Category: Uncategorized

First Post

Hello! I’m Lauren’s husband, Richard. I’m also a writer, having written a smattering of short stories, some poetry, two novels, and multiple screenplays. I also on occasion help with a little bit of story development on Lauren’s two current book series: the Hidden in Plain Sight universe and her Christmas romance series, Kringle Conspiracy, which features several stories set in a fictionalized version of the town we live in here in NW Missouri.

So suffice it to say that while this post IS a bit of blatant marketing (hint, hint) in that I’m writing about Lauren’s writing in hopes of generating sales, it’s also because I think she writes thought-provoking series with interesting characters, and although her Hidden in Plain Sight series touches on some serious topics (yes, there’s a threatened species-wide apocalypse for humanity), you shouldn’t be put off by that, because (spoilers), humanity does survive. As writer Elizabeth Scarborough put it: “Luckily there is a sequel.”

So what I would suggest is reading the books to get to know her characters: the near-immortal Archetypes, the humans gifted with talents from Gaia, the members of the aforementioned Kringle Conspiracy who really do spread the spirit of Christmas(tm) while stumbling through their romances.

Trust me, you’ll find a good read in all of them.

My Relationship Mistakes

Daily writing prompt
What experiences in life helped you grow the most?
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The experiences that helped me grow the most in my life were my relationship mistakes. When I was younger I had what is called in the literature an anxious attachment style. It comes from a childhood with an overwhelmed mother who used threats of abandonment as discipline. So I developed anxious-attached relationships with my boyfriends.

In common language, I was anxious and clingy. I chose people with avoidant attachment styles, which means they did not necessarily want to be in relationships. The males were ambivalent, distant, or otherwise not committed. This made me more anxious and clingy, which made them more noncommittal and distant, and … it was a total mess.

It took me a long while to break this cycle. One of the best things I did was spend many years outside of a relationship, to the point where I didn’t need a relationship anymore. And when I no longer needed one, I took the risk that found me the right one.

Unincorporated Areas

Daily writing prompt
Name an attraction or town close to home that you still haven’t got around to visiting.
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I have this fascination with unincorporated areas in the US — these are not quite towns, but places that have names and very little population. They fascinate me because they obviously have a history and, at least at some time, an identity, yet many of them are forgotten now.

Some of them have road signs, such as Quitman, which is in the county where I live. I have been to Quitman and seen the small collection of houses there. According to Wikipedia, there are 45 people there in 23 households as of the 2010 census (Wikipedia, 2025). However, an unincorporated area’s road sign doesn’t have a population posted, which is part of how one can tell it’s unincorporated.

Other unincorporated areas are unmarked, but can be found in the memory of people who lived there. Wikipedia may have information on unincorporated areas in a county. Having the name of the unincorporated area, one can often locate them on a maps app on the phone. Even Gaynor, MO, which is listed in Wikipedia as ‘extinct’, can be found on Google Maps.

I have not been to Gaynor, but I have been to both Quitman and Wilcox, the two other unincorporated areas in Nodaway County, Missouri. And I remain fascinated by these former towns and not-quite towns that haven’t quite disappeared from human memory.

My First Name is Lauren

Daily writing prompt
Write about your first name: its meaning, significance, etymology, etc.
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My first name is Lauren, which I’m sure is buried somewhere in this blog. (My full name is Lauren Jean Leach-Steffens, in case you care).

The name ‘Lauren’ comes from Latin, meaning ‘crowned with laurel’, or so I was told as a child. Interestingly enough, it seems to be one of those deterministic names, the ones that shape one’s future. These typically are last names, like the doctor my mother had whose name was ‘Dr. Sickley’ or the undertakers ‘Blood and Wolfe’ in our hometown. But the Lauren who got all the academic honors in high school seems like another deterministic name moment.

I often wonder if I would have been less clumsy if my parents had named me ‘Grace’. I really am a very uncoordinated person, to where I have fallen off chairs and tripped over invisible turtles. Maybe the right name would have fixed it. But no, I’m Lauren, and at least when I was younger, that meant something.

Call me Pygmalion

Have you ever gotten a crush on a character in a book?

As a writer, I know I’ve gotten crushes on my characters. That makes sense, as everything I write has a romantic bent, or at least a relationship bent. (My model for writing relationships comes from Elizabeth Scarborough’s Nothing Sacred; specifically the relationship between Viveka Jeng Vanachek and Lobsang Taring. I tend not to write hyperbolic characters or tropes. Sometimes hyperbolic scenes, though.)

What kinds of characters do I get crushes on? Josh Young, the aikidoka mystic in the service of Gaia. Luke Dunstan, world-weary Archetype with a way of getting around rules. Brent Oberhauser, the history professor who wrote A History of Father Christmas.

My app says this is aikido. I am doubtful.

When I create a character and live with him so long, I can’t help but be smitten.

The Home Stretch

On the professing front, all I have left to grade for the semester are two class assignments and one final. Not a bad thing; Finals run next week. I will make it.

Summer might be a light one — I only have 10 interns so far for summer. Normally I have 20. I could use a light summer, because I still don’t know what’s going to happen with my medication. It hasn’t happened yet, at any rate.

Photo by Alexander Grey on Pexels.com

That means writing. This means finishing Carrying Light, editing Kringle Through the Snow for October 1 publication, and doing a final edit of Reclaiming the Balance, for Jan. 1 publication. If I get the guts to publish the latter. It’s such a unique book. The conflict is personal and internal to Barn Swallows’ Dance and its residents. One of the main characters is non-binary, so I wrote the book with they/them, so I expect reaction from the more bigoted.

I might also write on Walk Through Green Fire, in which the lead female rescues a prince of Faerie. That one is hard because I expect it to have sex scenes, at least one. Unless I chicken out.

We shall see what the summer brings when it gets here, which is a couple weeks from now.