Ann H Gabhart - One Writer's Journal

Roses - the Language of Love and Thanks

2013-06-19T23:35:00.001-04:00

"The rose speaks of love silently, in a language known only to the heart."

Roses, those most romantic of flowers!
And so, of course, many of the stories you shared with me about the times in your life when you've been surprised and happy to receive bouquets, the flowers were roses.

My husband is a very romantic guy and hardly ever forgets Valentine's Day or our anniversary. A few times he's got the day wrong on our anniversary, but hey, he's human and we've been married a lot of years. One year he sent me a dozen beautiful red roses for Valentine's Day. Those roses were beautiful, but then the bill came. Wow! Those roses were not only beautiful, they were EXPENSIVE! I think the price must have sky-rocketed for Valentine's Day that year. Either that or they had a rose shortage. I decided roses were more fun without a price tag attached. :) Actually now I've gotten a few of those sort of rose bouquets from a friend who drives a flower truck. When they can't sell all their roses by a certain time, they throw them in a dumpster. He's saved a few dozen now and again to share with his friends. But I do remember those beautiful roses from years ago - and their price tag! LOL

Brandy tells us about a young boy who knew the power of a single rose when it came to romance while he was still in middle school. Here's her story.

"When I was in middle school we had a band competition out of town. Afterwards I was supposed to have a movie date with a boy. He left on the early bus home. Ours got delayed by about three hours. We finally arrived at the movies and he was still standing outside with a rose!! So sweet I will never forget that."

And roses delivered at work can make a girl happy too. Ellen is still smiling when she remembers a delivery of roses to her place of work even though it happened a long time ago.

"My husband was in the National Guard Army Reserve when we met. We dated a few months when he had to go to 'summer camp.' On the day he left, I received a dozen red roses at work! What a surprise and boy, were the other gals jealous. (smug smile here) That was almost 50 years ago."

I can almost see that smug smile of yours, Ellen!

Cindy says roses can be a pretty good reason to get reacquainted with an old friend from high school.

"My husband surprised me with my first dozen yellow roses (my favorite) on Valentine's Day when we first got together. That's a story that would make a great novel. We knew each other in high school and 32 years later, neither of us had married and he came looking for me. I still lived in California in a big city and he moved back to marry me in a small town in Indiana. So now I'm a Small Town Girl. Every Valentine's Day he still sends me yellow roses. We've been married 12 years now."

When Cindy gave me permission to use her story, she shared more.

"Actually, we never dated in high school, I had a crush on him but he was all into his basketball. Our best friend started a Bible study that we both attended as we were both new Christians at the time. There is so much to the story...it was definitely a God thing happening in His timing. We have truly been blessed."

But roses aren't always for romance. Sometimes they are just to say thank you. Robin shared this story.

"I was very touched & surprised once when I was working at the bank. I was working at the downtown branch, so we had several customers that received various forms of Social Security checks. SS check day was usually very busy & sometimes quite hectic. Well, this particular day was worse than usual until one of my sweet 'little old man' customers walked up to my desk with a single rose in his hand & said he thought I needed a smile. I almost cried, it was so sweet!! Thanks for stirring up this memory for me Ann!"

And one last "thank you" story that I found touching. It's no wonder Linda remembered it. Her story shows what a difference we can make in the lives of those we meet as we go about our daily work.

"I rarely get flowers expected or otherwise. I did one time many years ago get a beautiful bouquet that was totally unexpected. I had taken care of a young man in the hospital who had survived an attempted suicide. He had had several surgeries and I had cared for him through the entire hospitalization. When he left, he had two dozen perfect red roses sent to me as a thank you. We stayed friends for a long while but finally he moved and we lost contact."

Hope you are enjoying the flower stories. If you haven't shared your flower story yet or entered my Small Town Girl Celebration Giveaway, you still have time. Leave a comment here or send me a message to me. annhgabhart(at)yahoo(dot)com.

I've also got a new giveaway going at Goodreads. You might win a copy of Angel Sister there. And to keep the celebration going, I'm doing a Facebook Contest on my Facebook page. If you pre-order Small Town Girl, you might have a chance to win a $50 gift certificate.

Whew! How am I going to keep up with all these contests and get that new book finished? I know. You are all going to send me great positive thoughts and prayers. I thank you for that. :)

A Father's Day Flower Story

2013-06-16T23:18:00.001-04:00

"Any man can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a dad."

Happy Father's Day to all of you out there who are fathers or had a father. The picture is of my husband and our first child. My husband and I were both so young, but we were a family. I've always loved this picture. You can almost see the love bonding between father and son.

But as our preacher pointed out this morning, not every child had or has that loving dad. He didn't, so he knows. Still, we want to celebrate those who are good dads. I've been blessed to know many wonderful, loving dads. My father. My father-in-law. My husband and his brothers. My sons. Many of the men in our little country church. Dads to celebrate!

It's fun that one of the flower stories I received for my Small Town Girl Celebration Contest ties in so well with Father's Day. Thank you, Carol, for sharing your happy flower story.

She says, "My favorite gift of flowers was a wrist corsage from my father, which he gave me when I played a piano concert when I was about 10. It was my first adult gift of flowers, and a total surprise, given to me by the man I idolized. No flowers will ever mean as much to me. Dad passed away in April 2012, and I miss him every minute."

When I e-mailed Carol for permission to share her story she sent me a photo of her handsome dad to go with her flower memory and added this information about him. "My Dad was a very special guy. He fought in WWII, then served the U.S. in the Air Force for 23 years, retiring as a colonel, then went to work for the Army as a weapons development engineer. And through it all he did special things to make us feel loved - gifts from all over the world for my Mom and all five of us kids, trips to museums, figure skating with his girls, etc. He even brought home a large glass lens that would later be used in a military camera lens, and let us each have a chance to help grind the lens! Wonderful memories!"

Precious memories. It's been great seeing all the pictures of dads on Facebook today as we do have those precious memories. I hope you have wonderful memories of your dad or if you are the dad that you are making great memories with your children.

If you haven't left a comment or sent me an e-mail, annhgabhart(at)yahoo(dot)com, to throw your name in the hat for my contest, you still have time. Deadline for entering is July 13 at midnight EST. And I'd love to hear your flower stories too. Not a requirement for entering, but fun. If you do send a flower story, let me know if I can share it forward. No last names or places, so your privacy is protected. And again, Carol, thanks for sharing about your flower corsage and your dad.

Thanks for reading!

Loving Flower Stories

2013-06-12T22:27:00.002-04:00

Love is the only flower that grows and blossoms without the aid of the seasons. - Kahlil Gibran

My giveaway contest to celebrate Small Town Girl is going great. Entries are coming in from all over and you wouldn't believe how many of us are out there who "never win." One of those people will be winning those wind chimes and one of my books on July 13. The first prize is two dozen roses and so it seemed the perfect time to ask you to share memories of a time you got a special bouquet or a surprise one. I'm getting the most wonderful stories. Some very short. Some a little funny. Some with a twist. Some showing a lot of love. I'm going to be sharing a few of those stories here and on my Facebook page during the next few weeks. If you haven't entered the contest yet, you still have time. Just send me an e-mail from my website (you can see complete details of the contest there on my Event page too) or leave a comment here with a way to contact you should be the lucky winner.

Flowers can mean so many different things to us according to when we received them and who gave them to us. One of the surprise bouquets mentioned most often in the contest entries were those dandelions or daisies clutched in the hand of a smiling child or grandchild. I've been the recipient of those kind of bouquets and I've also helped the grandchildren pick flowers to give their mamas. Pure love that makes those short stemmed and wilted dandelions the most beautiful flowers in the world.

Lois agrees in her story. "My flower story is when my daughter was about 4 years old - now she is 40 - she gave me a bunch of dandelions in a fruit jar for Mother's Day and she was soooo very proud. They were the best flowers I have ever received."

Rosemary's story shows that grandmothers like those kinds of bouquets too. "One day when I was out, my grandchildren stopped by to visit. When I came home I found some flowers picked from my garden along with a note that said: Hi Grandma, we stopped by and watered your flowers. We love you! I treasured that note and put it away in my keepsake box. Thinking of that day always brings a smile."

All grandmas have a keepsake box in their heart for memories like that. Karen certainly keeps this next memory of a special flower in her heart. It happened on the day she was watching her grandson on the day graduate from preschool in cap and gown and all.

"Parents, grandparents, teachers and children had filled the church sanctuary waiting for the 'solemn' occasion to begin. As we sat on the edge of our seats, turning to view the children as they marched in to 'Pomp and Circumstance,', imagine my surprise as my grandchild passed by me and suddenly broke line, ran back to where I was sitting, and in his most precious voice said, 'Grandma, this is for you!'

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, but I felt extremely honored as his parents, his other grandparents and my husband were all there. Even though it was not a big bouquet, but one single small flower that had bloomed among the grassy area, which he picked outside of the church as the class was waiting their turn to enter the building, in my eyes it was. What fun it was to recall that day in my life.

Flowers have a way of making us feel loved. Flowers give us a way to show that love as Karen's grandson did. But sometimes the surprise can be double whammy. Mary's story made me smile.

"My son gave me a lovely bunch of flowers once. It was certainly a surprise because he pulled them up from our garden, roots and all. The thought was there & we did manage to re-plant most quite successfully."

Earth laughs in flowers. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Thanks for reading. More flower stories to come.

Celebration Giveaway Fun

2013-06-09T23:50:00.001-04:00

Prizes can be fun and so can contests to celebrate new books. I got my first copies of Small Town Girl last week and first thing I thought about was giving some of those books away - along with an added prize or two. I like to tie in the contest with the book. You remember that lilac colored Grandmother's Bible I gave away to celebrate Scent of Lilacs. It seemed to work. Last time, just for fun, I asked you to tell me grandmother stories. You guys are really good story sharers. Before I could blink twice, I had an inbox full of the most wonderful stories, and I had a great time sharing some of those stories with my readers here.

This time I thought and thought about a tie-in prize and finally decided on roses. After all we are taking a story trip back to Rosey Corner. I considered a rose bush, but the winner might not have a place to plant the bush or not be able to. So I decided on cut roses. Who doesn't like roses and getting flowers? I have since found out there are a few, at least two people have told me if they win, they want the second prize. Anyway, I sent out my newsletter with the prize information and I'm slowly working through all the great responses. If you're not on my newsletter e-mail list and would like to be, it's easy to sign up. Just go to this link.

So here are the prizes (pictured above.) First prize is two dozen multi-colored roses and an autographed copy of Small Town Girl or a different book of your choice. It just has to be written by me. :) Second prize is three grab bag books (all Christian fiction) plus an autographed copy of your choice of one of my books. Then I have that extra drawing for those of you who say you "never win." Tell me that and you will be entered in a second drawing for some wind chimes that sound wonderful in the breeze along with your choice of one of my books. Remember, you can enter by sending an e-mail or leaving a comment here on One Writer's Journal with a way to contact you. Easy as that. We'll get you entered, don't worry.

For fun, you can tell me about a time you were surprised by a bouquet of flowers, bought or picked out of the yard. Not a requirement to enter, but I love your stories and I am going to share some of them here in the weeks ahead. With your permission, of course, The flower stories I've been getting are mostly short and sweet but touching. I keep smiling as I read about your surprise bouquets. Deadline for entering is Midnight EST July 13, 2013.

Some of you have said you've never been surprised by flowers and I say sometimes you have to surprise yourself. Buy that pretty flower you've always wanted. My husband has often sent me flowers on the big sending flowers days like Valentines. And at times, he has grabbed a bunch of wildflowers over in the field and brought them to me. :) Sometimes roots and all, but hey, they were flowers. And I love flowers.

Thanks to all of you who read Sue's great post last Sunday. We had a good response and now it's time to announce the winner of an e-book copy of Mother Earth Father Sky. It's Pat C. Pat, I'll give you a week to get in touch to claim your prize. If Pat doesn't send me her contact info, I'll pick another winner.

And the party continues as my Small Town Girl is ready to go hunting readers. Thanks for reading.

Small Town Girl is Here!

2013-06-05T22:44:00.000-04:00

The UPS man came calling yesterday and when I opened my door, there on my the step was that much awaited package - my new book, Small Town Girl. All my words neatly printed and packaged in a great cover. There's our small town girl, Kate in her red dress standing on her front porch thinking romantic thoughts. She is, don't you think? And here I am inviting readers to return to Rosey Corner five years after Angel Sister to see what happens to the Merritt sisters when romance starts knocking on their doors.

My publisher has this great perk that lets me (and other authors too) get some free books by other writers from the catalog where my books are featured. That means I often get padded envelopes from my publisher with books inside. So I wasn't really expecting MY book. In fact, I almost pitched the package down on the table to open later. It was a fun surprise when I opened it up and pulled out Kate. I'd seen the front cover on the internet, but this was my first peek at the back cover. I liked it too.

I've been blessed to hold a lot of first copies of my books in my hands, and each time the thrill is still there when I see the printed book with my name as author. Somebody, actually several somebodies, believed my story was good enough to take my words and print them in a book to go out to stores for readers to maybe look at and buy. What a wonderful circle of author, editor, publisher and reader! Could be, I should put reviewer in there somewhere too. If you write reviews, I appreciate you. It's not always easy to condense what a book is about and what you think about it into two or three paragraphs. You have to make every word count.

Of course, that's what writers are supposed to do all the time. I figure with twenty-four books published (I think) and several still unpublished I'm nearing two million words I've written down and rearranged and deleted and added and squeezed and plumped to try to make my stories ones readers like you might pick up and settle down in your reading chair and want to stay with the story for a while. And now I have a new story, Small Town Girl, coming your way.

A newsletter will also be coming your way if you're on my e-mail newsletter list. As always I'm having a giveaway. Newsletter subscribers get to see that news first, but I'll be putting it on here come Sunday night. I'll also be revealing the winner of the e-book version of Mother Earth Father Sky by Sue Harrison. I hope you enjoyed her visit to One Writer's Journal as much as I did. If you haven't left a comment on her post yet, you still can to get your name in the pot for the free book. And come July, I'll be having a special blog only giveaway. So stay tuned and we'll have some fun going back to Rosey Corner.

Thanks for reading!

Enjoy Some Stories around Sue Harrison's Fire Circle

2013-06-02T19:55:00.002-04:00

Back in the 1990s I read a series of books about prehistoric Alaska. The first story in the Ivory Carver Trilogy was Mother Earth Father Sky. I'm sure I partly picked it up because of that great title, but I was soon captivated by the story and the characters. Fast forward a decade and I get to know a Sue Harrison on Facebook who has read some of my books. It takes me a little while, but it finally dawns on me that I am corresponding with an author I greatly admire and I'm going "Wow! The Sue Harrison is telling me she likes my story." See, writers can have fan moments too. Her books were on my keeper shelves.

So I checked out Sue's website and loved what I saw there too. Gorgeous photos of sunsets taken by her husband, Neil Harrison. I promise you’re in for a treat if you go to Sue’s website and check out the MySky photos.

Sue’s Alaskan Ivory Carver trilogy and Storyteller Trilogy books were recently released as e-books (Sue's Amazon page). So if you missed them in print back in the '90s, you can load up your e-readers with some great stories that were international bestsellers in the general market. I will warn my readers who prefer the gentler Christian fiction, that these stories accurately depict the harsher lifestyle of that prehistoric age. But now come join Sue's fire circle and let her tell you about her books and why she could write about the outdoor of the Alaskan tribes in a way that had the reader smelling the smoke of the campfires and feeling the icy winter winds. Leave a comment on the post and you'll be entered in a drawing for an e-book copy of Mother Earth Father Sky. The winner will be picked June 9.

First tell us about Mother Earth Father Sky in your own words, Sue.

When all you love is torn away, and there is nothing left, your first decision must be whether you can bear to live. My novel MOTHER EARTH FATHER SKY is that oft-told story presented through the eyes, heart, and mind of Chagak, a woman – scarcely more than a girl – who decides to survive, although everyone she loves and everything she knows is torn from her life.

This theme of complete loss is a frequent motif in stories, books, and legends. What sets Chagak’s story apart from others is its setting. Chagak lives 9,000 years ago in the archipelago now called the Aleutian Islands, a chain that forms the boundary between the waters of the North Pacific and the Bering Sea .

How did you come up with the idea for the book?

Dr. William Laughlin’s book, ALEUTS: SURVIVORS OF THE BERING LAND BRIDGE, provided the time frame and setting for my novel. In this book, Laughlin, an archeologist, chronicles his uncovering of one of the oldest known villages (circa 6,700 B.C.) in North America .

As I read his book, the Aleut People captured my heart and my imagination. They settled on remote and barren islands where they established a unique and successful culture that remained constant and continuous into historic times. They were (and are) inventors, artists, and skilled hunters. The structural framing of their sea kayaks, which had bifurcated bows, has never been surpassed in usefulness, even by modern engineers. Their medical expertise, when they were “discovered” by the Russians in the 1740s, was greater than the medical knowledge and techniques of 18^th century Europeans.

MOTHER EARTH FATHER SKY is my attempt to give a dimensional reality, within the minds of my readers, to prehistoric events and customs, the knowledge of which has been passed down to our present age only through remains excavated by archaeologists and interpreted by anthropologists. These facts, fleshed out through the legends, beliefs, stories, dances, and songs of the Aleut People tell us that several hundred years after the people first came to the far reaches of the Aleutian Islands, they suddenly abandoned their shore-side villages and began anew with better vantage points in more easily defensible sites. The first question, of course, is “why?” And thus, the idea for MOTHER EARTH FATHER SKY came about, and a story began to grow in my mind and heart.

I began the research for the novel in 1978, and by 1981, with 400 hand-written pages of notes, I started to compose the first draft. By 1984, I had completed a very rough 1,000-page manuscript. During the next five years, I received 17 rejections from agents, along with some very good ideas for revision. Finally in 1989, literary agent Rhoda Weyr agreed to represent me and a few months later sold MOTHER EARTH FATHER SKY in a 3-day auction to Doubleday.

(I'm interrupting here to say auctions are very good for authors, but something most authors never have to worry about! And I love this next part of Sue's story.)

My husband Neil and I were sitting at our kitchen table when I received the first phone call from Doubleday. As I spoke with the editor, I realized that my husband had tears streaming down his face as he realized that MOTHER EARTH FATHER SKY was actually going to sell. We’d both nearly given up.

Now tell us how you could write about the outdoor life so convincingly.

When I was a child, my parents often took my brother and me camping. It was during those trips that our father taught us how to “walk softly upon the earth.” He literally taught us how to place our feet on the animal trails so that we didn’t snap twigs or rustle leaves (toe first walking) and how to watch where we walked. He taught us how to find edible mushrooms, how to fish from shore and from a boat, and how to cook over an open campfire. He taught us that a matchbook match set into hot oil in a pan will flame up at just the right temperature to cook your fish. We leaned “tent living” - wisdom in small things like zippering zippers all the way so mosquitoes don’t get it and how NOT to touch the roof or sides of the tent when it’s raining because where you touch will start a leak. And of course that sounded so silly that I had to try it for myself, and suffered the leak over my face the rest of the night. I’m not a cold weather camper, but I do remember one camping trip in Maine when we awoke to a silent and beautiful world coated with snow, and I remember the laughter of my parents as we left the tent and entered that enchanted world. We ate mostly game animals when I was growing up, venison, bear, partridge, geese, ducks, moose, elk when we could get it, and fresh water fish. We once tried to eat a muskrat. It smelled terrible. My dad tried a bite, but the rest of us passed. My mother was so disgusted with him. No more muskrats in her kitchen!

From my husband I learned how to build a fire, how to gut and butcher a deer, how to fire a rifle (not my favorite thing), how to use a bow, how to pitch a tent, ice fishing, how to dress for winter survival, how to mark a trail, how to climb a tree, how to read animal tracks, how to paddle a canoe. To survive where we live, we’ve both learned “animal etiquette”. If you meet a bear be still and speak softly. If they attack, play dead. If you meet a deer be still and sing. They’ll stand there for quite a while to listen. If you meet a cougar (mountain lion) make yourself as large and scary as possible. Act aggressive, grab a fallen branch if you can easily find one and wave it around and roar. Don’t run unless they run at you first. Fight for all you’re worth. Don’t brush up against a porcupine. Wolves usually circle out ahead of you to attack and usually don’t attack unless they are in a group. Get inside something (a vehicle) or climb a tree. Yell fiercely at coyotes if they’re approaching your territory. If you inadvertently get too close to a skunk, close your eyes tightly if they spray. Weasels are mean. If I see a non-poisonous snake and would like a little help against insects in my garden, I’ll catch it and carry it back to my house and let it go there. It probably won’t stay but you never know.

From friends and books, I learned how to kayak. One of my great joys was an opportunity to paddle a Native kayak in Alaska. Very tippy! I learned to harvest many natural wild foods and also harvest wild plants for dyes and medicines.

So now we know why Sue could walk with her characters through those wild lands in such a way that we, the readers who have never done all that camping could walk with them in our imaginatons too. Thanks Sue, for coming over for a visit here on One Writer's Journal.

Hope the rest of you enjoyed getting to know about Sue and her books as much as I did. You can find out lots more on her website. If you'll leave a comment for Sue or for me on my blog before next Sunday, you'll have a chance to win an e-book copy of Mother Earth, Father Sky. Remember that if you don't have a Kindle, Nook or other e-reader, you can download an e-reader application to your computer or iPhone.

Thanks for reading and more giveaways are going to be coming your way as I'm hoping to send out my newsletter with a Celebration Giveaway for Small Town Girl next week. If you don't get my newsletter and would like to, you can sign up here. Ann's Newsletter. Only a few weeks until my new Rosey Corner book will be available. I'm excited! And excited about Sue visiting here today. Always great to peek behind the scenes of books you love.

Let's Talk Titles - Titling Time Again

2013-05-29T22:58:00.002-04:00

Only weeks away from the release of Small Town Girl, my second Rosey Corner book. It follows up the characters in Angel Sister five years later. And now it's time to title the Rosey Corner book I'm writing now. My working title has been Home to Rosey Corner. I like it but I haven't had any illusions about that title sticking. I've again moved my characters four years into their future. Each of these books will be stories that can stand alone, but it will be more fun if you read them all - especially for me!! :)

The third Rosey Corner book won't be released until the summer of 2014. A long time from now, but that's the way the book business is. You're always working on the book ahead. I feel blessed to have a book ahead to be working on, to be considering a new title for. So let's talk titles.

I'm the kind of writer who would rather wait until I've written the end to the story before I decide on a title. For many years, that's the way I worked when I was writing without contracts. I'd write the book and then try to place the completed manuscript with a publisher. That made coming up with titles easier for me, but it is great these days having the promise of publication in hand while I'm writing the book. That is, if I can deliver a story the editors like. I'm hoping I can do that yet again with my Rosey Corner characters.

Many of the titles of my young adult books are the ones I came up with or slightly tweaked versions of my titles. Secrets to Tell, Bridge to Courage, A Chance Hero, For Sheila, Wish Come True - to name some of them. That's been true for some of my Christian fiction books too. Scent of Lilacs was my title. So was Orchard of Hope. Summer of Joy was not. I had suggested Sunflowers of Joy, but Summer of Joy is better. And now they are being advertised as the Heart of Hollyhill series. I like that too.

The Outsider was not my title, but once it was suggested by the publishers, I liked it. It fit the story nicely and suggested titles for my other Shaker books. The Believer, The Seeker, The Blessed, and The Gifted were all titles I suggested, following the pattern of The Outsider to tie the book titles together. You can see the tie-in on the Hollyhill books too.

If you pay attention, you'll notice that kind of kinship in titles on most series books. Of course, the writer with a great tie-in with titles is the mystery writer, Sue Grafton, starting with her A is for Alibi. She very successfully is working her way through the alphabet and is up to W is for Wasted that releases in September this year. I used to read Ross MacDonald mysteries and often his books had a color in the titles.

The Rosey Corner books don't have quite as obvious relationship titles, but they do have the echo of small town and family. The new title proposed is Love Comes Home. To my ear, that has the same feel as my working title, Home to Rosey Corner. What do you think?

So we'll see. My editor once told me I wrote to the title. I certainly did in The Seeker, The Blessed, and The Gifted. Those themes were threads throughout the stories. Maybe I will again with this book. Love's a good theme to have in a story and home is a place we all want to go.

What words do you like to see in titles? Do some words encourage you to pick up a book quicker than other words? What is the best title for a book that you've ever seen?

Remember to drop back by on Sunday or Monday when I'll be visiting with Sue Harrison, author of the Alaskan novel series beginning with Mother Earth Father Sky. Here's what Publishers Weekly said about the third book in the series, Brother Wind. "Engrossing, dramatic adventure...an emotionally compelling conclusion to a monumental saga." I think you'll enjoy visiting with Sue and hearing how she came to write these bestselling books.

A Day to Remember Those Who Gave Their All

2013-05-26T21:15:00.000-04:00

"It doesn't take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle." (Norman Schwarzkopf)

Do you know why we have a long Memorial Day weekend? Some people think of it as a day to decorate the graves of their loved ones who have died. And that does happen at cemeteries across the country. But actually Memorial Day began as Decoration Day back in the 1860s after the Civil War. Wives, mothers, and sisters began decorating the graves of the fallen soldiers. It's thought as many as 700,000 men lost their lives in the Civil War, a lot of graves to decorate. Perhaps the women, who began the tradition, picked a day in late May because they had many blooming flowers for the grave decorations.

It wasn't until 1967 that Federal law changed the name of the remembrance holiday officially to Memorial Day. The next year the date was changed from May 30 to the last Monday in May. Not everybody was happy with that change because they thought the real significance of the holiday - remembering those who'd been killed in wars - might be lost when the day became part of a three day weekend.

Most communities have special observances to honor our soldiers. In our town, we have what is called the "healing field" where soldiers from our area who died in wars are honored with a flag. When you think about how that kind of memorial could be repeated in every town all across our country, you begin to realize the sacrifice so many have made to keep our country free and to stand up for the freedom of other countries as well. This weekend, thousands and thousands of flags will be placed on veterans' graves in honor of their service and sacrifices.

At our church this morning, we had two Vietnam War veterans. Men who answered the call when their country asked for their service. They made it home. Many did not. Over 58,000 soldiers were killed in that war. 11,465 of those killed in action were younger than twenty. The Korean War claimed almost 40,000 American casualties. World War II saw at least 60 million people worldwide killed. U.S. Military casualties were 416,800. World War I, the war those who fought it thought would end all wars, resulted in 126,000 American soldiers' death.

My books often have scenes of war in the stories, and in my research for these scenes I have read many great stories of the men and women who have served our country in time of war. Most of these soldiers were ordinary men, and sometimes women, who responded with extraordinary valor when they stood in the gap to defend their country. Wars throughout history have claimed the lives of some of the finest among us and are still doing so today. Let us pray for peace and for our soldiers to come home safely. May we never forget those who did not. God bless America and our soldiers and their families!

Arlington National Cemetery

Color the World

2013-05-22T23:11:00.000-04:00

A few years ago when my writing wasn't going so well, I was exploring new options. One of those was writing devotionals inspired by things out here on the farm. I thought if I could come up with one devotional per week, I could turn it into a Hiker's Devotional. Then my fiction writing began to get rolling again and I let the devotional idea slide into the background. However, I did write ten or twelve, and included a few of them on my website. The following is one of those. Hope you enjoy it.

Do you like wildflowers? I do. You might even go so far as to call me a wildflower nut, even when wildflower is no more than a nice word for a weed that just happens to have some kind of bloom. I like flowers of all kinds and even a tiny blossom in the grass that hardly looks important enough to have a name can stop me in my tracks for a closer look.

One day a few springs ago, I was walking across our pasture field when I spotted a tiny blue bloom I hadn't noticed before. The flower was not as big around as a pencil eraser, and the four little petals were a delicate blue. The flower seemed to be lifting its head bravely out of the grass to reach for the sun. Yet because it was so small, its color was almost drowned out by the green of the grass blades.

Then when I stood up, I noticed there wasn't just one of these little flowers. There were hundreds of them. So many that when I looked across the field, the ground turned a hazy blue.

As Christians we can sometimes feel like that small, insignificant flower thinking we can't make a difference in the world of grass blades around us. Yet if we open our lives to the "Son" we can make a difference no matter how small, and if we join together with all the other Christians in the world around us, we can change the color of the world.

Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong. Let all that you do be done with love. I Corinthians 16:12-14 (NKJ)

New Books and Reviews

2013-05-19T23:13:00.001-04:00

In about a month I'll be celebrating a new book out for readers. Small Town Girl is scheduled for release on July 1, but usually I get to enjoy that new book smell when I open up a box the UPS man brings to my door a few days before July. It's always exciting to actually hold that new book in my hands. That's the reward for about a year's worth of work on this particular story and a lifetime of work trying to write well enough to be published and find readers.

One of the exciting things about having a new book come out are the reviews. These days you can find reviews all over the internet. Everybody has an opinion and in the book business, a lot of them post those opinions out there somewhere for the world to read.

I just read my first review of Small Town Girl. My publisher sent me a review from Publishers' Weekly. I held my breath while I read it, hoping for good. It wasn't bad. No wow, that's the greatest story ever remarks, but all in all a favorable review. See what you think.

Gabhart continues the story of the Merritt family, first introduced in Angel Sister. Kate’s the middle sister—the sensible one, the fixer of other people’s problems. She encounters her own problems when older sister Evie marries their pastor, and his childhood friend, Jay Tanner, comes to Kentucky to stand as best man . On the surface, Jay and Kate have nothing in common. She’s a third generation Rosey Corner resident; he’s a drifter. Kate stands strong in tense situations; Jay is prone to pack up and leave when things get tough. She’s a woman of faith; he’s not sure what he believes. Still, the attraction is immediate. While the ending is predictable, Gabhart plants enough roadblocks to make the story interesting. In dealing with Jay’s spirituality, she raises legitimate issues of faith and shows understanding of those who do not easily accept a Christian religious message. And while Kate is the undisputed protagonist, young Lorena Birdsong, an abandoned child unofficially adopted by the Merritts, certainly has her share of scene-stealing moments. Agent: Wendy Lawton, Books and Such Literary Agency. (July)

Would any line in that review encourage or discourage you from reading the book? What blurb would you pull out to convince someone that they should give this story a try?

Back in 2005, when Scent of Lilacs first came out and was my first book in the internet age, I hunted down reviews for it and read them all. There weren't that many. I floated up in the air when reading the good reviews and then got knocked back to the ground when a reviewer had a complaint about the story. Thankfully there weren't many unfavorable reviews for that book early on. Too many bad reviews might have been too discouraging for me while I was trying to get started in this Christian fiction genre.

By the way Scent of Lilacs has since been reissued and gotten lots of reviews. It's also been nominated for fiction book of the month on The Book Club Network. If you take part in the book fun on that site, I hope you'll consider voting for my book. Lots of great books were nominated this month, so I won't be discouraged if I don't win. I've learned not to let bad reviews discourage me. I might stew about them a little, but then I move on to the next story. Or I remember some of the kind comments you have made here. You're the readers I'm trying to keep happy.

Thanks for reading. I do so appreciate each and every one of you who follow my on-line journal. I'm planning a visit from Sue Harrison next week. You won't want to miss that!

Sweeping the Shaker Way

2013-05-15T21:10:00.000-04:00

Brooms make me think of Shakers. That's what I put on my Shaker Wednesday post on my Facebook page this week, but there's only so much you can put on a Facebook post. And a person can write a lot about Shaker brooms.

If you visit the Shaker village of Pleasant Hill here in Mercer County, Kentucky, you can see a reenactor dressed as a Shaker making brooms. These men, like the one pictured here, explain over and over to the tourists who drop into their workshops how the Shakers made brooms and answer hundreds of questions, probably some of the same ones over and over, with the kind of patience and gentle spirit the Shakers may have had in the past. And then, taking their cue from the thrifty Shakers whose ways they're demonstrating, they sell the brooms in their gift shop.

Shaker history says that Brother Theodore Bates of Shaker village in Watervliet, New York watched the sisters sweeping in 1798 with their common round brooms and realized they were wasting time and effort. While he didn't offer to help them sweep, he did flatten the brooms to make them sweep more efficiently. Then the Shakers came up with machines to manufacture the flat brooms. Soon they were making more brooms than they needed and began selling them to the "world." Throughout most of their history, the Shakers didn't believe in patenting any of their inventions because they felt that would be selfish. If they had a better way, they were willing to share it with others.

Shakers could not abide dirt. One of the sayings attributed to their founder, Ann Lee, reminded them of the need for cleanliness. “Clean your rooms well; for good spirits will not live where there is dirt. There is no dirt in Heaven.” So a broom was available in every room, not hidden away in a broom closet, but instead hanging at ready on the peg strips.

The Shakers took ridding their physical world of dirt seriously since one of their purposes was to make their villages as much like heaven as possible. That was part of the reason for their furniture having no ornamentation. A table with plain and simple lines was quicker and easier to clean. That was the reason for the pegboard strips that circled every room, so they could hang things out of the way while they cleaned. Chairs were hung upside down on those pegs so dust would not collect on the seat of the chair. Their beds had rollers so it would be easy to move them out of the way to sweep under them. They even had brooms specially designed to sweep out corners and other hard to reach places.

They also labored "sweeping" songs during their worship such as "Sweep as I Go" where they would pretend to sweep as they sang.

One of their best known sayings is "Hands to work, hearts to God." That has found a place in all my Shaker novels, but I've used other Shaker sayings too in order to add to my story. This is one I've used often. "Do your work as if you had a thousand years to live, and as if you were to die tomorrow."

Here are a couple more that I might take to heart in my own work and keeping my house in order. :)

"Never wish a thing done; do it!"

"A place for everything and everything in its place."

I need to find that place for everything and then put everything in those places and stop just wishing it would happen. Right now it's time to go back to Rosey Corner and write a few more pages on my story. I think I'm writing it as if I have a thousand years before my deadline. Better get that out of my head.

Do you like a good broom? Then you might have a Shaker to thank.

Smiles Make a Difference

2013-05-12T23:19:00.000-04:00

What Sunshine is to Flowers, Smiles are to Humanity. ~Joseph Addison

Today was Mother's Day. A beautiful time to remember Moms everywhere. It was a sad day for some who were missing a mom gone on before them. I still have my mother, but she's not the mother I've known all my life. Dementia has stolen her memories and joy in living. It's hard for her to get up and down. Hard for her to walk. Hard for her to understand the confusing world she now lives in where people tell her she's at home when she knows she's not. She wants the homes of old, not this one where she's lived for thirty years but now can't remember where the bathroom is.

My mother always enjoyed life. Whatever life threw at her, she managed to keep smiling and doing whatever needed to be done. The smiles are harder to come by now, but they can make such a difference in her day. To her and even more to me.

Nobody needs a smile so much as the one who has none to give. So get used to smiling heart-warming smiles, and you will spread sunshine in a sometimes dreary world. - Lawrence G. Lovasik

Mom has gotten a lot worse the last few months. She's often unhappy, often agitated, often wishing to go home to see her mother who has been gone for almost forty years. The other day when Mom was having an unhappy time, my sister asked her how old she was and she said, "Sixteen." Well, no wonder she thinks her mother will be upset if she stays out all night. It's no wonder she looks at her hands and rubs and rubs them thinking they are "dirty." Those age spots and wrinkled skin are not supposed to be there. And no wonder she doesn't know me some of the time. She didn't have children when she was sixteen.

She doesn't always think she's sixteen. She jumps around to lots of different ages, but very rarely thinks about being ninety-three. Sometimes she wonders why her husband never comes home. Sometimes she worries about the children. She needs to be taking care of them. If I tell her I am her daughter, Ann, she will look at me as though that's the craziest thing she can imagine or perhaps say she means that "other Ann," the younger one.

Then there are times when she does know who I am, and we can find reasons to smile. Like getting our hair curled. Like watching America's Funniest Home Videos, one of the few TV shows that she'll watch. She likes the little children on there. Sometimes, we can watch Curious George because they have clips of kids doing things. And she'll watch golf. Not sure why except that Daddy used to like to watch golf.

So we take it day by day. At times, five minutes at a time in hopes that the next five minutes will be better. And we try to squeeze in a few smiles now and again.

"The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions -- the little, soon-forgotten charities of a kiss or smile, a kind look or heartfelt compliment." Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Did you share some smiles with your mother today - in life or maybe in your memory? Smiles don't have to be hoarded away. The more we give away, the more we get in return.

The Mysteries of Spring

2013-05-08T22:23:00.000-04:00

I had fun with my last mystery picture that wasn't much of a mystery for some of you. So how about this one? Got a guess before you read on?

While you're thinking about it, let's talk about Spring. Here in Kentucky it was so cool in March that spring tarried and dragged its feet, but then April came along with sunshine and rain. Everything in sight burst into bloom. Redbuds, dogwoods, crab apples, lilacs, Bradford pear trees, tulips, to name a few.

And the dandelion.

People who want perfect lawns don't have much affection for the lowly dandelion, but I sort of like them. I made them a part of Lacey's story in The Blessed, by having her do a dandelion dance in the spring. And some years ago, I wrote this devotional about them. Here's a bit of it. If you want to read the rest of the devotional, you can find it on my website at this link, Ann's Dandelion Devotional)

The Lesson of the Dandelion
God made the dandelion and said, "It is good. This plant is tough but has a bloom like a spot of sun to make my children smile. It is plentiful so they can eat the leaves and still never lack for flowers." He smiled when the seed ball popped up. "Yes, my little children will have fun with that, and look at all the fresh seeds for my songbirds weary from the winter. Yes, it is good."

So now if you haven't already figured it out, you know the mystery photo. I took the picture a week or so ago when the dew was extra heavy on the dandelion fluffs. Made them sparkle in the early morning light.

"If dandelions were hard to grow, they would be most welcome on any lawn." ~Andrew V. Mason

"The miracles of nature do not seem miracles because they are so common. If no one had ever seen a flower, even a dandelion would be the most startling event in the world."

"It gives one a sudden start in going down a barren, stony street, to see upon a narrow strip of grass, just within the iron fence, the radiant dandelion, shining in the grass, like a spark dropped from the sun." ~Henry Ward Beecher

So happy dandelion hunting and maybe dancing if you take the notion. I think if you look, you'll find some. :)

Do you enjoy Spring? What's the best part for you?

A Final "Take" to Make the Book a "Wrap"

2013-05-05T21:36:00.000-04:00

"Truth is, every writer has to be a good editor, and you have to edit yourself. It is a skill every writer has to acquires." ~Lisa Scottoline

Got the pages for my Christmas novel last week for one more read through. Someday I'm going to keep count of how many times I read through a story before it finally gets into the hands of readers. Maybe I can't count that high! :). No, not that many times, but I do read it numerous times. I've probably read completely through a story I've written at least five times before I mail it off to the publishers. Maybe more. That doesn't count the times I read individual scene or chapters or the times I read it after the story is in the editing stage before being published. A person can't see what needs editing if a person doesn't look for it.

I don't mind editing. Well, most of the time. There have been occasions where the requested edits took some thought and seemed difficult on first look. A few times, they looked difficult on second look!! But it got done. There are other times like this particular read through on my Shaker Christmas book that there are no real changes to make, just little glitches to perhaps catch before the book is printed. I caught one of those on page one of this book. At this stage, it's too late for major edits. I had plenty of chances for that in all those read throughs earlier on.

But it is amazing how, no matter how carefully you read, a few things will slip past you. An 'it' will be written as 'if' or vice versa. Even the most careful editing eye lets little things like that slip past from time to time.

But once I've done these last edits on Christmas at Harmony Hill, I'll be ready to rush toward the end of my work in progress. I'm thinking positive on that rush toward the end. My deadline is not that many weeks away with lots of busyness going on other than writing scheduled into those weeks. Prayers appreciated.

But now, just for fun, here's the first paragraph of Sister Sophrena showing up in this story. I really liked Sister Sophrena. She was the journal writer in The Gifted. It was such fun letting her come back to be one of my headline characters in this Christmas story. I do hope the lady I met a few years ago named Sophrenia at the Redbud Festival will see the stories. I told her when I met her that someday I'd name a character after her. I did change the spelling slightly.

Sophrena Prescott arose from bed at the first toll of the Shaker rising bell the way she had for the last twenty-five years. Habits clung to her like lint to a dark cloak. The other sisters in the room were also getting out of bed at the sound of the bell.

Time to be up and the day to begin. Chores awaited. Beds to make. Floors to sweep. Biscuits to cook. She had kitchen duty. Not a bad duty for November when the warmth of the ovens was welcome instead of suffocating the way it was in the summer months. ....

Forgive me, Lord. She pushed the words silently toward the heavenly Father. Truly the most sincere prayer words she'd offered in days.

That's a final "take" as the movie directors say. But it's hard to say how many "takes" it took me to get to this "wrap."

Does it bother you when you're reading if you notice mistakes? Do you think it possible to catch every mistake is this day and age? What kind of writing mistakes and editing misses bother you the most?

Thanks for reading!

Fiddlesticks and Thunderation!

2013-05-01T22:19:00.001-04:00

When I was a kid, I was taught that a lady had to watch what she said. If she was irritated or stumped her toe, there was a definite limit on available words to express her vexation. Even the innocuous darn was forbidden in my house. Often, if that word slipped out, you were reminded that the word meant repairing holes in socks.

Most of the young people in this day and time probably would have no idea how to go about darning socks. To be completely honest, I don't know much about the process either. There was a glass or wooden

http://thimbleanna.com/blog/?p=5452

darning egg that the mender inserted in the sock and then with darning needle and thread repaired the hole. If people lacked a real darning egg, they might have made do with a lightbulb or a ceramic doorknob. Amazingly enough, you can find how-to videos about darning socks out on the web. Not that I'm going to take up darning. I'm too busy "darning" all the "threads" of my story together. So I just buy new socks and keep the economy rolling.

That's Mom and me back in the fifties. (You can see I was already a dog lover then.) Mom's favorite vexation word was always "fiddlesticks" or sometimes just "fiddle." My daughter told me last week that she finds herself saying fiddle now and in the process remembers Mom. That got me wondering about the word and in the process of wondering I discovered a lot I didn't know about fiddlesticks.

See the guys in the photo. They're playing fiddlesticks. Fiddlesticks are traditional instruments used to add percussion to old-time and Cajun fiddle music, allowing two persons to play the fiddle at the same time. While the fiddler plays with his bow, a second person uses a pair of straws, sticks, or knitting needles to tap out a rhythm on the strings over the upper fingerboard (between the bow and the fiddler's fingering hand). This is also called "beating the straws" or "playing the straws." Nobody knows for sure where this technique originated, but some think it probably arose in the eastern United States. The technique has become rarer over time as the music has changed, but numerous examples have been recorded. (Info from Wikipedia)

Obviously my mother's use of the word to express irritation and the odd way of helping a fiddle player's music sound different aren't the only ways fiddlesticks is used. A lot of stores and restaurants are named Fiddlesticks. There's a country club in New York and a town in Florida. And from the images I pulled up on the internet there is a video game where Fiddlesticks is a creepy character.

Another word I heard sometimes when I was a kid, used mainly by a neighbor who loved to visit and talk away the afternoon, was thunder and thunderation. Tommy was good at telling stories and sometimes laughing at himself in those stories, but when something went sour it was always "thunderation." So I went out on the web to check out that word. An outdoor steel roller coaster that opened at Silver Dollar City in Bransom, Missouri in 1993 is named Thunderation. My neighbor's use of the word pre-dated that by a long time. But here's a photo of the roller coaster.

But even more interesting is that Thunderation is a scouts' camp song. Now it's mostly the Girl Scouts who claim the song, but I think in the beginning it may have been any scout's or guide's song. Here are the lyrics.
"Thunder, thunder, thunderation.
We are the (Scout/guide) Association.
When we work with determination
We create a sensation."

Sounded as if there might have been some feet stomping to make the thunderation. Link to Girl Scouts singing Thunderation.

So what about when you were a kid? How were you allowed to express your vexation? Or not?

Creeks, Cliffs and Wildflowers

2013-04-28T23:54:00.000-04:00

Lots to do! Deadline zooming toward me for my work in progress and the words are coming slow. Chores need doing! New floor going down in the kitchen and bathroom and new room. New floors going down need everything moved off them! Not enough hours in the day.

Sometimes it's hard getting everything done since I have to spend so many hours sitting with Mom and trying to convince her she is home and doesn't need to head out the door to that home that is just beyond her view in her mixed up thoughts. That home she wants is long gone but so much more real in her mind these days than the home where she's been living for the last thirty years.

All this to say that sometimes a person just has to ignore all the have-to-dos and take some time for want-to-dos. So come go to the creek with me.

That's what I did Friday morning. I gave myself the gift of a couple of hours and forgot about the deadlines and chores. It's wildflower season at my creek and I feel cheated if I don't get a chance to admire the wildflowers there every year. So I said the chores can wait. The words might come easier after a little brain rest time. And I went walking. I didn't let Oscar go. He's still recuperating from his broken leg and surgery, but I didn't totally miss out on dog companionship on my hike. The short-legged little neighbor dog went with me. His name's Peanut Butter, but I nicknamed him P.B.

And I saw the wildflowers and heard the creek running. I spotted a Jack-in-the-pulpit, one of my favorites. I got a great picture of some shooting stars. I saw larkspur and buttercups. I took pictures of wood poppies and bent head trilliums, another of my favorites.

The creek was full from the recent rains with the water singing over the rocks. I got my feet wet and practiced my balance on the rocks. And then I climbed back up the steep hill, came home and headed to Mom's. It's good to give yourself a gift now and again. Especially in the spring when nature has given us the gift of beauty.

What are some of your want-to-dos that make you happy when you give yourself that gift of time? Reading? Time with the grandkids? A favorite movie? Writing in a journal?

Blogging's Ravenous Appetite for Words

2013-04-24T22:13:00.000-04:00

“If you love writing or making music or blogging or any sort of performing art, then do it. Do it with everything you’ve got. Just don’t plan on using it as a shortcut to making a living.” (Seth Godin)

This is my 544th post on One Writer's Journal. When I started this blogging adventure in January 2008, I only posted once a week. Here's the very first paragraph I blogged.

"Hi, everybody. I'm just a country girl who's been writing forever. I hope to share some of what I've learned about writing over the years and some about being a country girl through and through."

And the last paragraph in that first blog:
I'll tell you more about growing up in the country next post. Wouldn't want to give away all my secrets the first day. These blogs have a ravenous appetite for words.

Boy, was I right about that ravenous appetite of blogs! Words, words and more words. And by now, if I had any secrets, you probably have had a chance to read them all. It's a good thing I like journaling as I told you in Post 2.

I'm figuring out what exactly I want to write about in my blog. I've been a journal writer forever, but that's writing to myself. Now this may be writing to myself too, but it's like leaving my journal open out on the kitchen table where anybody can read it. That might be okay. I've done some of my best writing in journals. How about you? Are you a journal writer?

Since then I started posting twice a week and left my journal open on a lot of nights. I want you to know I've appreciated each and everyone of you who has taken a peek. I've also needed to remember this bit of advice from Liz Strauss. "The Internet has no eraser.”Once something is posted, it's out there. It's hard to grab back and completely make it disappear.

So I've tried to remember to share encouraging words and fun stories. And now I'm letting Jocie from my Hollyhill books do her own blog once a week. Hollyhill Book of the Strange. The picture up top is the one I have on that blog. It's me a long time ago when I was only beginning to scribble words in notebooks to make stories. I've scribbled and typed and word processed millions of words since then. And hope to have another million or two in my fingers.

Some of that million will be here on One Writer's Journal where the great thing about blogging is this from an anonymous (no doubt blogging) writer. "Blogging is not rocket science. It's about being yourself and putting what you have into it."

"Blogging is to writing what extreme sports are to athletics: more free-form, more accident-prone, less formal, more alive. It is, in many ways, writing out loud.” (Andrew Sullivan)

Writing out loud. That's a good way to look at blogging.

So what do you think? Do you like to blog? Read blogs? What advice would you suggest to make my next 500 plus blogs more fun to read?

Old Time Sunday Afternoons

2013-04-22T00:03:00.000-04:00

What I miss today more than anything else - I don't go to church as much anymore - but that old-time religion, that old singing, that old praying which I love so much. That is the great strength of my being, of my writing.~ Ernest Gaines

I got to eat breakfast with writer friends Lonnie and Roberta Simpson Brown at the Southern Kentucky Book Fest on Saturday. Roberta writes ghost stories. While she looks like somebody's sweetest ever grandmother, her stories might not exactly be the kind of stories grandma would tell you - especially right before you went to bed. At least not if she didn't want the kids to be crawling in bed with her to keep the ghosts away. Roberta is known as the "queen of cold-blooded tails" by her friends. You can check out her and Lonnie's books at Roberta's website. She'd be the perfect storyteller to have sitting around a campfire with you if you wanted to have chills crawling up your back and to keep checking over your shoulder for something going bump in the night. Her husband, Lonnie, also writes some of the stories, so when they go on the road to a book event, they go as a team.

Breakfast isn't much of a ghost story telling time. So we were talking about less scary things like how things used to be back when we were all quite a bit younger. Lonnie said he used to spend Sunday afternoons counting the cars that went by their house. That made me laugh because while I don't remember counting the cars, I do remember noticing every one. And we knew who was driving each of those cars too. A different car, one we didn't know, was reason to wonder what that driver was doing on our road. Sometimes we didn't even have to look at the cars to know them. We could tell by the sound of the engines. Lonnie said they'd know Uncle Willie was coming before he topped the hill.

Then he said another of their past times on a lazy Sunday afternoon was leaning on a fence rail and watching the cows graze. That's how come we have a cow picture tonight. I don't think I ever watched the cows graze, but the little calves running around are pretty cute. Back in the day, things were considerably slower out in the country where people like Lonnie, Roberta, and I grew up.

Sundays were different. After that wonderful Sunday dinner that your mother fixed and put in the oven before leaving for Sunday school, most of us took the day off. Sometimes people went for a Sunday drive. That was when gas was around a quarter a gallon. Folks would drive down all the country roads and see what the neighbors were up to. Or maybe you'd go visiting relatives.

That's what happened around my house. We went to our cousins' house or they came to ours. Cousins can be the best friends. We'd be outside in the woods as soon as Sunday dinner was over. The grownups would maybe play Rook or just talk away the afternoon. In the summer, the men might make ice cream in the White Mountain ice cream freezer. Neighbors would drop by to sit on the porch and pass the time of day. You kept a swatter handy to kill the pesky flies. My husband would have been off fishing when he was a boy and then back to church after getting the cows in early to milk. And even on Sunday, there were always chores to be done, animals to feed, wood to pack in during the cold months, water to carry into the house.

We didn't have electronic toys. We had grapevines in the trees instead of swing sets. We made mud pies and went wading in creeks. And we chewed on sweet grass and watched the cows graze. But those were good days. What about your Sunday afternoons? What did you do when you were growing up on Sundays?

Life is Better with a Dog Named Oscar

2013-04-17T22:20:00.002-04:00

Dogs have a way of finding the people who need them, filling an emptiness we don't even know we have. ~Thorn Jones

Some of you have been asking about how my dog, Oscar, is doing. About a month ago, one of the men working on a room remodel here at the house ran over Oscar. He was parked beside the house in the field and we don't know if Oscar was under his truck or just running along beside him. At any rate, one of the wheels must have run over his leg and broke both bones.

That was a bad day for me. I was sitting with Mom who was having one of her more unsettled days when I got the call from my husband reporting Oscar had been hurt. My husband was getting his eyes examined and couldn't go home right away. I couldn't leave Mom alone and so couldn't go home to see about my dog friend. A couple of hours passed before my husband finally got home and reported Oscar's leg was broken. I still couldn't leave Mom's, but a neighbor came over to help load Oscar in the van for a trip to the vet. They kept him in the doggie hospital and did surgery on his leg the next day.

Dog surgery is not cheap, but Oscar is my dog. Dog lovers will understand what I mean when I say he's my dog. He's been my dog since my husband brought him home about four years ago. I had another dog at the time. A chocolate lab that was my dog too, but he was also an independent character who although he'd been neutered had not lost all his romantic desires. Female dogs from around the neighborhood loved Dub and came to get him from time to time to take him off to get in trouble. (Honest, it was never Dub's fault! Or so he would have me believe.) I had to bail him out of doggie jail once and did so gladly.

For some reason, my husband decided I needed another dog. I resisted. He went shopping on the internet for dogs. Free dogs. He would find one and then have me come look at the dog's picture. I resisted. I had my dog, Dub. I was happy with that. But then he pulled up Oscar's picture. Someone had dropped Oscar in Lexington near a horse farm and a young couple had given him a home. They loved him, but when spring came they were going to have to travel around in their job of training horses. So they advertised for a new home for Oscar. That was the name they gave him. For some reason his sweet face and that name broke down my resistance. A phone call or two later and my husband went to get Oscar and bring him to his new home. From the very first day, he was my dog. Sometimes it just works that way. We thought he was grown. He weighed about sixty pounds. We were very wrong. He kept growing. Now he's over one hundred pounds - bigger even than my old dog, Dub, was.

Dub passed on one sad summer day a little while after we got Oscar. So it turned out to be a good thing that I stopped resisting and let Oscar join our family. He's a very good dog. He doesn't roll in cow piles or want to drag various dead animal parts home to the yard. Dub was very good at that, but not enjoying the special aroma of those two things is an important good dog attribute out here on the farm. Just ask my neighbors, whose St. Bernard loves to decorate her neck ruff with aromatic cow piles.

Oscar is not a swimmer in spite of obviously having lab in his mix. He will wade a bit when it's very hot. He looks ferocious when he's barking at strangers, but if they will notice, he's usually wagging his tail at the same time. I used to have a dog in the house, a sweet cockerspaniel. I decided Oscar with his good dog manners, would make a wonderful house dog and invited him in. He refused. He did not want to cross the threshold. In fact, he did not want to so determinedly that he sat down like a mule and wouldn't budge. I gave up after a few tries although I continued to hold the door open now and again to invite him in. He always ran the other direction.

But after his surgery, he was ordered kept in confinement with leash walking only for six weeks. I bought him a bed and we gently pushed him into the house when we brought him home from the doggie hospital. I had to put a trail of scatter rugs across my hardwood floor to get him to walk to the front door to go out. He still won't venture out of the back hallway into the kitchen or living room. He does come down the hallway into my office now to keep me company when I'm working.

For two weeks I only took him on short walks, but for the last couple of weeks, he's been going on the full walks with me. On leash. He's never tried to run away from me. He's been a model dog. So what if bone shards decorate my office floor and his panting drips all over the rug after we walk. There is also Oscar, inside keeping me company. Sometimes good things come from bad. I'm not sure what will happen after he is released to run free again, but I hope he will still be willing to come inside and keep me company. A dog makes a wonderful writing friend. Especially a good dog like Oscar.

One of the most enduring friendships in history - dogs and their people, people and their dogs. ~Terry Kay

Have you had a good dog in your life?

Christmas in April, New Book Covers, and Pet Words

2013-04-15T09:07:00.001-04:00

Happy Monday morning! I'm late with this post because I was out of town yesterday. So to make up for it, let's be early and talk about Christmas. I got the galleys on my Shaker Christmas book last week. So I'm going to have to invite the snow and chill winter winds into my imagination for a few days as I work over the story. Here's a peek at the cover. Do you like it?

Have you ever wondered about the editing process a book goes through on its way out to the reader? First there are all my own edits before I decide I've done the best I can with the words telling my story. Then off it goes to the first editor who reads it and decides if I've written a story that readers might spend money to read. That editor might suggest major plot changes or improvements as well as more minor points to improve the story. Then once she or he approves the rewritten manuscript, the book will eventually go on to a copy editor who will look for all those little things that might be missed in the bigger edit.

This editor makes sure I don't have the characters doing something on Friday and then going back to Thursday. Time lines can get confusing in a historical novel. This editor and the proofreaders make sure if your character sings a song or reads a book in your story that the song or book was actually written by the time of your book. I've made that mistake a few times.

They also catch all the times you use a certain word too many times. I always, always have a pet word. I'll shove one of those words out in the cold and tell it that it can't be my "pet" anymore and another word will slide right in to take its place. So now I have a whole stable of "pet" words that I have to be careful to not like too much. What are some of them? Just. Still. Before. Of course. To name a few. Usually transition words of some sort that help me keep the words going. Nothing wrong with that in the first draft. You need to keep going in the first draft, but then I need to edit some of them out. Of course, I still like them just before I get out the red pen or hit the delete key. :)

Then I sometimes have a sentence that runs along too long. Commas are always an issue too. Editors generally like commas more than I do. You wouldn't think an author would worry about a little added comma now and again, but sometimes we do. To our writing ears, a comma in the wrong (or perhaps right!) place messes everything up. Editors have to have the patience of saints at times.

Once the galleys are worked over and the author and editor have "fixed" everything as well as they can, then there's still one more edit. This is called editing "the pages." Here a writer is more or less proofing the book to look for minor mistakes like typos or something that might have been missed in the previous edits. Not a good idea to make lots of changes at this stage. That's why I'll need to work through these galleys to make sure I change what needs changing now.

It will be a while before Christmas at Harmony Hill will be ready for the store shelves. Its release date is September 15, my birthday. That's sort of neat. I'll have extra reason to celebrate. But before

that book comes out, Small Town Girl will be out in July. Both books are already available for pre-sale on the internet, so you can go ahead and order your copy.

So much fun to have new books coming out. This year has been especially busy for me with the re-release of Scent of Lilacs and looking forward to Orchard of Hope re-releasing in the fall. Then the two new books, Small Town Girl and Christmas at Harmony Hill, A Shaker Story, out too. Gives a whole new meaning to "so many books, so little time" for me. But it's fun to have new stories, and old ones too, out there for my reading friends.

I appreciate all of you who take time to read my journal. Thank you so much. So what do you think about the new book covers?

Spring Blooming All Over

2013-04-10T22:49:00.001-04:00

It's spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you've got it, you want - oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so! ~Mark Twain

Spring was late in coming this year, but it came in a hurry this week with record warm temperatures after a week of record cold temperatures. That's spring weather for you. But the temperatures rising into the 60s, then the 70s, and today the 80s was enough to convince the flowers to bloom. Forsythia bushes are exploding with yellow blooms in yards along the road. I have a struggling forsythia that's trying to get re-established after being dug up when we built on to the house. We dumped it over on the side of the yard without proper planting, but those bushes are tough. It's putting up shoots and blooming this year. My japonica bush is going red. My peonies have pushed through the ground and are almost visibly growing. All three of those are from sprouts or bulbs I dug up out of my grandparents' yard. A heritage of beauty to be passed from one yard to another, so that not only do I enjoy the blooms, the sight of the flowers also stirs memories of the hands that planted them.

Yesterday on my walk, I saw my first butterflies. Today I ran my face into my first spiderweb. That's spring for you. A constant entertainment to someone like me who enjoys walking on the farm. I've seen it all before but every spring, I'm ready to see it all again. A joy to behold. And maybe this year the pictures will be even better than last year. This bluebell picture isn't. But you've got to understand that I was taking the picture with one hand while holding Oscar's leash with the other. He still has two and half more weeks of captivity. That's how he's feeling about being in the house. A meek and compliant prisoner, but it's obvious he's far from comfortable. I was hoping to make a house dog out of him, but it's not looking like he wants that. He has become a nice companion here in my office. So maybe he can be an office dog.

The front door to springtime is a photographer's best friend. ~Terri Guillemets

What brings you joy in the springtime?

P.S. I sent the prize packages out today. Sharma, Rita, and Tawnya, you should get them before the end of the week. Congratulations and thanks to all of you who made this giveaway such fun for me, even though your number didn't get drawn this time. Maybe in June. Got to figure out a prize.

Diane K., I sent you a Facebook message, but if I don't hear from you by Monday, I'll draw a new number for one of the 2nd place prizes - a couple of books.

Mystery Pictures and Writing Puzzles

2013-04-07T23:14:00.000-04:00

Have you ever seen those close up, really close up, pictures of familiar objects and had no idea what you were looking at? I'm giving you a less challenging mystery picture tonight. Do you know what it is? Let me know what you guess. Or it could be you know what it is at first sight.

Sometimes writing is like that. You might know your story and your characters from the very beginning all the way to the end, or your story and your characters can be mysteries you as the writer have to solve. Characters can't just walk on stage in a book without living a little life first. Well, maybe if a baby was just being born. Then I'd better know about the baby's mother or father or maybe the doctor who could be delivering a baby for the first time. So many possibilities for every character - even those who aren't going to matter too much to the storyline.

For my major characters, I create character sketches and try to get them to start talking inside my head. But most novels have dozens of characters. Some only make cameo appearances and never darken your book's doorway again. And yet those characters have their moment to be real in your story. So I try to find a few details to make even the most minor character become somebody that, yes, you might see behind the store counter. Or as a nurse or firefighter. If you have a building in your story catch on fire, you need firefighters who know their business, to show up. Or perhaps not, according to how you want your story to go. But if you create bumbling firefighters, you still have to make them come across as real persons.

Sometimes in a story, a gift character shows up. Wes was that kind of character in Scent of Lilacs. I can't remember planning Wes, but he rode his motorcycle into Hollyhill and ran out of gas money at just the right time. I really missed Wes when I started writing a new story that wasn't set in Hollyhill. So I came up with another Wes like character in Angel Sister - Graham. And I loved getting him to talk in my story just as much.

Sometimes writing a story is about allowing ideas to pop up out of the ground like these mushrooms. (Yes, you wer right if you guessed mushroom.) All that old stuff, those memories from a lifetime of living sink down into a bubbling pool of creativity inside your brain. Then a story rises to the top and if I'm ready, then I can try to grab it fast before it sinks away into that dark world of forgetfulness where the very best ideas always seem to want to hide out.

Thanks for reading. I hope spring is popping up like these mushrooms in your neck of the woods. Now tell me, did you guess right? I hope I'm guessing right with the characters who are popping up in my new story.

I'll be at The Bookstore in Campbellsville Saturday, April 13th, at 1 p.m. for a book signing and then at the Southern Kentucky Book Fest on April 20th, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. CST. That's in Bowling Green. If you're in either area, I hope you'll come by and say hi.

The Winners but the Biggest Winner - Me

2013-04-03T22:09:00.000-04:00

Tonight I've finally got the winners of my Scent of Lilacs Celebration Giveaway. It wasn't easy, let me tell you. I pick the winners by random numbers. Each e-mail I get goes into a special folder and the sender gets numbered according to when I receive the e-mail. Well, imagine my extreme distress this a.m. when I click on that folder and it shows a number as to how many e-mails are stored there, but then instead of the messages coming up this little box comes up that says the folder is empty. All the other mail folders work fine. Messages pop right up. Panic time!! I thought I might have to wade through all my sent e-mails to try to figure out which of you had entered the contest. But then I tried my iPhone and wonder of wonders the messages came up in the folder on it. Not sure how or why that happened or why they don't show up on my desk computer or my laptop, but do on the phone, but I'm just glad they did. I'm going to tell you who won. Really, I promise I am! But first let's enjoy two more grandmother stories.

Donna shares a wonderful story of how sometimes the Lord blesses us in the midst of troubling times when the last thing we're expecting are blessings. Here's her story -

I have many stories I could tell of my grandmothers, but my greatest grandmother blessings I actually received as an adult. Following a stroke (her granny's stroke), I helped my dad and my aunt care for my granny by staying 2-3 nights a week with her. I would work all day in a classroom, drive a morning & afternoon bus route, then go to my granny's house, cook supper, and then do whatever granny needed, which most nights had to do with quilting. She couldn't cut fabric anymore, nor use her sewing machine, but she could still hand piece and quilt. So many times I would be so tired and not want to set up a new quilt top in the frames or cut out quilt squares & place in ziplock baggies so she wouldn't get confused. I didn't realize it at the time, but while I did these things for her, she was bestowing on me the blessings of knowing the stories of her life. She gave me the desire to write and share similar hardships, trials, faith, & love with others. Later at her bedside as she was going to sit at the feet of Jesus, I realized that she became an integral part of the woman I had become.

Next Rosemary shares how an object can keep memories alive for us.

"I would like to share a little story about my grandmother. Us kids

would go over to visit and she would give us slices of fresh homemade Portuguese bread, with butter on it and serve us little tea cups with tea in it. We would sit with her in her favorite chair which was in the kitchen. She had a large black iron stove that had the metal round tops that would come off. You must be able to picture the stove I am talking about; anyway, we would be warm and cozy. That same chair we sat on with her, my mom sat in it and would watch out the window to see if the bus was stopping to see if my dad was coming to visit, he was a sailor and stationed in Boston Massachusetts - 1951 ... yep !!! well, I sat with my grandmother in that chair, and I fed and rocked my granddaughter in that same chair, reupholstered, in 2003 and I still have that chair in my sitting room!!! I love that chair and its memories!!!!

And I have loved the memories and stories of your grandmothers. I read every one of them, often with a smile and sometimes with a nod of the head that yes, I have felt some of the same things you felt. You have all been such a blessing to me that I am, without a doubt, the biggest winner tonight. Thank you!

But there are a few of you who are also winners. Drum roll, please! The 1st place winner of the lilac Grandmother's Bible is Sharma D. of KY. The two 2nd place winners are Diane K. (not sure which state yet) and Rita W. of CA. They will get a grab bag book by a Christian author and their choice of one of my books. And Tawnya P. of WI won't be able to say "I never win" any longer. She wins the lilac candle and her choice of one of my books. I've sent all of you winners e-mails and I'm waiting to hear back from you which books you are choosing as your prizes.

Now what memories should I ask you to share with me on my next Celebration giveaway?

Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose. ~From the television show The Wonder Years

Sunshine, Traditions, and Easter

2013-03-31T23:04:00.003-04:00

Family ties are cherished things, forged in childhood days, by love of parents, deep and true, and sweet familiar ways.- Terri Burritt

Easter Sunday - a day to celebrate with our church families and a day to gather with our extended families. Thinking about Easter gatherings seems to fit right in with my Grandmother theme the last few weeks. Did you celebrate the holiday with your family? What traditional things do you do for Easter?

When my kids were young, we always went to my husband's parents house on Easter. The holiday was very important to my mother-in-law and she expected her children to come "home" on that Sunday. She loved having us all in church with her on Easter. She also enjoyed having a corsage on Easter. Ladies in the church wearing corsages on Easter used to be common, but it's been years since I've seen somebody show up with flowers pinned to their new Easter finery. Didn't see a single hat in church today either. No wait, one of our church kids who just turned two looked adorable in a very cute hat.

But when I was a teenager, hats were required church attire. All the ladies wore hats. I didn't like hats even then, but got by with wearing little veil hats that somebody told me were called whimsies. Gloves were expected too. No matter the weather. I had white gloves and tan gloves. Most people had on new clothes too. The kids in church today had new clothes, but it used to be everybody had a new Easter frock. In past years, I did a lot of sewing to get us ready for Easter. Now I just wear something I already have and don't even think about getting a new dress for Easter. I certainly don't think about sewing a new dress. It's been years since I sewed anything more than a ripped seam. So did you shop for new finery for Easter for yourself or your family? Or maybe fashion an outfit with your own needle?

Now, on Easter, my sons and their families usually make it home for a visit on Easter weekend. They came on Saturday this year and a good thing since we had a beautiful day of sunshine for the Easter egg hunt and then rain this a.m. It's absolutely amazing how fast seven kids can find one hundred plus stuffed plastic eggs. In the picture up top, they're waiting for the word go and posing for the camera. It is almost impossible to get nine kids to sit still and look at the camera all at the same time. But the photo op happened and the Easter egg hunt began. Then because it was such a nice day, we went for a walk. At least seven of the grandkids and one son and me. It's a challenge keeping that many kids moving forward along the same path and in the same direction.

But the grandkids love being on the farm. Walking in the fields is as fun to them as hunting those Easter eggs. Maybe more fun. They like finding new trails in under the trees and playing in dry creek beds. Well, they don't really care if the creek beds are dry or not, but their grammy does. The bottoms of tennis shoes are mud magnets that hold onto that dirt until they're walking around inside the house! But a little dried mud on the floor is a small price to pay for sharing farm fun with the kids. One of the twins did have to be disappointed and not get to go see the cows. He didn't think about asking his pa to take him until his parents were almost ready to go home.

So the weekend was good. Family home Saturday. Sunrise service this a.m. Fellowship breakfast. One son and his family came to church to help me pack our pew this morning. Leftovers for lunch, so I didn't have to cook. A little candy still hanging around that didn't go into a grandkid's sack. Sunshine to walk this p.m.

I am blessed. Did you get to gather with your family today?

Love your family. Spend time, be kind; serve one another. Make no room for regrets. Tomorrow is not promised; today is short.

(Unknown author)

Grandmothers Say the Funniest Things

2013-03-27T22:24:00.002-04:00

All right, what funny things did your grandmother say? I know there's probably something. Some odd turn of phrase or perhaps mispronunciation, something that still makes you smile when you remember. Jackie called her grandmother's wise little saying "grandma-isms." So here are a few of those grandma-isms I gleaned out of your e-mails and comments.

Susan said her grandmother would load down the table with food and then say, "If there's something you want that's not here, just tell me and we'll hunt it up!"

LuAnn's grandmother-in-law said this to LuAnn's husband because he had waited so long to bring his family to visit her. "I oughtta throw you across the yard."

Sandi says her grandmother was ready with "that'll do" whenever they were "acting up." I heard that one some when I was a kid and know I said it a few times myself. My mom was also fond of "cut the comedy." Her father told her the same thing and she said she got in a lot of trouble once when she told him she would if he'd let her have the scissors. I knew better than to ask for the scissors.

Teresa says her grandmother's favorite saying was that she "loved us all the same." And that she meant it even if she did have 50 grandchildren to love the same. She'd stand at the door and kiss every child who came through the door.

Patty used to spend the night with her grandma and no matter the temp outside she would load the bed with quilts. Patty says, "She would have so many of those heavy quilts on the bed I couldn't move! When I thought she was asleep I would wiggle out from under those quilts (not only were they heavy, I was burning up. Summer is way to hot for quilts!) get cooled off and comfortable and then I would hear grandma say "poor little thing is going to get cold" and all those quilts would cover me up!

It's a fact that grandparents are determined to not let their grandkids catch a chill. My father-in-law used to build up the fire until we'd be roasting and thinking it might be good to go sit on the front porch in the middle of January. But he made sure the "babies" didn't get cold.

My aunt who was like a grandmother to me said "bum" for bomb. Every time I heard her I had to think twice about what she meant. She also liked to say "You'll never notice it on a galloping horse" whenever a seam in something I was sewing wasn't perfect. And when we took sponge baths at her house, she'd tell us to wash as far down as possible and then as far up as possible and then wash possible.

My other grandmother was famous for saying "Go to sleep. You'll feel better in the morning" whenever any of her children complained with any kind of ache or pain. I've been known to say the same and more often than not, it turned out to be true. One of my other favorite sayings for my kids was "If you don't like, don't eat it." I don't say that to the grandkids as much. I just ask if they'd like a little candy instead. :) My kids have plenty of my oddities to grin about, but if they get to grinning too much, I'll just tell them to cut the comedy and dare them to ask for the scissors.

I want to thank all of you for sharing your grandmothers with me. Some shared about loved ones who acted the grandmother role for them. Others of you shared how you never knew your grandparents but that you were making the most of being grandmothers yourself. I always enjoy my giveaways more when the stories come in with the entries. You didn't have to share a grandmother story to enter, but I'm glad a lot of you wanted to walk down memory lane and remember your grandmothers. I also hope you've enjoyed the stories I was able to share forward.

Monday I'll be drawing for the winner of the lilac Grandmother's Bible, so there are still a few days to throw your name in my hat if you haven't already entered. The picture up top is the Bible open to one of the devotionals "The Art of Grandparenting." I'm quite confident that many of you have that art figured out.

Thanks for reading and I'd love to hear something your grandmother said that maybe made you smile.