Hey there friends!

One of my favorite things to do as a little girl was to visit my dad’s basement workshop. He had so many interesting tools and used them all the time for home maintenance and also to create new things.

I’ve carried over my love of tools into the digital world. You’ve probably heard me use the phrase “Tools for Story Collectors” before. In fact, the book that I wrote this summer is the first book in a series I’m calling just that.

With that being said, I’m sharing a new tool with you this week that I’m hoping you’ll put to good use. Later in this email you’ll find a link to download the “Digital Photo Storage Log” spreadsheet.

September 11 is always a day of somber remembrance of the events from that day now 23 years ago. Today I've shared some of my own thoughts regarding preserving remembrances in an article I wrote on Wednesday.

Are the leaves starting to change colors on the trees in your neighborhood? They are here in NW Arkansas! This is such a wonderful time of the year in the Ozarks.

Happy weekend!

Now, Where is That Photo I Need for This Story?

In Part One of this post, I gave you some guidance on finding and organizing your digital photo files. But, it’s not enough to just organize on your own computer and/or in a cloud storage location. You need to make sure that both you, your current family, and future generations can easily find those photos in the future.

To help with that, I’ve created a photo log spreadsheet for you in both Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel. I’ve kept the spreadsheet pretty basic for now and hope that you will expand it to meet your own needs. Click the buttons to download a copy of the version you need.

Important: If you choose to use the Google Sheets version, you will be given the instruction to "Copy document" when you click the button. Then you'll be prompted to open up your Gmail account. The Excel version is just a simple download of an Excel file.

Keeping Important Remembrance Stories Alive

On days like 9/11 we all realize that most of us have those “I remember exactly what I was doing when I found out” stories about that horrible day. I’m thinking that it might be important to the future generations in my family for me to write those down while they are still fairly fresh in my mind. If you have time for a short story of my own, I'll tell you why I think that. Hint: It's not about 9/11, but rather about another tragic event many of us remember from 1963. Click the button to read.

Are you building an ebook with me? This week let’s take a look at the start of the final steps in Build An Ebook - Step 7: Pull It All Together & Choose a Final Title.

Back in Step 5 you gave your layout and design some serious consideration. You might have chosen some templates to use in your layout. Now it’s time to pull all your content together into your publishing software. Click the button to read more.

Available on Amazon for Kindle and as a paperback.

Things that delight me this week ✨

Many of you know that I spend a lot of my free time connected to my iPhone listening to an audio book. I love mysteries and psychological thrillers but after one of those that’s especially intense, I find that I need to listen to something like a “beach read” to take a break. One of my favorite authors for that genre is Elin Hilderbrand. Almost all of her books take place on Nantucket and she brilliantly weaves together character-driven stories with a mystery or two. Earlier in the summer I borrowed the audio book of her novel “The Perfect Couple” from the public library and loved it. Then, to my absolute delight, Netflix just released a streaming series based on the book. I binge watched it in just 3 sittings and loved every minute of it. It sticks really closely to the storyline of the book and makes good use of Hildebrand’s artful character development. I might also mention that it stars Nicole Kidman and Liev Schreiber. Delightful. Check it out!

✨What is inspiring and delighting you these days?

#delightedandinspired

​​​​

I'd love to have you follow my social feeds. I promise to not be boring but will most likely be cheesy now and again. 😉