The Imperfectionist's Guide to Sorting Your Stuff by Lisa Lawmaster Hess

I'm excited to have Lisa visit again! We've been author friends for a long time, and it's a real privilege to enjoy reading this interview from her. Join in on the fun!

Thanks so much for joining me on Sunnybank Secrets, Lisa.

About Lisa:
Lisa Lawmaster Hess is a Jersey girl who moved to Pennsylvania for college, then stayed.

The author of three nonfiction books

• Acting Assertively, Diverse Divorce and Know Thyself 

and two novels

• Casting the First Stone and Chasing a Second Chance

Lisa has also written for online and print publications. Lisa blogs at The Porch Swing Chronicles and Organizing By STYLE and is a frequent contributor to CatholicMom.com, Teachers of Vision and Today’s Catholic Teacher. A retired elementary school counselor, Lisa is an adjunct professor of psychology at York College of Pennsylvania. Her latest book is Know Thyself: The Imperfectionist’s Guide to Sorting Your Stuff. 


NOW, on to the interview:

Is there a story behind your books?/What started you on your writing journey?

Know Thyself is my fifth book, but I’ve been working on novels, so it’s been over a decade between non-fiction books! This one (which took every bit of that decade to get from idea to completion) arose out of my own desire to get sustainably organized in a way that worked for me. An unexpected move that I didn’t initially want to make was the catalyst for working on my own organizational skills, and the ensuing research and journey led me to the conclusion that organization is not a one-size-fits-all proposition.


What kind of books do you enjoy reading? (Book recommendations very welcome!)

I enjoy a good novel but, lately, I’ve been reading a lot of non-fiction. Last summer, I downloaded Audible and I’ve found that I love listening to audiobooks even though my commute is short. My recent favorites include Becoming by Michelle Obama, Still Foolin’ ’Em by Billy Crystal and Jodi Piccoult’s Small Great Things. I’m currently reading Biased by Dr. Jennifer Eberhardt and listening to Gretchen Rubin’s Better Than Before. I’m also reading an advance copy of Clarice G. James’s The Girl He Knew. Think I can finish them all before the semester starts at the end of August??


Which character in your newest release most interested you while you wrote? Why?

Since Know Thyself is non-fiction, I’m going to take the liberty of changing the question a bit, and share the styles that best describe me. In Know Thyself, I share three personal styles (I need to see it, I love to be busy and I love stuff) and three organizational styles (cram and jam, drop and run and I know I put it somewhere) that influence our organizational success. I most identify with the I need to see it personal style and the drop and run organizational style, so I plan my organizational systems around those styles.


Why do you write in the genre you do?

I write both fiction and non-fiction. For fiction, the draw for me is the characters. I’m a total pantser, but I have to sketch out my characters and their backstories before I sit down to write. Once I know who the people are, I introduce them to each other and take it from there.

With non-fiction, I like that I can write about topics I find interesting and relevant. Know Thyself is my first non-fiction book with a spiritual aspect to it, written primarily for adults. Acting Assertively and Diverse Divorce were both written for the educational market and while the concepts transferred to adults, they were written for adults to use with children.


How much research do you do for each book?

Because I write contemporary fiction and my non-fiction is within my wheelhouse as a psychology instructor, I don’t usually do a lot of research. If I come up against a topic that’s important to the story that I want to know more about, that’s when I dig in. My goal is not to become an expert but, rather, to write accurately and knowledgeably about the topic.


Share a verse or Scripture passage with us that is special to you. (and why it's special)

Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” This verse hangs in a place of prominence in my office – in fact, I purchased a ceramic cross with this verse on it so I could see it daily. Seven years ago, I took advantage of an early retirement incentive and retired from my career as a school counselor. My daughter had just finished middle school and college loomed in four years. I knew the early retirement was the right choice – most days, anyway – but leaving behind a job with a great salary and benefits was a scary proposition. I read this verse a lot that first year until my next steps became clear and, to this day, it sustains me when things are hard.


About the book:
Know Thyself: The Imperfectionist’s Guide to Sorting Your Stuff, is meant for anyone who has ever struggled to get organized. So often, people who’ve struggled with this life skill have also lost faith in themselves, which is more demoralizing than any amount of clutter. Know Thyself takes a light-hearted approach to a serious topic, with the aim of building confidence alongside organizational skills by building on what we do naturally. This strengths-based approach helps readers to organize in a sustainable way, rather than merely clearing the clutter and hoping for the best.

Link to book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2Jtx6aH

Lisa on social media: 

Facebook: Lisa Lawmaster Hess, Writer
Twitter: @orgbystyle
Instagram: lisalawmasterhess
Pinterest: Lisa Lawmaster Hess
Organizing by STYLE blog: www.orgbystyle.blogspot.com

Thanks for visiting, Lisa, and readers, check out her book on Amazon!

***

Both rebels in their own way, Josie and Jerry Patterson must figure out how to keep the other's love...and keep the German enemy at bay.

She has two loves—her skating and Jerry, her husband. But when he returns home looking like a skeleton trying to return to life, she's scared. What happened in Germany to change a man so much? Has another woman captured his heart?

Jerry has vowed to let Josie live her own glamorous life...especially after what happened in Germany. But when his wife's life is threatened, Jerry realizes he can't stand by and do nothing. Jerry has to risk all for the very soul and life of himself—Josie.

These two damaged, rebellious people learn the hard way that leaning on God instead of their own selves and abilities is the only true way to love and happiness.

Buy the Book:

https://www.amazon.com/Carole-Brown/e/B00EZV4RFY/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1492661357&sr=1-1

About Carole:

Besides being an active participant in many writing groups, Carole is an award-winning author and enjoys mentoring beginning writers. She loves to weave suspense, tough topics, romance, and whimsy into her books and is always on the lookout for outstanding titles and catchy ideas. She and her husband reside in SE Ohio but have ministered and counseled nationally and internationally. Together, they enjoy their grandsons, traveling, gardening, good food, the simple life, and did she mention their grandsons? 

Personal blog: http://sunnebnkwrtr.blogspot.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CaroleBrown.author

Amazon Author Page:  http://www.amazon.com/Carole-Brown/e/B00EZV4RFY/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1427898838&sr=8-1
BookBub:  https://www.bookbub.com/authors/carole-brown

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/browncarole212

Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/sunnywrtr/boards/

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/5237997-carole-brown

Linkedin:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/carole-brown-79b6951a?trk=nav_responsive_tab_profile

Stitches in Time:  http://stitchesthrutime.blogspot.com/

A Visit with Suspense Author: Donn Taylor

I am so delighted to introduce and share this interview with my friend, Donn Taylor, with all of you. Please be sure to check out the links below to discover where his books may be purchased. Now here's Donn...

Murder in Disguise Blurb: 

Official verdict: Suicide.

But why would that vigorous department chairman kill himself? To avoid disgrace? Those rumored ventures on the dark side? Some other secret life? Visiting professor Preston (Press) Barclay wonders.

But his questions bring no answers, only anonymous threats. He has enough problems already, proving himself on a strange campus while radical faculty do all they can to undermine him. Worse yet, that sexy siren assigned as his assistant complicates his courtship of the beautiful Mara Thorn.

While Press keeps asking questions, Mara’s research reveals a cancer of criminal activity that permeates the community and even the campus itself.

The more Press questions, the more dangerous the threats against him become, and the more determined he grows to clear his friend’s name.

But can Press and Mara’s stumbling efforts prevail against the entrenched forces of police, the campus radicals, and an unseen but powerful criminal organization that increasingly puts their lives in danger?

Link to buy:

Murder in Disguise is available among my other books at: https://amzn.to/2TddBsm

What started you on your writing journey?

I'm not really sure what started it. I don't remember a time when I wasn't trying to create something. I began writing music at age 14. But at age 18 I got interested in poetry—the Romantics, of course—and began writing poetry and some very bad short stories.

The Cold War draft and the Korean War interrupted, and the next two decades of Army brought only bare-facts tech writing. After that came graduate school and the painful switch to bloviated academic writing—and in both situations no time for creative writing.

Two decades after graduate school I retired from college teaching (English Lit) and decided to see if I could write the kind of poetry I enjoyed teaching. That point proved, I turned to see if I could publish a novel. It took longer than I expected to convert from literary thinking to commercial-fiction thinking.

That first novel—The Lazarus File—took a couple of years to finish. It was published in 2002, and it's still selling as an e-book.

What kind of books do you enjoy reading?

1. Aside from the Bible, my reading goes in three wildly different directions. In commercial fiction,

it’s suspense. Almost any book by:

• Jack Higgins (Henry Patterson), but especially his Paul Chavasse series and the first half of the Sean Dillon series.

• Also any of Harry Wegley’s thrillers

• and most Westerns by Terry Burns or Ernest Haycox.

• But my all-time favorite is Gavin Lyall’s The Wrong Side of the Sky.

2. The second direction is the classics. I don’t do a lot here, but they keep me reminded of the deep meanings genuine art can reveal. Favorites include:

• poetry by George Herbert, Tennyson, and W.H. Auden.

• For novels, it’s hard to beat Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse.

• And just for fun the other day I revisited (in English translation, of course) part of Ariosto’s light-hearted epic romance, Orlando Furioso (Orlando Insane). It has wonderful comic situations.

3. The third direction is nonfiction—most recently:

• the late M. Stanton Evans’s Stalin’s Secret Agents

• and Paul Kengor’s Dupes (American non-communists who unthinkingly promoted Soviet Russia’s interests).

• But my favorite is Mark Moyar’s Triumph Forsaken, a historical study of early Vietnam War using Communist as well as US sources.

Which character in your newest release most interested you while you wrote? Why?

I’ve been blessed that in each of my novels there is one character who simply took off and wrote himself. In Murder in Disguise, that character is the graduate student, Helen Chevius, unmarried and who delights in introducing herself, “I’m Miss Chevius.” That prompts the person meeting her to respond with something like, “I don’t doubt that, but the word is pronounced MIS-ch-vus. Now, what’s your name?” So Helen can explain, putting the other person on the defensive. But that’s not all: She responds to difficult situations by taking some outlandish action or other that puts her, at least partially, in charge of the situation. It was a challenge to find the wild actions for each of her situations.

Why do you write in the genres that you do?

In real life I have two backgrounds, military (to include aviation) and academic. The military experience led directly into suspense writing for two novels, with a heavy emphasis on espionage. The academic experience led itself to the Preston Barclay mysteries set on college campuses—mysteries, yes, but with continuous satire of academic institutions and their pretensions. I also wrote one historical novel, Lightning on a Quiet Night, set in the place and time when Mildred and I were growing up. I wrote it before I knew the limits of genres in commercial fiction. Consequently, it splits the requirements for several genres: romance, mystery, suspense, and comedy—all in a historical setting. That made it a misfit in all of them, but it still was a finalist for the Selah Awards.

What is a favorite memory from your childhood?

This is a weird one. I don’t have coherent memories until I was about age five. But there is one vivid one before that. I remember waking up in a Pullman coach on a train at night. We were stopped in a station. I could see and hear a steam engine on an adjacent track, and I could see and hear the steam released from the engine. I remember vaguely that my mother comforted me, and know that I went back to sleep. Why is it weird? Because our only trip that matches it was our return from NewOrleans, where I’d had bilateral mastoid surgery. That would mean I was two years old. I will never understand why that one early scene still remains so vivid in my mind.

Share a verse or Scripture passage with us that is special to you. (and why it's special)

I would share three. Two statements by Jesus form the bedrock core of my belief. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by me." (John 14:6)

And He said, "I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.…" (John 11:25)

And the third scripture: I am fascinated by the perfect structure of Psalm 19 ("The heavens declare the glory of God…). In the first six verses, the psalmist contemplates God's physical ordering of the creation. In the next six verses (beginning "The law of the Lord is perfect…), the psalmist contemplates God's moral ordering of the creation. In the final three verses (beginning "Who can understand his errors?"), the psalmist invokes God's ordering power to order his own life, concluding with the familiar prayer, "Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in they sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer."

About Donn:

Donn Taylor led an Infantry rifle platoon in the Korean War, served with Army aviation in Vietnam, and worked with air reconnaissance in Europe and Asia. Afterward, he earned a Ph.D. in Renaissance literature and taught literature at two liberal arts colleges. His publications include several suspense novels, one historical novel, and one book of poetry. Two of his novels have been finalists in the Selah Awards. He lives in the woods near Houston, TX, where he writes fiction, poetry, and essays on current topics. A blog describing the action of God in his life (“A Quiet Assurance”) is at https://bit.ly/2R4jSRd

He is on Facebook at www.facebook.com/donntaylor and www.facebook.com/authordonntaylor, and on Twitter at www.twitter.com/donntaylor3. His website is www.donntaylor.com

Thank you, Donn, for sharing about you, your writing, and books with us!

Friends, don't forget to check out his links! I'm sure you're going to enjoy them!

***

Love Historical Romantic Suspense? Check out the first book of my WWII Spies series!

Book One:

Angry at being rejected for military service, Minister Tyrell Walker accepts the call to serve as a civilian spy within his own country. Across the river from Cincinnati, Ohio, a spy working for a foreign country is stealing secret plans for newly developed ammunition to be used in the war. According to his FBI cousin, this spy favors pink stationery giving strong indications that a woman is involved.

He’s instructed to obtain a room in the Rayner Boarding House run by the lovely, spunky red-haired Emma Jaine Rayner. Sparks of jealousy and love fly between them immediately even as they battle suspicions that one or the other is not on the up and up.

While Tyrell searches for the murdering spy who reaches even into the boarding home, Emma Jaine struggles with an annoying renter, a worried father (who could be involved in this spy thing), and two younger sisters who are very different but just as strong willed as she is.

As Tyrell works to keep his double life a secret and locate the traitor, he refuses to believe that Emma Jaine could be involved even when he sees a red-haired woman in the arms of another man. Could the handsome and svelte banker who’s also determined to win Emma Jaine’s hand for marriage, be the dangerous man he’s looking for? Is the trouble-making renter who hassles Emma Jaine serving as a flunky? Worse, is Papa Rayner so worried about his finances and keeping his girls in the style they’re used to, that he’ll stoop to espionage?

Will their love survive the danger and personal issues that arise to hinder the path of true love?

Buy the book here:

https://www.amazon.com/Carole-Brown/e/B00EZV4RFY/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1492661357&sr=1-1

About Carole:

Besides being an active participant in many writing groups, Carole is an award-winning author and enjoys mentoring beginning writers. She loves to weave suspense, tough topics, romance, and whimsy into her books and is always on the lookout for outstanding titles and catchy ideas. She and her husband reside in SE Ohio but have ministered and counseled nationally and internationally. Together, they enjoy their grandsons, traveling, gardening, good food, the simple life, and did she mention their grandsons? 

Personal blog: http://sunnebnkwrtr.blogspot.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CaroleBrown.author

Amazon Author Page:  http://www.amazon.com/Carole-Brown/e/B00EZV4RFY/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1427898838&sr=8-1
BookBub:  https://www.bookbub.com/authors/carole-brown

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/browncarole212

Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/sunnywrtr/boards/

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/5237997-carole-brown

Linkedin:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/carole-brown-79b6951a?trk=nav_responsive_tab_profile

Stitches in Time:  http://stitchesthrutime.blogspot.com/

Libby's Cuppa Joe by Rebecca W. Waters

I'm so happy to introduce and recommend Becky Waters to you! It's a pleasure to share her promotional material for her newest book: Libby's Cuppa Joe. I was recently privileged to hear her tell a little about the book, and I assure you, I want to read it! Here's a bit about it--read it then hurry to purchase the book yourself. 

About Libby's Cuppa Joe:

Coffee barista and shop owner Sonja Parker is a single mom on her last leg financially and emotionally when Melissa, a college student comes to work at the Door County store. Melissa, with the help of Kevin Hanson, the young and energetic minister in the area, finally bring the message of God’s love and favor to Sonja. But is it too late? Libby’s Cuppa Joe is about second chances.  It’s about forgiveness and about a grown woman making faith in Jesus her own. 

Here are the buy links:

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Libbys-Cuppa-Joe-Rebecca-Waters/dp/1620208679/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1549474236&sr=1-1&keywords=libby%27s+cuppa+joe

BN: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1130433964?ean=9781620208670

Endorsement:

Libby's Cuppa Joe by Rebecca Waters is a sweet read in every way. You'll love the setting--I know I do!--and the characters, and the way they watch out for one another. A great community. Imagine my joy to discover that the author who was invited to speak at an event in this fictional story was me! The real me. I'm honored. Readers will enjoy the sweet romance and the sweet treats. Few places can beat Door County for cozy settings in which to read, and cozy settings to write about.  

--Cynthia Ruchti, 

speaker and author of more than two dozen books, 

including the novel Miles from Where We Started

About Rebecca Waters:

A Southern girl living in Ohio...

A believer who loves warm weather, books, and time to write.

Rebecca Waters draws on her many life roles for her writing. She has been a wife to one, a mother to three and now enjoys being the grandmother to eight. 

In addition, Rebecca has served as a teacher in public schools and a professor of teacher education at the university level. She also taught in Kosovo, Europe. 

Rebecca sees writing as both a gift and a ministry. Although she has published in professional journals in the field of education, she has also published in Chicken Soup for the Soul, The Lookout Magazine, and Home Health Aide Digest. Rebecca maintains a blog called A Novel Creation. In addition to the novel Breathing on Her Own, her Writing to Publish Series includes Designing a Business Plan for Your Writing, Marketing You and Your Writing 101, and Writing with E's. Rebecca's contribution to the Buckeye Christian Fiction Anthology 2018 is a romantic novella.

Do get your copy and enjoy the read!

Happy reading!