.

I work, I go home, I try to write as much as I can as long as I have the energy and motivation, I go to bed, and repeat. Come the weekend, I'm trying to recuperate from the work week and write, write, write. I haven't even had time to read a graphic novel. *sigh*

(This work/life routine may be the same with you, and you still may be able to visit blogs and comment on them, but I urge you to remember that we all have different capacities for things. I am a spoonie and suffer from a lot of chronic pain, more than I did at the start of last year, so that takes it out of me, too.)

At work, there's been times when I could create blog posts (like now), but for some reason, I'm not able to log in to comment on other people's blogs or even to reply back to comments on my own posts, which is less than ideal. I have to do that on my iPad, which is also less than ideal. 

I forget all the time to use one of my own devices to reply back to comments on my own posts, which is sad.

So, I want to say to those of you who visit my blog but maybe don't comment, THANK YOU! I may not see a visible sign that you're here, but I SEE YOU, and I appreciate your visit.

To those of you who visit and leave a comment (there's a few of you who I consider my faithful commenters), I THANK YOU for continuing to visit my blog and to grace me with your thoughts when I haven't done the same for you in a long time.

I am going to do my best to visit more of your blogs, and I really mean that.

For now, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! And I am sorry for not reciprocating as much as I should've. I’ll get better at it. I promise.

Take care,

Chrys Fey

In my Thursday 13 blog post titled Movie Lists Fun (Childhood Favorites, Comfort Movies, All-Time Favs), I shared lists of movies, including my all-time favorite movies. Next to several of those movie titles there had been an asterisk, indicating that those films had inspired/influenced me as a writer. 

The Movies:

Pitch Black 

UltraViolet

Matrix: Reloaded

Van Helsing

Gothika

Once a month, I am going to highlight one of those movies and reveal how it inspired/influenced me.

This month's movie is...

Matrix: Reloaded

How did it inspire me?

1) When Neo says, "Trinity, I know you can hear me. I'm not letting go. I can't. I love you too damn much."

2) Trinity's pose when she lands after jumping off her motorcycle AND her scorpion kick.

3) The Title

NOTE: If you're a subscriber to my museletter (aka newsletter) this may look familiar, as I took it from the June issue, but you received many more exclusive perks, such as:

Exclusive Only to Museletter Subscribers:

New Pen Name Reveal

Series Title Reveal

An Excerpt for when Paisley and Case Meet

Image Inspo for Case (which I had to black out in a photo below)

The Playlist

Clues as to what's next...

If you'd like these exclusive perks, sign up for my museletter here.

Are you ready for Paisley and Case?

Genre: Paranormal Erotic Romance

Meet Paisley:

Paisley is half-vampire, half-fairy. Because of that, she's been called a freak all her life. That's why she doesn't reveal her wings to anyone. After hearing them described as an abomination and worse, she keeps her wings hidden within her body. Being the only hybrid in existence is not easy. She has struggles that no one will ever be able to understand, including a secret that only her best friend, Aster, knows.

Following the murder of her parents, the former vampire king and fairy queen, Paisley becomes queen for both factions. The day after she is crowned, a mountain of dead bats is left on her lawn next to the daemon faction’s brand. The threat pits her up against Lord Case, an infuriating demon who looks fine as hell in a suit and claims he wants her the first time they meet. And damn if she doesn’t want him, too. Except, he’s the vampyre faction’s greatest enemy.

Paisley's hair is a bit darker than this, a purple-black, but the vibes are here. Even the lip color is pretty close to her favorite shade. Just remove the piercings, and this is pretty much Paisley.

Meet Case:

In my Thursday 13 blog post titled Movie Lists Fun (Childhood Favorites, Comfort Movies, All-Time Favs), I shared lists of movies, including my all-time favorite movies. Next to several of those movie titles there had been an asterisk, indicating that those films had inspired/influenced me as a writer. 

The Movies:

Pitch Black 

UltraViolet

Matrix: Reloaded

Van Helsing

Gothika

Once a month, I am going to highlight one of those movies and reveal how it inspired/influenced me.

This month's movie is...

UltraViolet

How did it inspire me?

1) Her kick-ass fighting techniques.

2) "Watch me."

3) Her beauty.

This is another contribution to the Thursday 13 blog hop in which participants create a post with some kind of list of 13 things they want to share. The skies the limit.

Last month, I shared the 13 most-viewed posts of all-time on my blog. It's always interesting to see which posts take off, and which posts don't. It's just like with other forms of social media. We may love a picture we share on Instagram, but because of the algorithms, that day's traffic, planet alignment, you name it, the post you love may not get any love.

That's why I'm sharing 13 of my personal favorite blog posts of all-time. BTW, I've been blogging since 2013. It was nostalgic (sometimes bittersweet) to look back at the posts on this blog.

My Top 13 Blog Post Picks:

1. Honoring the Victims of the Salem Witch Trials (2022)

2. How to Respect and Support Indigenous Peoples (2021)

3. Homeless Care Packages (2022)

4. NOT INADEQUATE / A Post about Self-Defense and Abuse (2020)

5. Writer’s Burnout Part 1 (Speak) (2018)

6. 10 Things All Authors Should Know (2021)

7. Florida & Seminole History (2021)

8. Writers. Should. NOT. Tell. Other. Writers. What. Tense. Or. POV. To. Use. It's. NOT. Your. Choice. (2020)

9. Don't Shame Readers for What They Read (or Writers for What They Write) (2021)

10. Bullying Awareness Project (2015)

11. Body Literacy Book Recommendations (2022)

12. Traditional Publishing - Pros and Cons (2021)

13. Writing About: A Wound (2013)

It was not easy narrowing this list down to 13. I had maybe 5 others posts I collected while making this list that did not make it.

NOTE: Comments are closed to these posts, as is the case for all of my older posts. I close the comments to every post about a month after they go live to prevent spam attacks.

In my Thursday 13 blog post titled Movie Lists Fun (Childhood Favorites, Comfort Movies, All-Time Favs), I shared lists of movies, including my all-time favorite movies. Next to several of those movie titles there had been an asterisk, indicating that those films had inspired/influenced me as a writer. 

The Movies:

Pitch Black

UltraViolet

Matrix: Reloaded

Van Helsing

Gothika

Once a month, I am going to highlight one of those movies and reveal how it inspired/influenced me.

This month's movie is...

PITCH BLACK

How did it inspire me?

Two words...his eyes.

The male main character in my Secret Book Baby Series has eyes that glow silver when he's angry or when he's using his powers. In my mind, I picture Riddick's metallic silver eyes.

So, that's how the movie inspired me as a writer.

As for why it's one of my all-time favorite movies...Riddick is a fascinating (and sexy) character. The movie is dark and gritty, scary with the eerie monsters lurking in the dark, gory at times but not excessively gory, and a nail-bitter with action sequences. The world building is great, the characters are easy to hate or root for and are memorable, and Riddick has great lines. It's a truly great and EPIC dark sci-fi movie that I've watched more times than I can tell you. When it first came out, I probably watched it like ten times that year alone.

I realized recently that I never talk about my works-in-progress on my blog.

I want to change that!

Usually, I share details about my WIPs in my museletter (aka newsletter) and on other forms of social media (Instagram and Facebook). But now I want to start doing that here, too. It may be repeated content (if you follow me elsewhere), but I'll try to find something different to share here, too.

With that said, museletter subscribers will always get content first, like exclusive content months in advance or that I won't share elsewhere (until the book is published). For example: In the April issue, I provided an excerpt for when these characters meet. I will not be sharing that anywhere else. So, that's an incentive to sign up for my museletter. 😘 

For being one of my blog followers/visitors, I will give you this heads-up: my next museletter for June will be a look into The Line Between, my enemies-with-benefits paranormal erotic romance. Don't worry, though, the issue will be safe for all reader sensitivities.

Okay, now for Ivy and Ethan...

NOTE: If you're a subscriber to my museletter this may look familiar as I took it from the March issue, but access to Ivy's playlist and the excerpt are perks that only you have. 😍

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Meet Ivy:

Ivy is a curly-haired goddess. Okay, so not a real goddess, but to Ethan she's up there. She is a hair and makeup stylist. Oh, and a psychic, too. Ever since she was a child, she's had visions during her nightly dreams, and they always come true.

When her best friend is kidnapped, she starts to have nightmares about her best friend running through the woods, fleeing her kidnapper. Since local authorities have been unable to find her best friend, Ivy takes it upon herself to hunt down the culprit. She does that by turning herself into bait. It's a good thing then that when she straightens her hair and applies a bit of clever makeup contouring that she looks exactly like her bestie. Her goal is to rattle the kidnapper and make him come after her.

Meet Ethan:

This is another contribution to the Thursday 13 blog hop in which participants create a post with some kind of list of 13 things they want to share. The skies the limit.

On my iPad, I found a few movies lists I started to compile last year, thinking I could maybe share them here on my blog or in my museletter (aka newsletter) for fun. Now I have the perfect excuse to finally share them.

I have FOUR lists of 13 things for you today...since they're just movie titles. :)

NOTE: So as to not repeat any movies, I only listed them once, although there is a lot of crossover from list to list.

13 Movies My Family Watched Obsessively During My Childhood:

1. Lord of the Dance (1996)

2. Twister (1996)

3. Jurassic Park (1993)

4. Sister Act (1992)

5. First Wives Club (1996)

6. A League of their Own (1992)

7. Dirty Dancing (1987)

8. Summer Rental (1985)

9. Sarah Plain and Tall (1991)

10. Fly Away Home (1996)

11. Speed (1994)

12. Volcano (1997)

13. The River Wild (1994)

Honorable Mention:

Jumanji (1995)

13 of My Personal Childhood Favorites

ANNOUNCING IT FIRST HERE!

I made the decision to make The Disaster Curse perma-free (with a slight catch that I have to periodically check it on Amazon because they like to revert free eBooks back to their original pricing now, unlike the good ole days when a book was perma-free indefinitely).

NOTE: THE DISASTER CURSE (DISASTER CRIMES, 7) IS A SHORT STORY OF 23 PAGES THAT FOLLOWS A FIGHTING CHANCE (FT. THORN) AND WRAPS UP THE DISASTER CRIMES SERIES.

Could you read The Disaster Curse without having read any of the previous stories?

Well, I couldn't stop you. It could be a good way to test out if you like my writing style.

I personally would recommend at least reading A Fighting Chance (Disaster Crimes Book 6) as that's the first story in Thorn's and Amanda's points-of-view.

To test out my writing style and not spoil what could possibly be six other great reads for you, you can also get free short stories that are earlier in the series, such as:

The Crime Before the Storm (Prequel) - This is a short work of 16 pages and is the prequel before Hurricane Crimes, Book 1 of the Disaster Crimes series and a novelette under 50 pages. It's exclusive to my museletter (aka newsletter) subscribers, so you do have to subscriber to get the secret link. You can read this story for free before Hurricane Crimes. Although I'll give a little warning that it may take away some of the mystery from Book One if you read Hurricane Crimes afterward.

Lightning Crimes (#2.5) - This is a short in-between story of 22 pages, set after Seismic Crimes (Book 2), before Tsunami Crimes (Book 3). It's not an absolute requirement to read this fast story, but I will say that a mystery in it does return in Frozen Crimes (Book 5). This one is free on Amazon and elsewhere.

BLURB: Following a 7.1 earthquake in Guatemala, Thorn and Amanda, volunteering for the American Red Cross, help survivors in any way that they can. They hand out food and water and offer comfort to the people shaken by this event.

A sudden tremor knocks everyone off their feet, only it’s not an aftershock of the quake. One of Guatemala’s many volcanoes is erupting—a disaster on top of a disaster.

Thorn and Amanda now must do whatever they can to help each other and the survivors of the quake endure this natural phenomenon.

FREE EBOOK: Amazon / Nook / Kobo / Apple / Smashwords

REVIEW: The Story Graph / BookBub / Goodreads / LibraryThing

PRAISE:

“I enjoyed this short follow-up to A Fighting Chance and won’t even complain about it being too short. I just always seem to want more of these characters than the author gives me, but I’m pretty sure she has to eat and sleep at some point.” – Toi Thomas, Lit Carnival Reviewer

“The Disaster Curse by Chrys Fey is a short story that gives a hint of the life Thorn and Amanda will have. It’s not all smooth sailing. An earthquake caused by an erupting volcano, setting off a firenado…and the story shows how small the world can be and by believing you deserve good things, your belief will allow you to have them.” – Sherry Fundin, reviewer at Fundinmental.com

During the A to Z challenge, Liz A. posted for a small blog hop called Thursday 13 in which participants create lists of 13 things to share. It could be anything. I love lists, so I thought I'd join in a couple of times this month for fun.

MY BLOG'S TOP 13 POSTS OF ALL TIME:

1. Writing About: A Car Accident - 77.3K views

2. Writing About: A Kidnapping - 15.4K views

3. Writing About: A Wedding - 11.8K views

4. Writing About: Witches - 7.35K views

5. Writing About: A Plane Ride - 6.43K views

6. Protagonist vs Antagonist - 6.27K views

7. Ad Astra Interview / Olivia and Fiona Discuss Banned Books and Intersectional Feminism - 4.01K views

8. New Release Marketing Conclusions - 3.94K views

9. Writing About: Torture - 3.56K views

10. Writing About: A Foot Chase - 3.34K views

11. Writing About: School - 3.25K views

12. Writer's Burnout Part 10 (No Stress) - 3.25K views

13. Dear “I’m Still a Nobody” Author - 3.02K views

NOTE: Comments are closed to these posts, as is the case for all of my older posts. I close the comments to every post about a month after they go live to prevent spam attacks.

It's always interesting to see what posts get the most views. My Writing About feature, which I did for a few years here on my blog, obviously was a hit. I wonder if I should revive it. Back then, the posts were about topics and characters and scenes I'd written about at the time. I've written a lot since I stopped the feature.

If you'd like to check out my Writing About feature, you can find the archive on this page: Writing About. There's sections for Characters, More on Characters, Disasters, Supernatural/Paranormal/Fantasy, Crime, Romance, Places, Seasons, Holidays, and Other.

Theme: Grief Work and Healing Journey

A couple of weeks after my mom passed away two friends took me on a tour through the Brevard Zoo, which was named the third best zoo in the nation last year. It was the perfect day, not too hot but actually started with a slight chill, so all the animals were happy and out and active, not hiding in the shade and conserving their energy because of the heat. Because of that, I was able to catch a lot of awesome videos. (You can see those in my V for Videos of Wildlife post.) 

Here are some of my favorite snapshots from that trip. They make me smile.