Thinkingdog Publishing

Dear author— Yes, you . The one reading this with a mix of hope, doubt, and a half-finished draft sitting somewhere nearby. Somewhere in the world, someone is waiting for a story that only you can write. Not a perfect story. Not a polished, award-winning, magically-written-in-one-sitting story. Just yours . Even on the days you doubt yourself. Even on the days your inner critic is louder than your creativity. Even on the days you wonder if your words matter at all. They do. Your words still carry power. They still hold meaning. They still have the ability to make someone feel seen, understood, comforted, or inspired. Stories don’t need permission to matter—they just need to be written. Writing isn’t always easy. Some days it feels magical and effortless. Other days it feels like staring at a blinking cursor while questioning every life choice that led you there. And yet, you show up. Or at least you try . That counts more than you think. So keep writing. Keep dreaming....

I heard a quote recently that stopped me mid-thought, mid-coffee sip, mid–“why is the dog staring at me like that” moment. “Everybody has a story. Once you understand that story, their lives will make sense.” Excuse me while I just sit here and emotionally spiral for a minute. Because wow. That one line explains so much. So many of those moments where you watch someone do something and think, why on earth would you ever do that ? Why that choice? Why that reaction? Why that hill to die on? And the honest answer is usually this: you don’t know what came before. You don’t know the trigger. You don’t know the quiet history that shaped that decision long before you ever witnessed it. We see the moment. We don’t see the backstory. Which, as it turns out, is basically the entire job description of being a writer. In real life, we’re all walking around as finished scenes with missing chapters. You bump into someone in line at the grocery store who is unreasonably intense about c...

  Here we go again. That strange, awkward, emotionally confusing time of year where winter hasn’t technically left, spring is definitely late, and we’re all just standing around squinting at the weather forecast like it personally owes us something. You know the days I mean. One glorious afternoon appears out of nowhere. Blue sky. Sunshine. Birds doing that hopeful chirping thing like they’re auditioning for a Disney movie. You step outside and think, This is it. We made it. I survived winter. I am a resilient woodland creature. And then the very next morning you wake up to gray. Snow. Slush. The emotional equivalent of someone unplugging your happiness and shrugging. I am caught, once again, between hope and deep suspicion. I want to believe. I truly do. I want to put the winter boots away, stop wearing seventeen layers, and feel my face without pain. But experience has taught me that spring likes to flirt. It shows up just long enough to get your guard down, then vanishes...

You know that saying, “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life”? Yeah. About that. Whoever said it clearly never tried turning their passion into a business. This week, I’ve been thinking a lot about creativity — and why, oh why, I’ve landed in this weird, exhausting place where being creative automatically means it must make money . This is a bit of a personal ramble, so pull up a chair, grab a cup of tea (or wine, I’m not judging), and let’s talk about it. If you’re reading this, chances are you’re creative too. You probably love reading, or painting, or baking, or sketching little masterpieces no one else ever sees. Maybe you’ve got a camera roll full of DIY projects you’ll finish “someday.” And if you’re not doing something creative right now, I bet you dream about it when you have more time. I’ve always been a dabbler — I design all my own book covers, play around with digital artwork, and I’ve even put some of my abstract art on clothing (yes, really...

Truth time? I have never had patience. Like… never. Waiting has never been in my vocabulary unless it’s the kind of “waiting” where you’re standing at the microwave watching popcorn explode in slow motion and muttering under your breath, “come on, come on, come on…” That’s kind of my normal. Do it now. Take it to the limit. Push that project through with sheer willpower and enough coffee to make my kitchen smell like a Starbucks exploded. But here’s the thing: lately I’ve started noticing this impatience everywhere. It’s like the whole world caught up to me and said, “Yeah, let’s all live at turbo speed now.” You don’t respond within five minutes? Clearly something is wrong. A new series drops? Forget waiting for weekly episodes—we need to binge it right now or risk being left behind in spoiler territory. Have a question? Why wait until Monday to ask a human being when you can fire it off to AI at 11:42 PM and have an answer before you even finish your cookie? On one hand,...

A little while ago, Canada did what Canada does best and unleashed a truly horrible snowstorm. Not the polite, fluffy kind. No, this was the kind of snow that comes at you sideways, stings your face, and makes you question every life choice that led you outdoors. Blueberry the Papillon took one look at the situation and said absolutely not. And honestly? Same. She stood at the door like a tiny, dramatic statue of protest. No paw over the threshold. No curious sniff. No brave dash. Just a look that said, “I did not sign up for this nonsense.” Judging by the complete lack of footprints outside our front door, it seemed the rest of the neighborhood had reached the same conclusion. Draw your own conclusions from that. Eventually, cabin fever won. We all piled into the big car, mostly just to escape the walls closing in and remind ourselves that the outside world still existed. And that’s when we saw it. A young man. Doing push-ups. In front of a bar. On the sidewalk. Duri...

People sometimes ask me how many books I’ve written, and I always pause. Not because I’m being mysterious. Not because I’m modest. It’s because the honest answer lives somewhere between twenty-five and thirty-five, and even I’m not entirely sure where it landed and set up camp. Before you panic, calm down. Many of those books are quietly gathering digital dust somewhere, living their best invisible lives. Only fifteen of them are currently up on Amazon, polished, presentable, and waving enthusiastically at you like, “Pick me! I’m ready!” And yes, that was absolutely a wink. But here’s the part that made me laugh at myself today. A proper laugh. The kind where you realize something obvious far too late and just have to accept it with grace and coffee. With every single book, I learn something. Shocking, I know. I learn about story. About flow. About structure. About how a mystery should unfold so the reader feels clever instead of cheated. About pacing, tension, emotion, and w...

Circadian Rhythms and You Be You Let me start with a bummer, because life isn’t always cupcakes and cozy mysteries. When my mom passed away a few years ago, she was just about to get up—at three in the morning. Yes, three. In. The. Morning. I mean, who does that? My mom, that’s who. She’d get up when the rest of us were deep in dreamland, do a few things, rest, do a few more, rest again. That was her rhythm. Wash, rinse, repeat. As a teenager, I thought it was weird. You’re supposed to sleep in late, drag your bleary-eyed self to school or work, suffer through the day, then stay up until the wee hours laughing with friends, eating questionable pizza, and pretending you’re invincible. That’s the script! And yet… as I’ve gotten older, I find myself—brace for impact—doing the same thing. Gasp! I get up early. I mean really early. Before sunrise. Before the world even stretches. And I love it. There’s something delicious about that quiet hour when it’s just me, my coffee, my words, ...

There’s a very special kind of loyalty in this world, and no, it doesn’t come from your group chat, your coworkers, or that friend who “meant to text back.” It comes from your dog. Dogs are the quiet witnesses to everything. They saw your whole world fall apart. The bad days. The messy days. The “I’m fine” days that were very clearly not fine. They watched you sit on the floor staring into space, cry into your coffee, and question every life choice you’ve ever made… and they never flinched. They just stayed. No advice. No judgment. No “have you tried thinking positively?” Just a warm body leaning against you like, I’m here. That’s enough. Somehow, in the middle of chaos, dogs become emotional first responders without even knowing it. They don’t realize they’re helping you pick up the pieces. They don’t know they’re grounding you back into the present. They just know you’re their person, and that’s their whole job. They celebrated your tiny wins like you won an Olympic medal...

I’ve spent a large portion of my life trying to make things work. And by “make things work,” I don’t mean gently nudging them along while sipping tea and humming happily. I mean fixing problems that weren’t technically mine, pushing projects uphill like a strange mythological creature, explaining myself repeatedly to people who had already decided not to listen, and over-delivering as if there were Olympic medals for emotional exhaustion. This skill set served me very well in my various jobs. I was reliable. Resourceful. The person you could hand a mess to and say, “Can you sort this out?” I could. I did. Repeatedly. With flair. And snacks. But somewhere along the way, I noticed something curious. I was very good at making things work… and very bad at resting afterward. By the end of many years, I wasn’t just tired. I was tired of being tired. Tired of proving. Tired of pushing. Tired of explaining why I deserved to be in the room when I was usually the one rearranging the furn...

Let me tell you a little secret from behind the scenes of my very professional author platform: I put actual effort into my social media. Like, the full package. I plan it out. I write the captions. I pick the music. I schedule it so it doesn’t look like I’m flying by the seat of my sweatpants. I even think about lighting and fonts and which filter screams “whimsical but with integrity.” And yet. The most successful posts? The ones that get the likes, the shares, the "OMG I love her" comments? Are the ones where Blueberry shows up. That’s it. She just shows up. No effort. No notes. No mood board. She doesn’t brainstorm content pillars. She doesn't try to grow an audience or tailor her brand voice. She doesn’t even know what her niche is. (Unless it's squirrel-chasing and chicken snacks.) She just exists — gloriously. Fluffily. Sassily. And people adore her. I’ll admit, it’s humbling. I mean, I’ve got a degree. I’ve got story arcs and character spread...

So—does anybody remember pen pals? No? Just me? Well then, buckle up, because I’m about to sound like a fossil digging through the dusty attic of childhood communication. Back in the day, every kid or teen magazine worth its neon sticker collection had a pen pal section. The premise was simple: you sent in your name, your address, and (brace yourself) a small fee to be paid in stamps. Actual, lick-and-stick, make-your-tongue-feel-like-sandpaper stamps. I know—gasp! The Stone Age. After a few weeks of waiting (because this was before instant gratification was invented), you’d get an envelope with names and addresses of kids around your age who were looking for friends in far-off towns or even other countries. That’s right—before sliding into DMs was a thing, we were carefully sliding letters into mailboxes. And oh, those letters. We wrote pages about nothing —our grades (inflated), our lives (glamorized), our friends (fictionalized if necessary). Nobody fact-checked, nobody car...

The Writing Process (Or, How I Accidentally Wrote a Book While Folding Laundry) At some point, if you write anything—novels, blog posts, shopping lists in cursive—someone is going to ask about your process . You’ll be at a book club, a festival, the dentist’s office with gauze in your mouth, and the question will come: “So, what’s your process?” Cue the polite smile. I say something reasonable like, “Oh, I research, then plan the structure, outline the scenes, work in beats...” Then I run away. Because here’s the truth. The real story. The real real story. I have no earthly idea how this works. None. My brain has always played this soundtrack of stories. I don’t ask for it. I don’t control it. It’s just there. While I’m folding towels. While I’m unloading the dishwasher. While I’m out walking the dog, trying to look like a normal adult who wears matching socks. There it is. A scene. A snippet of dialogue. A full-on argument between two characters who may or may not exist i...

There was a time I wanted my writing to sparkle — every sentence polished like a diamond, every metaphor clever enough to make my English teacher rise from her chair in slow applause. I’d tinker with sentences for hours, swapping “walked” for “meandered” or “ambled,” then back again, trying to sound like A Serious Author™. You know the type. The kind who drinks coffee with too much intensity and uses “juxtaposition” in casual conversation. But somewhere between the endless editing and the overthinking, I realized something uncomfortable: I was writing to impress other writers, not to move readers. It hit me one day when my best friend — not a writer, not even a big reader — read a scene from one of my drafts and said quietly, “That part made me cry.” She didn’t care about my sentence rhythm. She didn’t notice the metaphor I’d sweated over for an hour. She felt something. And that’s when I understood: readers don’t fall in love with your words. They fall in love with your truth. We...

So - here we are....  It’s a peaceful afternoon. Birds are chirping. The dog is asleep. A mug of coffee cools beside my keyboard. I’m sitting at my desk, deeply focused on crafting the next scene in my cozy mystery novel. My characters are in the middle of a heated debate—someone has been murdered, after all—and things are getting dramatic. Suddenly, my husband peeks into the room and says, “Sorry, did you say something?” Oh no, dear. I wasn’t talking to you . I was talking to myself. Loudly. With feeling. And perhaps a bit of a British accent. This, my friends, is where the writerly madness truly shines. Now before anyone calls for a wellness check, allow me to explain. I’m not losing my marbles (though I admit they do rattle suspiciously from time to time). I’m just... rehearsing. Because when you write cozy mysteries filled with grumpy detectives, nosy neighbors, flustered suspects, and talking Papillon dogs (yes, Pixie has opinions and she’s not afraid to share them), y...

So, here’s the thing—I know we have coyotes in our area. It’s not exactly a secret. They’re basically our unofficial neighbors at this point. Lately, they’ve been as regular as the subway—every ten minutes, one trots by our window like it’s the 7:30 express to Downtown Trouble. Now, I’m a vigilant dog mom. I’ve got fences, gates, lights, and the kind of situational awareness usually reserved for Secret Service agents. My little Papillon, Blueberry, never sets a paw outside without me. We go as a team, like a very small and furry version of the Secret Service detail I mentioned—minus the suits, though Blueberry would totally rock a tiny one. But a few days ago, we were walking our old boy, Kobe—fifteen years old, gentle as a cloud, moving at a dignified senior pace. He stopped to sniff a bush. Harmless, right? A completely innocent dog moment. Except—apparently—not. Because that harmless bush… growled. Before I could even process what was happening, a coyote shot out of it like it ...

Let me set the record straight once and for all: inspiration does not strike like lightning. I know, I know. The myth is seductive. You imagine me walking along a sun-dappled forest path with my Papillon pup, Blueberry, a latte in one hand and a notebook in the other, when suddenly— ZAP! —an idea for the next great cozy mystery crackles from the heavens and lands fully formed into my brain. A plot! A twist! The killer was the garden club president all along! If only. Here’s the real story. Most days, I shuffle into my office (read: corner of the house where I've carved out 3.5 feet of creative territory), still wearing pajamas, hair looking like I lost a fight with a hedge, clutching a lukewarm cup of coffee. I sit down, take a deep breath, and think, Today’s the day I finish Chapter Four. I’m feeling it. And… nothing. No killer, no motive, not even a misplaced teacup. It’s like my brain has gone on strike and is currently picketing outside my window with a sign that says, “...