This is Not Farewell … Yet

Hello, friends!

You may have noticed we went dark for a couple of months. While that wasn’t intentional, we will bringing this site to a close in late spring, as many of us here at the Storyteller Squad are moving on in our writing journeys. Juggling family, extended family, jobs, new writing responsibilities, new babies on the horizon, and more, has required greater time commitments from many of our members, putting this part of our writing life on the back burner.

Such is the life cycle of many a group blogs, and that’s okay. We pray you’ve been filled and encouraged by our posts. Maybe you’ve written down some of our recommended reading on your TBR list. Maybe your own writing has developed after reading some of our tips. Maybe you gleaned some good parenting nuggets along the way, as well. 😊

But don’t go yet!

Over the next several weeks, each of our members will post something about their book(s), their website, their pending works, maybe something fun about their life, where to find them on social media, etc. I hope you’ll take time to read and follow each of them.

And so, in that spirit, I’ll be going first. 😄

I’m Laurie Germaine, and I had three dreams as a child:

• Marry a European & raise my children bilingual
• Be a stay-home mom
• Become a published author

Two of the three dreams came to pass. Can you guess which one didn’t? (Hint: I’ve lived in Montana for over seventeen years.)

My debut novel, Tinsel in a Tangle, was traditionally published in Oct 2017 … eighteen years after I graduated college and began devoting my free time to learning the writing craft. That’s a long time, IMO. But during the first thirteen years, I was pretty much going it alone. It wasn’t until I opened myself up to having my writing critiqued by other writers through ACFW that my quality of writing significantly, and quickly, improved.

(So, if you’re trying to go it alone, I encourage you to find local writers with whom you trust your work, and who trust you with theirs, or join ACFW and start submitting your work through its online Scribes critique loop.)

Since 2017, I’ve self-published two more novels and re-published my first novel when I got my rights back in 2022. My third book, The Daze Before Christmas, recently won a silver medal in Illumination’s 2026 Christian Book Awards in the Holiday category. 🎉

I’m currently (finally!) working on the first draft of my next project. Lord willing, it will become my fourth published book, but we shall see. I’m just glad to have characters talking in my head again, since I seem to consistently embark on a long tromp through what I call the Writing Desert after each of my books, to the point where I despair of ever writing again! That’s when the Lord always shows up and gives me the whisper of inspiration and encouragement I need to continue on, up and out of the Desert.

Now for all the necessary deets:

I recently moved my newsletter platform over to Substack, so if you want to subscribe to get my monthly(ish) letter in your inbox, you can either find me on Substack or subscribe through my website, LaurieGermaine.com. I’m also on Instagram and Facebook, though not often. And I still have my original blog that I started years ago, Scattered Whimsy, but it has been a bit neglected as of late. What can I say? I’m a Gen Xer* who never bought into social media or felt comfortable laying bare my private life for everyone to pick apart. 😉

I hope you’ll be watching for future posts from my fellow Storyteller Squad members, to hear their unique backstories and to follow them on their social media handles. In the meantime, may God continue to bless you in your writing and parenting! ❤️

~Laurie

*I have always been offended that my generation is referred to as “Gen X.” Like, no one could think up any noteworthy title for us, coming on the heels of the Silent Generation, the Greatest Generation, and the Baby Boomers?! And now my kids are referred to as Gen Z! But at least people generally have greater hope for the Gen Zers than they did for my generation. 😅