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The Kinship of Music & Writing
How many times have we heard from our editor that our sentences are choppy, or sluggish, or don’t have flow? What does that mean? I’ve found that years of studying music has helped me enormously with...
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A Picture = A Thousand Words
It may seem clichéd or elementary, but how many times have we heard, “A picture is worth a thousand words?” Writers often can’t use pictures in our work; we have to create them with words. In order to...
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My Aggravating Microsoft Word 2010
When I started writing, I used Microsoft Word 1998 and then graduated to 2000 and 2003. No problem. The 2003 version was the one I used while writing my mystery novel and the articles I wrote for the...
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Excerpt From “She Had to Know” by Coco Ihle
After the deaths of her adopted parents, Arran discovers her long lost sister’s name and, despite a terrifying premonitory dream, embarks on a quest to find Sheena. After reuniting in Scotland, the...
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Tough Birthdays
My birthday is tomorrow the 12th, and it’s a big one. The one after “middle age” and the beginning of “elderly.” It’s difficult to fathom I’m there already. I don’t feel elderly. I’m told I don’t look...
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Christmas With My Sister For The Second Time by Coco Ihle
Joanie & Coco Next week I’ll be traveling to spend Christmas for the second time with my sister Joanie. Our first Christmas together was when we were in our fifties. We’d searched for one another...
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My Tale of Traveling With a Medical Mask
In recent years, I’ve seen on television, people traveling through airports wearing medical masks, but I hadn’t actually encountered anyone doing so, much less a person such as me! Well, after...
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Belly Dancing…Dangerous?
My twenty year career as a Middle Eastern belly dancer was fun and exciting, but who would have thought it could be dangerous? In the Bible Belt, no less? A version of the following story first...
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Goodbye
Several months ago, a dear friend called to say goodbye. Like in… forever. I was shocked when she told me why she was calling. I was something else, too. Grateful. I knew she wasn’t well and hadn’t...
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Inspirations for Wraithmoor Castle
My readers have asked me to tell them what inspired the appearance and mood, both inside and out, of the fictitious Wraithmoor Castle Inn in my book, SHE HAD TO KNOW. Having been fortunate enough to...
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Writing Styles Have Changed
I’m reading a book right now by Patricia Wentworth, published in 1953. Although I’m very much enjoying this book, I’m finding the going slower than in the novels of today, which started me thinking....
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My Welcome Home — by Coco Ihle
On June 13th, I set off on a river cruise to Russia, Estonia and Finland, and returned to Florida on July 4th. My homecoming, however, wasn’t quite what I had planned. After about thirty hours without...
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My New Impressions of Russia by Coco Ihle
When I was a child, my impressions of Russia included Soviet troops and missiles parading through Red Square and Nikita Khrushchev’s angry face on TV at the UN, air raids in our schools where we...
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Ancient Onion Domes Galore
Today, I’ll be taking you to Kizhi Island (pronounced KEE – ZHEE), a stop on my recent Russian river cruise. Kizhi Island, in Russia’s republic of Karelia, is located on Onega Lake, (one of Europe’s...
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Seeing Tsars – Catherine’s Palace, Russia
St. Petersburg is unlike any other city I’ve ever seen. The only commonality to some other beautiful and historic cities is that one could take a lifetime to discover and absorb it all. I had only four...
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Hidden Treasure in Estonia
Toward the end of my trip to Russia, Estonia and Finland this summer, I visited the more than thousand year-old walled city of Tallinn, Estonia, crowning the Toompea Hill and overlooking the Bay of...
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How to Ease Your Holiday Anxiety
A while back, I wrote a blog entitled, The Hurrier I Go, the Behinder I Get. Does that sound like you? Especially during this holiday season? There are so many things that must be done in such a short...
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Before The Internet and Cell Phones
Many of you may not remember the time before The Internet and cell phones were a regular part of our lives, but I do. Because of these wonderful inventions, life seems to have sped up and allowed us to...
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Encouragement From A Favorite Designer
Back in the 1990’s, I faithfully watched Christopher Lowell’s TV show, Interior Motives, which was all about how anyone could create a spectacular and comfortable home with just a few guidelines....
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Encouragement From A Favorite Designer
Back in the 1990’s, I faithfully watched Christopher Lowell’s TV show, Interior Motives, which was all about how anyone could create a spectacular and comfortable home with just a few guidelines....
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