It’s the first day of June. It’s been a long and exciting 5 months of 2019. God has blessed me in so many ways.
My daughter and I traveled to Springfield, Missouri to attend the meet and greet with LivePD officers. It was a trip of a lifetime. To see my daughter’s smile when meeting some of her favorite officers and K9s.
My novels Hidden Danger and Expecting Dangers were finalists in the Selah Awards. Hidden Danger in the Debut Novel category and Expecting Danger in the Romantic Suspense category. Not only did God bless my with the nominations but He blessed me with the opportunity to attend my first major writing conference and attend the ceremony that would announce if either novel were winners.
I attended the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writer’s Conference in North Carolina in May. Things I learned while traveling: 1. Dramamine is my friend, 2. Atlanta International Airport is HUGE, 3. Airport food and drinks are expensive, and 4. TSA wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.
I learned a lot of writing related things, met lots of new friends, and accepted a Selah Award for Hidden Danger. Expecting Danger didn’t win but I consider it to be a huge honor just to be considered along some of my favorite authors, Lynette Eason, Lynn Huggins Blackburn, Dana R. Lynn, and Rachel Dylan.
In March I entered the Great Love Inspired Author Search. Out of 250-275 entries, they only moved 27 on to round 2. God blessed me and I was one of the 27. The full novel is due 8/1. I really need to be working on that.
The last week has been devastating to our community. We have been dealing with historic flooding. The Arkansas River normally hits flood stage at 22 ft. Today it crested at 40.79 feet. Entire cities along the river are under water. According the FEMA map, the flooding showed the pasture behind our house flooding and then the possibility that it would flood up to the back of the house. On top of the flooding, we were expecting torrential rains that would cause flash flooding. The neighborhood drainage flows next to our house and it’s a little down hill from the road so there was concern for flooding in the front of the house. We packed sandbags and stacked them to protect the house.
God blessed us. We do have river water in our back yard but it’s only a quarter of the way up. The flash flooding in our neighborhood didn’t happen. The sandbags are still there though because the river is going down but we’re expecting some rain again this week. Better to be safe than sorry.
There are several people in the surrounding communities that have had to evacuate. Please pray for them.
I’ll be doing a book signing at the Crawford County Library in Van Buren on June 17th. The book club will be reading Hidden Danger for the month.
My writing plans for the rest of 2019 include finishing my Love Inspired Suspense entry, Deadly Connections, writing a Christmas novella, and finishing the third book in the Small Town Guardians series. I can do it!
Happy Reading!
Jennifer
Congratulations, you’ve written a book! You’ve argued with characters, stressed over the plot, edited until your eyes blurred, and consumed enough caffeine to keep a small village awake for a month straight. 
LoveReadWriteRepeat 