Kelly McClymer's Blog, page 5

Our road trip across the country on the way to our daughter’s wedding has begun! We’re taking the slow roads, avoiding the interstates, stopping to walk through the little towns we pass through if they catch our eye. For the next few weeks, we will be footloose and fancy free. And then we will be parents of the bride. So, please welcome my husband, Jim, to the blog. Jim is the photographer in the family, and he will be taking pictures and giving updates on the trip from his pers...

I’m on the road again!

We’re heading toward grandson territory in California. This time, we decided to go through Canada. Passports in hand, we looked forward to conquering new lands.

We only got as far as Lyndon, Vermont the first day.

We stopped at a B&B, where the proprietor made us feel like slackers — she and her husband retired, then bought and spent three years renovating a beautiful Vermont farmhouse as a B&B.

After 25 years, she clearly sti...

Ta Da! Mother’s Day Winners Annoucement

I realize that it is already June, and I’m just now announcing the Mother’s Day winners here on the site. My excuse is that it was a Facebook Contest, and I announced them on Facebook, so that should count.

But here I can take a little more time to talk about the contest, why I did it, why I might do it again, and why I’m going to be reaching out to readers to find out what you like, so I can do more of it.

There were two prizes in the contes...

I just spent the morning gathering together inspirational quotes to Tweet. Started with Gandhi (of course), moved on to Lao Tzu (naturally), then Dickens, then Shakespeare…and then I realized they were all men. So I found Maya Angelou, renowned poet and author, and immersed myself in reading her many pithy sayings.

And then I went onto Twitter, where my dashboard informed me that a trending hashtag was RIP Maya Angelou. I checked to m...

I debuted the new illustrated cover for Shop and Let Die last week. But this week I’m going to give everyone a sneak peek at the re-done cover for The Ex Files. I’ll be updating all the books on the estores next week, but I really want to show it off now.

Ta da!

Why am I changing it? Because chicklit typically has illustrated covers. It seemed the right time to change The Ex Files, since I had found the perfect illustrator for S&LD. Both books share that Bri...

I’m excited to report that I’m a part of a new venture — Storytellers Unlimited. The tagline is my headline — doesn’t it just say it all? Authors and readers getting lost in the story, together.

Three other authors and I started this group as a way to find our readers, and to find out what it is that readers want, need, and can’t live without. After all, when it comes right down to it, we’re all readers and story lovers first.

Over the...

For my new series, I have been trying to find out all I can about the lives, movements, and cultures of human peoples in prehistory. So I was excited to find out about Naia in USA Today.

Her story is a sad one: a girl of 15 or 16, perhaps looking for water in a cave well, falls through a hidden sinkhole and injures herself so badly that she dies there in the cave among the bones of saber-toothed tigers and other animals who fell prey t...

I have read many books in my lifetime. A few authors have inspired me, such that I can point to one of my books and say, “There — that one, it was inspired by this author.”

Mary Stewartis one of those authors (I deliberately do not say was, because her books will live on and so will she, through them). She lived to a ripe old age of 97, and had long ago stopped writing, as far as I know (something I find incomprehensible, because I plan to write until I keel ov...

That’s my new tagline. Do you like it? I do.

I’ve been quiet for a few months, but now I’m bursting with news, on two fronts. One is that Shop and Let Die, the first book in my mystery shopping mom series is in production and will be released June 15th (at last!).

The second is that I’ve taken my cue from some other successful indie authors and begun working on a second series. While that novel won’t be out for a while yet, I have begun working o...

I’m excited to show off the new cover for Shop and Let Die.

I’m even more excited to tell you all that the book should be available (barring unforeseen delays) on June 15th, just in time for beach reading season. Where pre-order is available (iTunes, Smashwords, and Kobo), you should be able to pre-order on June 1, if you so desire.

Make sure to sign up for my newsletter list if you want word the minute the book is out. I really can’t wait until Mo...