Ann H Gabhart - One Writer's Journal

An Award for Enthusiasm

2012-05-23T22:22:00.001-04:00

Have you ever been to a kindergarten graduation? Or maybe a preschool graduation? If you want some smiles - the good kind of smiles that make you have hope for the future - then you might want to drop in on one of those ceremonies sometime.

I went to one granddaughter's kindergarten graduation last night and will get to go to another granddaughter's on Friday. The one last night was at a small Christian school and the kids perform for their families. First they recited a Bible verse for every letter in the alphabet and then they sang songs. One was about bringing home pets and the kids really enjoyed singing that one's funny lyrics.

Children this age are always cute. They lose their hats when they get too wound up in doing the motions of their songs and then panic because they have been told to keep that hat on. They play with the tassels on the hats when they get bored with the whole proceedings. Sometimes they consider wandering away, but kindergarten teachers are very talented at keeping their ducks in a row. Last night, one of the little girls was obviously very shy. But she was a problem solver. She covered her eyes with her hands so she couldn't see everybody watching her when she went up to get her diploma. The only trouble with that is she couldn't see where she was going. So now and again she'd have to peek and that made her giggle. She was very cute.

After they handed out the certificates for completing kindergarten, the teachers gave every child another certificate as an award. We had best singers, best helpers, best a lot of different things. My granddaughter got the award for Enthusiasm. I told her that had to be one of the best awards to get. Enthusiasm can take you far and without it, life and work would be pretty dull.

"Enthusiasm is excitement with inspiration, motivation and a pinch of creativity." (Bo Bennett)

Without enthusiasm, writers like me might never come up with new stories. Enthusiasm is that big puff of wind that launches you on a project whether it's painting the living room, planting a garden, or writing a story. Perseverance is what keeps you going when that enthusiasm begins to ebb. But you need both. Right now I'm needing some enthusiasm to find the end of my work in progress and lots of perseverance. I can hear the characters talking on that last page, but I'm running through wet cement to get there.

"Enthusiasm is contagious. Be a carrier." (Susan Rabin)

Maybe I should have hung around my granddaughter a little longer. Hope you are feeling enthusiastic about what's going on in your life right now. Thanks for reading.

Reminder - The time to sign up for my giveaway is running out. If you haven't entered and would like to be in the drawing, let me know. It runs through the end of May and the 5 winners will have their choice of one of my books.

Graduation - A Commencement

2012-05-20T22:38:00.003-04:00

There is a good reason they call these ceremonies "commencement exercises." Graduation is not the end, it's the beginning. ~Orrin Hatch

On Friday, my oldest granddaughter graduated from high school. Here she is walking into the chapel where the ceremony was held. My son is the man in the picture watching her. It seems not all that many years ago that I was the parent watching him come down the aisle to line up with all his classmates and receive his diploma. A rite of passage that thousands of young people and parents are going through across the country.

In some ways it's as much an ending and a beginning for the parents as it is for the young people. The teen years are ending. Their child is ready to step out into the world and try his or her wings. I remember sending my son out into that world of independence. He was off to college the next year after working through the summer. He came home for visits and school breaks, but he never truly lived at home again. It was just a place to rest a few days or weeks before heading off on his journey to the rest of his life. Now he's beginning that time with his daughter - hoping her wings will be strong and her future good. His wings were strong and he's always soared high in life. That's what I wish for his daughter, my beautiful granddaughter. A good future with love and family and work that is fulfilling and makes her happy.

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined. ~Henry David Thoreau

Have you lived the life you imagined? Or maybe one that turned out better than anything you might have imagined? And if you have a cherished child or grandchild graduating this year, what do you wish for him or her?

Thanks for reading. And remember, if you want to throw your name in the hat for the May drawing for a copy of one of my books, you've still got time. Just send me an e-mail or leave a comment here with a way to contact you if you win. Also e-book copies of Angel Sister and Words Spoken True will be at reduced prices until the end of May.

One Pencil = 45,000 Words

2012-05-16T22:53:00.002-04:00

"A #2 pencil and a dream can take you anywhere." ~Joyce A. Myers

With one pencil you can write 45,000 words - a short novel. Actually not quite half my own novels, but then I've been accused of being a bit wordy at times.

I heard this interesting fact not long ago on the radio about how many words were in a pencil, and it started me thinking about all the pencils I have laying around. Pencils no doubt full of stories if I'd just pick them up and apply the lead to the paper. William Faulkner must have liked that style of writing if this quote from him is any indication. "I've got to feel the pencil and see the words at the end of the pencil." You have to wonder if he would be saying I've got to feel the keys and see the words spilling across the computer screen these days. That's more the way I write. The way many writers write. Some still pick up pen and paper. Some dictate their words.

Did you know that you can get computer programs that enable the computer to record your spoken words? Of course I can't even get my phone to understand when I want to call my husband, Darrell. The irritating little woman who lives in my phone comes back and says, "I can't find barrel." So it's no telling what a computer would type if I was dictating a story to it.

But I do think I need that feel of the keys and the words appearing on the screen in front of my eyes. Anybody want to hazard a guess to how many words are in a computer? That takes the pencil's 45,000 to a new level. However, computers have been known to have untimely deaths - usually right after the best scene you've ever written. The one you forgot to back up. Pencil leads break, but a little sharpening and they are right back to work without letting the paper lose a word. Unless the dog eats it or something. Or does that only happen with homework?

Even so, most of us began forming our letters with a pencil. Then the magic of words was at our fingertips. We could write down stories. I never tried to write a story with a pencil. I was partial to ink pens when I began writing, but it pokes at my imagination to think about being able to write a short novel with one pencil. It would have to be the right pencil. The one loaded down with imagination and nice soft lead to make the writing easy. I'd get my callus back on my middle finger like I used to have when I was in school. Then again maybe I'll stick with the keyboard.

How about you? How do you like to write? Ever written a whole book with one pencil? You could you know, but I don't know if the eraser would last for me. "The average pencil is seven inches long, with just a half inch eraser - in case you thought optimism was dead." ~ Robert Brault

Thanks for reading.

Angel Sister and Mom

2012-05-13T22:18:00.000-04:00

Eveyln on the left, Mom on the right

This is my mom and her older sister taken in front of the house where she grew up. I'm guessing Mom is maybe 16 or 17 here. For those of you who have read my book, Angel Sister, here are the two real people that became my characters, Kate and Evangeline. Mom didn't call her sister, Evelyn, Evie, but one of the other sisters did. So that's why I had to come up with a name that could be shortened to Evie since I didn't want to use Evelyn's real name. Then that helped the poetry come into play. That's how a writer's mind goes. This little bit of an idea leads to another little bit of an idea until you get the story built.

The plot of Angel Sister is completely fiction, but I built the background and setting from my mom's memories. That was hard at times because I had to separate my characters from the real sisters in order to tell my fictional story. But it was also fun and has made this book a story from my heart and from the heart of my mom. A lot of people downloaded Angel Sister when it was a free e-book last week. That was fun for me. If you didn't get a chance at the free download, the price for a download is reduced until the end of May. Plus you still have time to let me know you'd like your name in the giveaway for a print book (5 winners who will have their choice of one of my books). I'll do the drawing the end of May.

This is Mom twenty years later when I was just beginning to dream of being a writer. I thought she was beautiful and always wanted to look like her, but few people ever said I did. I look more like my dad. But the best thing about Mom was how she was always my biggest supporter while helping me learn to do things for myself.

That's a mama's job. Push the baby birds out of the nest when they're ready to fly. And yet somehow manage to keep being the wind beneath her child's wings. My mom did that. Taught me the things I needed to know and was always there for me with love and wisdom. She can't do that any more, but even now, even in the confusion of her dementia, she loves me and my sisters. It's just that she often drifts in time and now she really wants her mother to be there holding her and loving her. So my sisters and I try to love her through it but we're not good substitutes for a mother and the flashes of long past memories that are seeming so real to her. Some of those memories, or the echoes of them, are in Angel Sister.

Happy Mother's Day to all of you! What do you love best about your mom? And if your mom has moved on up to heaven, what memory of her makes you smile? What I always loved best about my mom was her cheerful attitude - an attitude that said something might be hard, but we'd figure out a way. We always did.

Thanks for reading.
.

Free Download - Words Spoken True

2012-05-09T21:31:00.000-04:00

The price is right - free! Today, May 9 and tomorrow, May 10, those who have e-readers or an app on their phone or PC or whatever device in order to download books can download my newest book, Words Spoken True for the cost of $0.00. This picture of the cover is from Amazon. But it's free for Nooks from Barnes & Noble and for other e-readers on Christianbook.com as well as other e-book sites.

I don't have an e-reader yet, but I've heard great things about them from some and "please, just let me have a real book" from others. There are so many different ways to read now. Did you ever think that someday we might have to say "paper book" or "print book" when we talked about a book? The same with bookstores. Now we say "bricks and mortar" bookstores. You know, there is one constant in life and that is everything changes. Maybe not spiritual things. The Bible does promise us the Lord is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. But the physical realm is in constant motion.

When I started writing, I dreamed of having a typewriter. Then it was an electric typewriter. Then an electric typewriter that had a correction ribbon on it. That's when I thought I had it made! Those of you who never had to roll up the typing paper to make an erasure before rolling it back down and hoping the paper hadn't slipped have no idea how much I loved that correction ribbon. Add to that places where you could go get copies for a few cents a sheet and throw away that carbon paper. I was in writer heaven. Some of you are probably frowning and saying "What's carbon paper?" I don't even want to think about it long enough to explain. Google it. :)

Not long after that, computers began to filter out of offices into homes. I got a rebuilt one and the way I wrote changed once more. On and on the changes come. Now there are devices for reading books. With a few clicks you can bring a book right to your fingertips. Most of them even have sound effects so you can hear the page turning - electronically.

You can get free books all the time. So much so that some people with e-readers have probably never actually bought an e-book. How about you? If you have an e-reader, have you bought books or do you just track down the free ones? Free is an excellent price and a great incentive to try a new writer.

That's why the publishers offer the free books from time to time. They hope to find a writer new readers. Angel Sister was free Monday and Tuesday and is at a reduced price until the end of May. Now Words Spoken True is free until the end of Thursday, May 10, and then its price will also be reduced until the end of May. It's been fun having the free downloads available. Angel Sister even topped Amazon's free list. Words Spoken True hasn't climbed that high. Right now it's at number 25.

You might wonder why an author would want her books to be given away free. After all, writing these books is my work. But it's also my passion and I want somebody, actually a lot of somebodies, to read my stories. In most of my books on the acknowledgement page, I thank you readers for adding your imagination to mine in order to make my characters come to life in your minds and heart. As this quote from Lawrence Clark Powell very clearly says, "Unless their use by readers bring them to life, books are indeed dead things."

So we have a partnership - you and me. And this week I hope I've gained some new partners. You can download Words Spoken True too if you have one of the reading devices, but you'll have to hurry. The free ends tomorrow. If you're old fashioned like me and don't have an e-reader, you can throw your name in the hat for a "print" book. I'm picking five winners at the end of May and the winner can choose which of my books he or she wants. Just leave a comment with your e-mail or send me an e-mail from my website.

I also sent out a couple of newsletters about the free books and other things. If you want to be on my newsletter list, let me know. As always, thanks for reading.

Scenting the Trail to Better Scenes

2012-05-06T22:57:00.000-04:00

Do you have a favorite flower?

I have a hard time picking one favorite, but the peony is definitely in my top ten. Their lush blooms, their spicy smell, their faithful, every year blooms are three of the reasons. And another is the memories. My aunt had two peony bushes in her yard when I was a kid. My mom has a picture of me when I was maybe two or three standing by the peony bush wearing a big hat. My two sisters also took pictures by the peony bush that day. I think the peony bushes were the big stars in the photos.

Whatever the reason for my love of the beautiful peony flowers today, one thing for sure the very hint of their spicy odor can transport me back in time. Memories are often brought to mind by odors. Sometimes it's not a particular memory, but just a good feeling. Smelling peonies makes me remember an innocent time when the sun was shining and life was easy. But I also have a tragic memory connected to the peonies when there was a death in my family and the coroner who came to pick up the body drove over the peonies that were in full bloom. There was something so incredibly sad about those crushed flowers.

Those kind of memories, both happy and sad, burrow deep in our minds. As a writer, I have to find a way to pull readers into my stories, to help them feel that sadness or joy, to put in images or sensory touches that the reader can recognize and relate to because he or she has seen or perhaps smelled something the same.

Fragrances awaken memories in our hearts. It's good to remember that while you're writing and take a sniff or two of whatever might be there in the scene you're setting. I don't know that I've ever written the fragrance of a peony into any of my stories, but there are some peonies in the yard down in my Rosey Corner stories. So maybe that fragrance will help me tell a part of the story someday.

I'm sending out a newsletter tomorrow with some fun news. So if you'd like to be on my newsletter list, you can go to my website and send me an e-mail saying you'd like to receive it.

Thanks for reading and I hope you have many pleasant fragrant memories.

Lucky Dog Lucy

2012-05-03T09:05:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I was a dog. Today I'm a dog. Tomorrow I'll probably still be a dog. Sigh! There's so little hope for advancement. (Charles M. Schultz)

My dog, Lucy, had a traumatic experience last weekend. And she's not talking about it. She's one of those Heinz 57 dogs that has who knows what breeds in her. Her mother was the same. Father unknown. The mother dog was a neighbor's dog who had pups in our garage/shed. The grandkids wanted to keep one of them and Lucy was their pick. She had the neatest green eyes when she was a pup, but now they are golden. The only breed I'm sure she has a bit of is beagle because she loves to hunt. Unfortunately with her short legs she's never going to catch anything. Or perhaps that's usually fortunate.

We're not sure if she caught something last week that turned out badly for her or if something caught her. Definitely bad either way. She went for a walk with me in the early afternoon Friday. She always disappears hunting so it wasn't unusual for her not to get back to the house with me. Then my husband comes in a couple of hours later and says what happened to Lucy.

An excellent question. She was covered with black gooky stuff from her neck to the tip of her tail and very subdued. She crawled back under some shelves in the garage and just wanted to be left alone. It wasn't until I was trying to wash the stuff off her that I realized she had bite marks and a nasty torn wound on her hip. Vet time. Turned out ribs were broken too. And now she's recuperating in the house and not talking about what happened. I think she wants to enter the dog witness program.

For a while she was almost afraid to go outside for anything and stayed right under my feet when I took her out. She's still doing some odd things. Growls at one of the neighbor dogs that normally was a buddy. Doesn't mind Oscar, my dog, or the other neighbor dog. My daughter suggests that maybe this now unfavored dog deserted Lucy when whatever it was grabbed her and she's not about to forgive him for leaving her in the lurch. None of the other dogs came in with black gook on them. So it's a mystery. But I'm suspecting coyotes and a very lucky dog who found some hole to crawl into to get away. A black oily hole, but one that maybe saved her life.

So now, unless we hire a dog psychic (really, they have some out there) we'll never know what happened to Lucy. Maybe I'll change her name to Lucky Lucy. Or as my dad used to say, not so lucky because if she had truly been lucky she'd have gotten home from her hunt without any injuries.

Dogs. They can have some interesting adventures, but Lucy's wishing she hadn't hunted up that one last week.

Do you have any dog tales to tell?

Decisions, Decisions

2012-04-29T23:07:00.000-04:00

"He loves me; he love me not."

Decisions, decisions! When you were a kid, did you ever pluck the petals of a daisy one by one with the "he loves me, he loves me not" chant? I did. Most of the time I didn't have anybody in mind to love me or not love me. I was too young for a real boyfriend, but even so it was fun to play the game. And an easy way to make a decision. Of course, it was also easy to just grab another daisy and give it another try if the daisy decided he didn't love you.

Then there was the eeny, meeny, miny moe, catch a monkey by the toe, my mother told me to pick this one way to decide things. Kids learned to fudge on that one pretty fast too by adding another line or two to make the decision come out the way they wanted. All that makes you wonder why you didn't just decide to begin with.

I was indecisive this morning. I wavered between attending my own church where we were having a fellowship dinner or going to the church where my husband's gospel group was singing. Had great reasons to go both places. Finally put off making the decision so long that I didn't really have a choice any longer and only time to do one of them. Guess that was my way of deciding.

A writer has to make a lot of decisions. You have to decide what you're writing. Nonfiction or fiction? Mystery or romance or a dozen other possibilities? Who are you writing about? If it's fiction, you have to decide on names, places, personalities, a zillion things about your characters. What do they look like? What do they do? What troubles are you going to thrown down in their paths? And that's just scratching the surface of the decisions you're going to have to make.

Sometimes I waver while I'm writing. Should my character do this or do that? What would he or she really do? And that's the question I need to concentrate on when I have decisions to make while writing. What would my character really do? If my character has properly come to life in my head, then the story decision can get made and the story told. One thing I've never had to do and that's pluck a daisy to see if he loves her or loves her not. That's one thing I usually know when I start writing - even if my character isn't all that sure when he starts down the story road.

I love seeing daisies out in the field. It's like they're waving happy smiling faces at me and telling me that if I need them, they're always willing to sacrifice a few petals to help me know if he loves me or loves me not. :o)!

Did you ever pluck the petals of a daisy or make a decision with eeny, meeny, miny, moe?

More Than Gold at Ft. Knox

2012-04-27T00:00:00.000-04:00

The closest I'll ever get to the big screen!

As every thread of gold is valuable, so is every moment of time. ~ John Mason

Can you believe I let Wednesday slip past me again? And this time I went to church and everything. But it was a busy day and not the best day for part of the day. Many of you know that my mother is suffering from dementia. Yesterday was a bad day for her. She was angry and unhappy for much of the afternoon. Some of you who have experienced this with your loved ones understand. It is difficult to see someone you love sliding into confusion. It is difficult for the loved one too.

So that's one reason Wednesday slid past unblogged. Another reason is that I am working hard to get my goal of so many words each day on my work in progress. That means that every extra minute I'm staring at the computer screen trying to get the scenes in my head to show up there on that blank screen.

Today was better for Mom. So better for us, her daughters. It was fun for me too in a different way because I got to go to Ft. Knox. Where the gold is. I didn't get anywhere near the gold depository, but I was in a place where they had a different kind of gold - books, books and more books. The Ft. Knox Barr Library. If I had to ever make a choice between books and gold, I wouldn't have a bit of trouble choosing. Books, of course.

The library there is hosting author events once a month through October. What fun for the authors and readers and librarians! I was the launch author and look at me up there on the big screen. Good thing I couldn't see that or I would have probably freaked. I did know they were televising it on their closed circuit out in the main library in case the room was too full and they had an overflow crowd. When they tell me that while showing me I can't get out of this little square behind the podium, I'm going, yeah sure, but then people kept coming in. Of course, it helped when a church's book club showed up seven strong. Then a teacher at the local school gave her students extra credit for coming. That filled up the back of the room. It might have also helped that the library was offering a great incentive for their series of author visits. They had cards they were punching for the attendees and anybody who makes it to all the events will have a chance to win an e-reader.

But whether they came for school credit or a chance to win a Nook, it was still fun to talk to a room full of people. And I didn't see anybody dozing off on me. However, it is true that I couldn't see those sitting on the floor in the back. But I didn't hear them snoring!

Now I can say I've been to Ft. Knox. A great place to be made aware of the many soldiers ready to stand in the gap for freedom.

Somebody poke me next week and remind me when it's Wednesday. I always enjoy hearing from you. You can tell me what you know about Ft. Knox or if you have a family member serving our country. The lady at the library said they were getting ready to send some troops off to Afghanistan very soon. May our prayers go with them.

Thanks for reading!

Smiles, Books, and Friends

2012-04-22T23:23:00.000-04:00

Lori Copeland, me, and Virginia Smith

"Let us always meet each other with a smile, for the smile is the beginning of love." ~ Mother Teresa

There was a lot of smiling going on yesterday at the Southern Kentucky Book Fest in Bowling Green, Kentucky as authors and readers gathered to celebrate books. That's really what book fairs and festivals are all about - books.

I've had a love affair with books ever since I was a kid, and from the people I've talked to at book fairs, I know I have lots of company in this loving books fan club. That's why book fairs are so much fun, because you're in a big room with dozens, even hundreds of people who like books as much as you do. They have experienced the magic of words making stories that spring to life in the mind of a reader. And some of them, those behind the tables of books, know how it feels to be the one trying to make the magic of words and storytelling happen. They understand how much we all want readers to pick up our books and give our stories a chance.

But there are so many authors and so many choices that most readers only get to carry home a few of the books they want. Believe me, I know. I'm one of those readers. At this book fest I didn't really have time to look around so I was spared the temptation of all those wonderful books begging to go home with me.

I've been to a lot of book fairs. I attended my first one sometime in the 1980s. That was with my young adult books. Now I've been going with my Christian fiction novels for the last seven years. One thing I have found to be true in writing for the Christian book market is that the other authors are so welcoming and so ready to be friends. I don't know if I was too backward as a young author to make friends among the other writers or perhaps too busy with my young family, but until I started writing in the Christian market I couldn't really claim any other writer as a friend. I had some acquaintances but no real, let's get together for lunch and talk friends.

Now I'm blessed with many friends in the writing business. Friends ready to support me with encouraging words and helpful advice. Friends who will pray for me and friends I am ready to pray for when they have a need. Friends who seem genuinely happy when something good happens in regard to one of my books. Friends who are excited to share their good news with me. Friends who take pictures with me and their smiles light up a room. We share troubles. We share joys. We share disappointments. We share victories. We share those things with our readers too. Sometimes disguised in our stories. Sometimes in real life. It's good to have book loving friends.

Thanks for reading and thanks for being one of those book loving friends.

The Balancing Act of Writing

2012-04-19T20:32:00.000-04:00

What happened to Wednesday? I was walking late this afternoon and I suddenly realized that uh, this is Thursday. That meant I had forgotten talking to folks here on One Writer's Journal on Wednesday. Of course, the best thing about a journal is that there are no deadlines. You can write when you want, what you want, as much or little as you want.

However, when I started this on-line journal, I did say I'd come visiting on Sundays and Wednesdays. I picked church days to help me remember, and now, alas, I know what happened to Wednesday. I didn't go to Bible Study last night or stay at Mom's overnight. That's what I usually do on Wednesdays. But I'm beginning to feel the pressure of the deadline for my work in progress and since I am spending a lot of working hours caring for Mom, I have to scramble for working time at my desk. Even so, I had planned to go to Bible Study last night, but then an acquaintance passed away and my husband decided he needed to go early to make a visit to the funeral home. And I copped out. I decided if I was working at a store or a restaurant and needed to work, nobody would think twice about me working instead of making it to church. That doesn't quite make up for the poke of guilt I feel not making it to church, but it was my rationalization. We can rationalize almost anything if we work at it. Whether we should or not!

But that hits on one of the hardest things about being a self-employed writer. Keeping those hours to work. Books don't write themselves, but when you work from your home, whether it's writing or whatever you might do, you have to be disciplined. And you have to stand up to others for your working hours. Things are difficult for me now with Mom's deteriorating health, but I've always had to carve out time from my busy life to write. I told a book club group the other night that I wrote my first novel while Captain Kangaroo was on. Then it was during school hours. Now all my kids are out on their own and I have to carve out time from my working schedule for those grandkids.

That's what I was doing in the picture up top - taking a walk with my son and some of the grandkids. It's always a balancing act. Whatever we do, whatever kind of work. Work and family. Work and fun. In writing there is even more balancing to do. Writing and promoting. Writing a good book is the most important thing I can do to gain readers, but after I do the best job of that I can, then I have to try to let interested readers know about the book. That means newsletters and Facebook and Twitter time keeping up with my reading friends and letting them know what's going on with me - that I do enjoy. Blogging time - that I also enjoy. Contests to promote my books. I love giving stuff away.

Then there are book fairs and book clubs - two of my very favorite ways to meet readers. Add into all those the many other tasks of writing on top of churning out that first draft of a book like editing and coming up with discussion questions and promo bits and doing blog visits. In fact I'm visiting a blog now i blog 4 books where you can leave a comment to have a chance to win a copy of Words Spoken True. Brooke in the interview asked what was my pet peeve and so people have been sharing their own pet peeves in their comments. So it's fun.

Be assured, I'm not complaining. I love writing and meeting readers. I went to a book club last week. Had a great time hearing what they had to say about Words Spoken True and answering the questions they asked. Saturday I'll be at the Southern KY Book Fest in Bowling Green, KY from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. CST talking to people one on one about my books. I'm on a panel about Christian fiction at 1 p.m. If you're in the area, I'd love to talk to you too.

I've been keeping up with some of the questions people have been asking me lately. I'm going to be answering some of them in detail on here in the next few weeks. So if you've got something you always wanted to know about writing, but were afraid to ask, now's your chance.

Thanks for reading my Wednesday post on Thursday. :) If you work from home, what's the hardest part of that for you?

.

The Heart of Hollyhill

2012-04-15T22:27:00.000-04:00

Sweet aromas - do you have a favorite flower scent? We all know many roses smell delightful. And lilacs are heavenly. But what about locust tree blooms?

In Kentucky in the spring we usually have several cold snaps before spring finally comes to stay. So we call them winters. Redbud winter. Dogwood winter. Locust winter. Blackberry winter. The names come from what's blooming when the chilly air sweeps back into the area the way it did last week. We skipped redbud winter this year - it stayed warm, unseasonably warm all the time they were blooming. But the frosts came back last week while the dogwoods and locusts were in full and glorious bloom. Dogwood blooms don't have an odor, but ah, locusts. So sweet.

The house where I grew up was surrounded by locust trees and in the spring we could breathe in the fragrance through our open windows. We also stepped on the thorns when we were running around barefoot and some think the trees draw lightning, but you have to take the bad with the good sometimes. As to the trees drawing lightning, I don't know if that's true or not, but I do know they got hit by lightning frequently.

I liked the fragrance of the blooms so well that I used it in my novel, The Scent of Lilacs. Now you're frowning and saying, wasn't she talking about locust blooms? And I was. But lilacs are wonderfully fragrant too. So I used that in my book too. The locust bloom fragrance was Jocie's father's favorite scent and what he smelled when he received his unusual call to preach while in a submarine during World War II. Then later in the book, Jocie has her own unusual experience with the lilac fragrance.

All this to get around to the exciting news I got this week that the Hollyhill books are going to be re-released. First Scent of Lilacs will make a re-appearance early in 2013 with Orchard of Hope and Summer of Joy to follow later in 2013 and 2014. The series title will be "The Heart of Hollyhill." What great timing - to get this great news while the locusts are blooming! I love the characters in these books and I'm looking forward to sharing their stories with new readers.

Have you read any of the Hollyhill books? If you have, which characters did you like?

Thanks for reading. I always enjoy your comments and appreciate you coming to visit here.

A Novel Tea

2012-04-11T22:41:00.000-04:00

"Come, let us have some tea and continue to talk about happy things." ~Chaim Potok

And what's more fun to talk about while you're drinking that cup of tea than books? That's what I got to do today at a "Novel Tea." I was excited when I got my first e-mail from Lisa Jones, the librarian in Grayson County, KY, saying they were planning to have a book event and it was going to be a tea and would I like to come speak. Since I'm a tea lover and a book lover, I was on board at once. Now if they'd had a dog show on the side, the day would have been perfect. Just teasing. Those dogs would have wanted all the treats. (grin)

Of course, after the lady said they were going to sell tickets, I told her I hoped the tea would be good because I couldn't imagine anybody buying a ticket to hear me talk. I don't think they did. I think they bought the tickets to enjoy the tea and scones. Aren't those teapots in the picture at the top cute? Each one had a different flavor or type tea. I went for the English breakfast tea because I like my tea strong without added flavor.

They also had wonderful desserts and the caterer was a woman after my own heart. She put the desserts at the start of the table so you picked up your plate and could load up with the sweet things before you got to the healthy relish tray and sandwiches, etc. After all, life is short and the plates were small. This way you got to allot the proper space to the best part of any tea - the sweet concoctions.

Actually, the best part for me was meeting so many new reading friends and getting to tell them about my books. After I talked about my writing life, we had time for questions. That's always my favorite part of any talk if the people aren't too shy to ask whatever they're curious about regarding writers or writing. Grade school kids do the best job asking questions. They want to know everything! Adults are sometimes slower to raise their hands. But a question I got today that I nearly always get is how long does it take me to write a book. My stock answer is about a year, but I have written books in six months and this summer I'm going to need to write a story in two months. Thank goodness it's a Christmas story that will only be about half as long as most of my stories.

Another question was about whether I work regular hours or wait until I feel a creative burst coming on. Some people may be able to wait for their muse to show up, but most of those muses are onery creatures who dillydally and don't come knocking on your door that often. You have to go out and grab that rascal and wrestle him into your office or workplace. How I do that is by spending a lot of hours with my fingers on the keyboard. That way your muse will realize you're serious about this writing stuff and reluctantly begin showing up more often.

What question do you wish you could ask a writer? My answer and other writers' answers might be very different since writing is such an individual pursuit with many ways to write a story. But it's still fun to ask questions and I enjoy answering them too.

Thanks for reading. Maybe we can all have tea together someday and talk about books!

Sunrise and Easter Blessings

2012-04-08T22:26:00.000-04:00

Let the resurrection joy lift us from loneliness and weakness and despair to strength and beauty and happiness. ~Floyd W. Tomkins

Churches all over the country celebrated Resurrection morning today. At our little country church, we began the morning with a Sunrise Service. Our pastor has been doing this for a number of years now and he always delivers a sunrise message as if he's one of the Biblical eye witnesses to the first Easter like Peter or John. Today he picked Thomas. That meant he had to do a lot of digging into books other than the Bible because other than the listing of Thomas as one of the disciples, he's only mentioned three times.

Of course, most people familiar at all with the Bible know that he was the disciple not present when Jesus first appeared to the disciples after His resurrection. When the others told him they had seen Jesus, Thomas said unless he for himself saw the nail scars in Jesus' hands and put his hand in the wound in His side he wouldn't believe it was true. Forever after, even to this day, we call anyone who is slow to accept whatever facts or story a "doubting Thomas." But as Br. Fred, our pastor, said this morning, who among us would not have had some doubts about a man we knew had been killed now walking around alive? Thomas made a confession of faith the moment he saw Jesus. Isn't that all the Lord asks of any of us? To meet Him and recognize Him as Lord.

I enjoy Br. Fred's interpretive messages as he always helps me see new insights in the Bible stories. For the eleven o'clock service, he delivered a different message to a fuller church as not all our families can make Sunrise Service. My younger son and his family were able to make the second service. Since the out-of-state families were home last Sunday for an early Easter dinner and celebration, they couldn't come back today. But it was fun seeing this family of grandkids in their Easter best before they took off for their other grandparents' house and an Easter egg hunt on a lot nicer day. Remember, that April Fool's rain messed up my Easter egg hunt last Sunday. :( I'm glad everybody had better weather here today.

I hope you had a blessed and joyous Easter. And some fun times with your family. Have you eaten jelly beans or chocolate today? Did you dye hard boiled eggs with your kids or grandkids? Did you watch the sun rise with joy in your heart?

Talk to you Wednesday.

Finishing the Race

2012-04-04T23:09:00.001-04:00

" It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard...is what makes it great!" -Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own

This was a good week for University of Kentucky basketball fans like me and my pastor, Br. Fred. We're smiling here on Sunday - him with his Kentucky tie and me with my U.K. jumper - before the championship game, showing our support for our team. This group of young men embraced the idea of hard work and becoming a team in order to reach their goal of winning it all. That didn't happen overnight. Most of the players were born with outstanding athletic talent and abilities but that didn't guarantee they'd be winners. They had to spend countless hours running and practicing and shooting a basketball at a goal in a gym somewhere. It was not easy, but they persevered and eventually reached the championship of college basketball. Many other young players worked every bit as hard perhaps without winning the "big" game. Sixty plus teams began the tournament, but in every game there was a winner and there was a loser until only one team could say they won it all.

That team happened to be the team I cheer for this year and that made the tournament lots of fun to watch. Twenty thousand fans welcomed the team home after the tournament. I was not one of those. I'm more the stay at home and cheer kind of fan. But if they had come up one game short or several games short, the arena would not have been crowded with cheering fans.

Basketball is a team sport and a spectator sport for fans like me. But many of the "games" that challenge us are individual races we must run on our own. My daughter and her husband came home last weekend to run in a half marathon. Around two thousand other people did the same. Most ran with an individual challenge to run a good race with no expectation of actually being the first runner over the finish line. My son-in-law crossed the finish line around 240th, and he was feeling great about that accomplishment even though a couple of hundred runners ran faster than he did. My daughter was way back in the pack, but she was excited because she was able to run the whole thirteen miles and didn't have to walk up the hills. Individual challenges met.

Writing a book is something like a marathon. It's not something that you're going to be able to do in one quick sprint. It's something you have to bear down and show up at your keyboard over and over to keep spilling out words to tell your story. It's a challenge that requires discipline to keep keeping on even when things aren't going well. Most writers write many words before they hold their first published book in hand. But they persevere and keep writing, keep improving, keep running the race.

I'm doing my best to persevere in that way now with the book I'm working on. To keep pulling words out. To keep telling my story. To keep running my race. In the Bible, Paul compares himself to a runner several times. In Philippians 3:13 he says this. Of course, my brothers, I really do not think that I have already won it {the prize}; the one thing I do, however, is to forget what is behind me and do my best to reach what is ahead. (Good New Bible)

While Paul is speaking about running his spiritual race and living for Jesus, the thought of that verse works so well in many of the "races" we must run in life. Forget what's behind and keep our eyes on the prize ahead. For my writing that means I need to focus on my goal of telling this story and not on the stories I've written before or the books others have written. Write my book. Tell the story I have to tell. Finish my race. And when all the words are written then I can take the advice of Lewis Carroll. "Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end; then stop."

Do you set individual goals to help you finish your race?

Thanks so much for reading.

Cousins Equal Fun

2012-04-02T12:10:00.001-04:00

Cousins are different beautiful flowers in the same garden. ~Anonymous

Here are a couple of the beautiful flowers in my garden of grandchildren - two little cousins who enjoyed an early Easter celebration at my house yesterday. We were sort of surprised by the early morning rain. The weather forecasters had said there might be a stray shower. It rained solidly for several hours. My daughter said it must have been the weather guys' April Fool's joke on us. It did mess up the Easter egg hunt we had planned. We hid the eggs in the house which didn't make the hunt very challenging for the older grandkids. The sun did come out and the kids did spend most of the afternoon outside but it was very wet when they were anxiously ready to do the Easter egg hunting. You can only hold off kids eager to hunt candy for so long. My two oldest grandkids didn't hunt eggs. They're growing up. One of them will be graduating from high school this year. How quickly the years zoom past.

Going "home" to grandma's and grandpa's and playing with cousins can be one of the best memories of childhood. I certainly remember the many good times I had with my cousins when I was a kid. We played in the fields and woods and thought up some neat adventures. In a way, I can attribute my beginning to write to playing with my cousin and my sister. They, along with me, starred in the first book I started writing when I was a kid. We had fun in my imagination too.

Cousins can be such great ready made friends. Supplied by family with no effort on the child's part. Connected to one another by family ties and sometimes similar backgrounds. My children had great fun with their cousins, and it's good to see their children playing together now. My children got to see their cousins often since my sisters and I live in the same community. My grandkids don't live close together. So they don't see each other but a few times a year, but they know how to have fun together when the opportunity pops up.

Did you have cousins you played with as kids? Have the bonds of friendship endured through the years? I don't see my cousins much any more. A couple of them live in California and I doubt I'll ever see them again. But the memories of good times together linger and bring smiles.

Thanks for reading!

Titles, Titles, and More Titles

2012-03-28T23:09:00.000-04:00

Inspiration can appear in many places when you're brainstorming ideas for titles. The beautiful, fragrant lilac was my inspiration for the title of my first Hollyhill book. The Scent of Lilacs. Almost until it was ready to go into print production, I had the title The Smell of Lilacs. Then I was standing behind the old bus my husband's quartet used to travel in and being almost overcome by diesel fumes which I really hate to smell. And it hit me! A smell is not always a good smell. Ah, but when you say scent, you think pleasant odors and I definitely had in mind pleasant odors for my scent of lilacs in that Hollyhill book. Fortunately, it wasn't too late for me to say, "Hey, how about we change smell to scent?" If it had been too late, I'd have probably always been thinking diesel fumes when I saw the title instead of the heavenly scent of lilacs.

As I told you Sunday, I've been brainstorming for title ideas for my book in progress. I jotted down everything that came to mind and then looked on Amazon to see how many books were already using those titles and how long since they were published. Titles are used over and over. For instance, one of the titles I thought up as a possibility was Promise Me Tomorrow. Lots of other authors had already thought that title up. Many books with that title. Also Tomorrow's Promise was a popular, much used title. So I threw those out as too popular and too recent.

I want my book to have a unique and fitting title. I'm not sure I came up with any unique and fitting ideas. I really prefer to wait until I've finished the book to brainstorm title ideas, and this book is far from finished. I'm still feeling my way and not totally sure how the ending is going to go. But the publishers need a title now. Maybe I need a title now too. Maybe that will focus my thinking and let me see the story in a clearer way. My working title for the book is Far from Rosey Corner. But while I was brainstorming I kept wanting to throw love into the title or chance or wind/winds. So we'll see. The publishers titling committee will look at my suggestions and try to figure out which title would work best. They might also brainstorm new titles of their own. Since I'm not particularly attached to any of the titles I came up with, I'll have an open mind ready to consider whatever they suggest. That's not always the case when I'm attached to the title I've decided is best for the story.

Many of the titles I have come up with have ended up the final titles on my books. I've also been told that I write to the title. I do tend to intertwine the theme of the title into my story. I certainly did that with The Seeker. And I have done that with The Gifted, my Shaker novel that will be out in July since a major theme of that book is the gifts we are given by the Lord. So it will be good to have a title for this work in progress, so I can continue to brainstorm the story.

How important are titles to you in picking a book? What are some great titles? Gone with the Wind - that's classic. I like Cold Mountain and Snow on Cedars. But sometimes it's a combination of a story you love plus a title like The Secret Garden or Charlotte's Web.

Thanks for reading, and I always enjoy reading your comments.

And the Question is...

2012-03-25T23:38:00.001-04:00

"Any man who knows all the answers most likely misunderstood the questions."

I certainly can't claim to know all the answers, so maybe that means I did understand the questions. But for sure, some questions are harder for me to answer than others. Right now I'm struggling with the answer to what is my writing style.

Why do I need to know that? Can't I just write and let whoever picks up my books decide if the style is one that they like or sadly, might not like? Well, I could, but I've got this titling questionnaire to fill out about my next book. You see when a contracted book is in line to be published, the publishers have to start working on the book's placement, the cover of the book, and various other things that this author knows nothing about a year in advance of the actual book hitting the store shelves. One of the first things the publishers want to settle on is the title.

When a book is contracted, it's usually from a proposal with what is called a working title. That may or may not be the eventual final title of the book. Some of my titles have stuck. Like Angel Sister. Others have not. I don't expect my working title of this book to stick. So that means we're going to have to come up with a new and improved title very soon.

The first step to that next title is me filling out what the publisher calls a titling questionnaire. The first time I received one of these questionnaires was years ago for one of my young adult novels. That was an eye-opening experience, but at least I already had that book written at the time. None of my young adult books were contracted prior to completion. I wrote the books and then my agent at the time did her best to find a publisher. Now I'm fortunate to have a contract before I write the book, but that doesn't make filling out one of these questionnaires any easier. Especially when the first question asks me to describe my style of writing. I haven't studied writing. I just write. I tell stories. I've been writing for half a century. (I started very, very young! LOL) My style has come from trial and error. It's just how I write.

For every questionnaire I've filled out prior to this, I just made something up. But this time I decided to go out on the web and see if I could find out what styles are out there. I thought maybe there were names for styles like modern or old fashioned or hopeless. So here's what I found on Wikipedia. (Everybody's first and least trusted resource, right?) Writing style is the manner in which an author chooses to write to his or her audience. A style reveals both the writer's personality and voice, but it also shows how she or he perceives the audience, and chooses conceptual writing style which reveal those choices by which the writer may change the conceptual world of the overall character of the work.

Whew! That didn't get me one bit closer to being able to describe my style. Just made me need to maybe look up conceptual writing. I do like the first sentence. However I write is how I choose to tell my readers my story. Plain and simple. Maybe that's my style. Conversational. With lots of dialogue. Character driven. That sounds good. Maybe I can claim that.

Trouble is, even if I come up with an answer for my style of writing, there are a lot more questions. Questions that are going to strain my brain to answer. But I will come up with answers. Maybe answering the questions, having to really examine my characters and my story will help me focus on the next page and the next chapter. Plus, we might just come up with a new dynamite title. That's the hope and the purpose of the questionnaire and worth a little brain strain.

Here's a quote about questions from Edgar Cayce that I liked. "Dreams are today's answer to tomorrow's questions." So I'll keep dreaming my story and trying to figure out answers. Could be I'll even come up with an answer about my writing style.

Do you notice writing styles when you're reading? Who has a style you like?

Hope all your questions are easy this week and have great answers. Thanks for reading. Talk to you again Wednesday.

A Time and Season for All Things

2012-03-21T21:46:00.001-04:00

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven. - Ecclesiates 3:1 (KJV)

It's March 21, the second day of Spring by the calendar. Normally, this time of the year we're having windy and chilly days here in Kentucky with frosts at night and five different kinds of weather in the daytime. We can have sunshine, snow, rain and sleet all in the same hour in March and the winds can be cutting. Not this March. This March we're having a week long (so far) preview of June with record breaking temperatures in the eighties. The flowers are poking up out of the ground and going, "Oh my, I must have overslept!" And so, they are hurrying to catch up to the sun.

I've never seen so many different kinds of wildflowers blooming this early in the year. The one above is a twin leaf flower and it is one of the earlier bloomers. But early as in April. Not the middle of March. Even my mom's favorite flower growing wild over at the Rock, the Dutchman's breeches, are blooming all over the hillsides. I saw a few that had bloomed and were already turning brown. Made me want to say wait a minute. It's not time for you to even be blooming yet and you're already fading.

But the seasons come and go as they please. Whether we'll step back into winter, I don't know. It could happen. Generally we face a chance of frost here until May. But then generally we don't have a whole week of eighty degree weather in March.

It's not only the early blooming flowers making me want to grasp a few days and try to slow things down. I got a titling questionnaire today for the book I'm working on. Not yet, I wanted to say. How can I think about titles when the story is still seeping into my writer's well? But it's time. To every thing there is a season. Now in the life of this book I'm writing, it is the season for titling. In publishing every thing has a time to get done. So, with some imagination and a great deal of hope, I will tell them about my story that is yet flowing out of my thoughts and through my fingers onto the computer screen. I will describe my main characters and the clothes they're wearing. I will suggest words that might make a title sing. And I will continue to write my story and hope the season for writing is as full of flowering thoughts as our early spring is of blooming flowers.

What have you seen as an early sign of spring? Or perhaps it's still cold and snowy where you are. But spring will come. For every thing there is a season. And spring is a season many of us welcome.

Thanks for reading. I appreciate each and every one of you.

March Madness

2012-03-18T23:21:00.001-04:00

Some of you who know me or have been following my blog for a while know I love basketball. I started listening to the UK Wildcat games when I was just a kid and got my first little transistor radio. I don't know why. Nobody in my family had ever attended UK or any college. We were a farm family. College wasn't expected or encouraged for my parents. My mother graduated from high school one day and got married the next. My dad, who was ten years older than her, attended one day of high school, didn't like it, and never went back. It wasn't that he didn't like learning. He worked algebra problems for fun. Very few problems stumped him, but he didn't always get the answers the way our teachers told us to. It was just that school and sitting in a classroom weren't for him.

I don't remember my parents listening to the Kentucky ballgames. They probably followed the scores. Most Kentuckians embraced Rupp's basketball teams. They were winners and that made Kentuckians proud. And it always gave you a talking connection. A simple "How about those Cats?" could get the conversation ball rolling almost as good as talking about the weather. Still can. Kids grew up bouncing basketballs on their driveways or spots worn bare of grass in their yards and they imagined themselves winners like the Wildcats. To give a little perspective of how much we got used to UK winning, right now the Wildcats have a home court winning streak of 50 (I think) but under Coach Rupp, the Wildcats went 12 years without a home loss. Fans were stunned when that streak was broken. Some of those years must have been when I started following the Cats.

And so, I love March Madness - until my team gets beat anyway. Then I tend to lose interest. I always fill out one of the brackets - not for a pool, but just for fun - and nearly always have KY winning it all even when I know that's an unlikely scenario. I don't study the teams. I just pick them on whims. My whims weren't too good this year.

I think we need sports. It's good to have teams that we can follow. Players we can cheer on. I've been reading about the World War 2 years. The headlines for those years include a lot of sports stories. It was good to have baseball hitting streaks to think about occasionally instead of all the war news. It also makes me think about how many of those young men of the 1940s who stepped up to the enlistment tables and volunteered to fight were eighteen and nineteen year old kids just like the ballplayers running up and down basketball courts.

Those kids picked up guns and began fighting. They piloted planes heavy with bombs. They crawled across the African countryside in tanks. They manned anti-aircraft guns on naval ships. They huddled in foxholes. They charged the beachheads. They ended up in prison camps in Japan and Germany. Many of them died too young. Others survived the frontlines of the conflict but were never the same. Without a doubt, as Tom Brokaw says in his book, the greatest generation.

Rising to the challenge. That's what winning basketball teams do and our country knows the freedom we have today because of the men and women who rose to the challenge during those war years.

Thanks for reading. Now to catch up on some scores and see how many more bad picks I made on my brackets.

Right Now - Spring!

2012-03-14T22:27:00.000-04:00

"There are always flowers for those who want to see them." ~~Henri Matisse

Spring - what a beautiful time of the year when hope takes wing and we simply know that something good is going to happen. Actually, official spring is about a week away, but the sun has decided on pushing spring toward us a little earlier this year here in KY. It was nearly 80 degrees here today. Flowers are popping up out of the ground, ready to burst into bloom. Trees are budding out.

And those of us familiar with KY weather are enjoying the sunshine and flowers even as we worry about the frosts to come that may steal our blooms and our fruit. But as the saying goes, worry is like a rocking chair. It keeps you busy but it doesn't get you anywhere. It is definitely true that there is not one thing I can do about the weather and there's no need at all worrying over what might come. All we really have is right now.

Right now, today was a beautiful day. Right now today, flowers are bursting forth. Right now today, I pulled out a few more words to add to my work in progress. Right now today, I got a sweet message from a reader who had just finished The Outsider. Said she read it while she walked on her treadmill and thanks to me she had gotten in a few extra miles when she didn't want to stop reading.

Right now today - well, actually yesterday - I walked to the Rock to check out the flowers and the hillsides were dotted with white blooms. The creek was full and running. My dog, Oscar, and the neighbor dog, Roxie, kept me company. A wild turkey escaped their notice and made it into the woods without being chased. The day was good.

Right now today - well, actually tomorrow - I am going to be sharing the microphone with writing friend, Ginny Smith at one of the nicest bookstores in the area, Joseph Beth Booksellers. She's even got a few friends who have promised to show up in spite of the fact that Kentucky plays WKU in the NCAA tournament at exactly the same time plus the Boys Sweet Sixteen Basketball tourny is goin on in the same town. Right now, I'm glad I have a recorder so I can record the game to watch later!! If Kentucky wins. I won't want to see it if they don't.

Right now, I'm hoping my story is waiting to burst forth like the flowers ready to bloom. Right now, I still have two pages to write to meet my daily writing goal. Right now, I think I won't have to sit up half the night to meet my goal. Right now.

What's happening in your life right now? Good things, I hope. Blessings abounding. Hope sprouting in your heart like flowers pushing through the deep layer of last fall's leaves to shout spring is here. Good things happening. Right now! Even if the calendar does say it's still winter.

Thanks for reading. Right now, I'm glad you're one of my reading friends.

By the way, I did finally get in touch with Anna S. of Iowa, the 2nd place winner in my Words Spoken True Louisville Celebration giveaway. She won the Louisville stoneware cup and the Starbucks coffee and flavored tea. Also, on Jeopardy tonight one of the questions/answers was Derby Pie and none of the contestants got it even though I was shouting it at them. :) But my first prize winner would have, since she got a piece of that pie in her Kentucky breakfast basket. She told me she ate the pie as soon as she got the basket. She knew how to enjoy the moment right now!

Two Bears and a Dog by Any Other Name...

2012-03-11T22:19:00.002-04:00

What's in a name? How many times have you been introduced to somebody and the person's name made a jet fast trip in one of your ears and out the other? The same with some restaurant or store you hear advertised and plan to remember. Then later, you can't think of the name of the place for the life of you.

Well, my friends, Andy and Michael, the two guys smiling with me in the picture, aren't going to have that trouble. They came up with a great name for their book store. Two Bears and a Dog. I did a book signing at their store Saturday in Horse Cave, KY. From the first day I met Michael months ago at the KY Book Fair, I haven't forgotten the name of the book store.

That's good for me, because sometimes I'm not too sure I'm remembering my own name. No lie! We were talking about middle names on Facebook last week since it was "Middle Name" week or something. A time to admit and embrace your middle names. Got lots of fun comments about middle names.

To get the ball rolling, I was going to tell everybody my middle name, but there was a problem. I couldn't remember for sure how it was spelled. It's been years since I'd written it as part of my name because I use my maiden name as a middle name now. It seemed the least I could do since my dad didn't have any sons and he grieved about his name not being carried on.

But my middle name is Bernice. That's the way my mother spelled it when she gave it to me. At least, I think it is. Actually, I'm perfectly sure it is now, but I wasn't all that sure for a few minutes when I first thought about it the other day. Guess it's a good thing I have such a simple first name.

But then when I went to Horse Cave, KY Saturday for a book signing at a book store called Two Bears and a Dog, I figured I'd hit the jackpot in the name department.

I love names. I work hard to come up with the exactly right names for my characters in my stories. In the original draft of Words Spoken True, Adriane was named Allison. I have no idea why she changed her name, but she did. And then in The Gifted, the Shaker book due out this summer, I wrote at least a fourth of the book about a girl named Isabella. But she never felt comfortable with her name. Finally she shook it off and became Jessamine. It wasn't until then that she came fully to life in my head. Thank goodness for the find and replace capabilities of a computer.

Last week I also got an e-mail from someone from Soddy-Daisy. That wasn't a KY place name, but our state has plenty of those kind of odd names for places too. The little community of Alton here in my home county that I base my fictional Rosey Corner on was once called Rough and Ready. Then somebody decided that wasn't a proper community name. The citizens of Horse Cave tried to do that too back in the 1870s. They changed their name to Caverna, but the railroad people wouldn't go along with the name change and kept calling the stop Horse Cave. After ten or so futile years of trying to be a town with a more sophisticated name, they went back to being Horse Cave. Any of you read Cold Sassy Trees? Seems that was one of the story lines in that book. A town in search of a better name.

What about you? What oddly named places have you visited or seen? Or share your middle name. Maybe you'll at least know how to spell yours!! Let's celebrate names this week.

Thanks for reading. Love it when you come to visit.

Talking Books in E-town

2012-03-07T23:18:00.001-05:00

February and March have been busy book months for me with the release of Words Spoken True. The book went on a blog tour and has gotten over fifty reviews so far. Most have been very positive which is nice for this writer since the book is very different from my other recent books. You never know if readers are going to be willing to follow you along a different story trail. I'm thankful so many of you were willing to try something different, because I like writing different types of books.

But not only the book went on a blog tour, I did too, visiting numerous blogs to talk about Words Spoken True and do some interviews. I've been a regular at our post office sending out books to this or that person who won a book by commenting on one of those blogs I visited. And I still have a couple of interviews promised that I haven't done yet. I love talking about books. My books and other books too.

That's what I was doing with these lovely ladies above. We got together at the fabulous Word of God Christian Book and Gifts Store in Elizabethtown. Michele Brown was nice enough to ask me down to talk about my writing with some of her customers.

It is always enlightening to hear what readers have to say about the books they read - especially when they're talking about a book I wrote! One of the ladies there said she didn't like my ending and when she explained her problem with it, I could see her point of view. That didn't make me wish I'd written the ending differently. I think what happened in the story is what happened. That's the way stories are for me. I write down what happened. But it was interesting seeing the story from her perspective.

Some of the ladies had read my Shaker books, so of course, we did some Shaker talking too. And they told me what they liked in the books they read. I asked them if they liked romance in their stories and they said yes. I asked them if they liked sad endings and they said no. I asked what they liked best about the stories they read and they said characters they could like. I certainly could go along with that. Who wants to read a book about characters you don't like? So I had a great time talking books with reading friends in E-town.

This coming Saturday, March 10, I'm going to be going down that highway again. This time to Horse Cave, KY for a book signing at the Two Bears and a Dog Book Store. I doubt if I'll ever visit a book store with a better name. I am scheduled to be there between 1 and 4 p.m., so if you're in the area, drop by to see me and meet those "bears" and a dog. Then next Thursday, March 15, I'll be at Joseph-Beth's Book Store in Lexington with my writer friend, Virginia Smith to talk about and sign our new books. Ginny's latest release, A Heart's Frontier has been getting great reviews. We'll be sure to have plenty to talk about with our Lexington, KY reading friends.

One of the questions I asked on one of my blog visits was "What question do you most like to have an author answer in a blog interview? Or what question do they never get asked that you would like to see?"

I sent out my prizes for the Words Spoken True Louisville Celebration Contest last week. Well, two of them. I still haven't heard from one of the prize winners. Anna S., if you're out there, please check your e-mails. I may have to redraw for the 2nd place winner if I don't hear from Anna soon. But I got this neat note from the 1st place winner, Jodi K from Wisconsin, about the basket of KY breakfast goodies she won. "I received the gift basket today. The derby pie was heavenly and I did not share. I can't wait to make breakfast this weekend." Glad you enjoyed the pie, Jodi!

Thanks for reading, everybody. What question would you like to see answered in the writer interviews you read?

Lyn Cote and Why She Writes About the Quakers

2012-03-04T17:24:00.002-05:00

Lyn Cote

Hi, everybody.
Occasionally I have the privilege of welcoming another author over to write in my writer's journal. Today I'm especially pleased to welcome Lyn Cote, multi-published, bestselling author of books that tell brave stories about strong women. I've been fortunate enough to visit her blog a few times so today she's returning the favor. As a bonus she has a special offer for all your readers about some free or discounted books. Read the links and titles at the end of her interview and be sure to let Lyn know how much you appreciate her generosity.

First, welcome, Lyn. As you know I have several books about the Shakers, who have a few similarities to the Quakers that you have used as central characters in books you have written. What caught your interest and started you writing about the Quakers or Society of Friends?

I've never analyzed before why I have always been drawn to Quakers. I know that like Ann who writes about the Shakers, I'm going against the current "Amish" flow. :-)

I think that the Quakers or Friends strong moral stands which ran counter to the prejudices of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries is what attracted my crusading spirit. My brand is expressed as "Strong Women, Brave Stories" since my heroines are usually crusaders who are at the forefront for change in their times.

According to Wikipeida: "Historically, Quakers have been known for their use of thee as an ordinary pronoun, refusal to participate in war; plain dress; refusal to swear oaths; and opposition to alcohol." Indeed in our history, they were instrumental in settling our nation and in the 19th century were the Christians who pushed for the rights of women, abolition and the temperance movement.

I've always admired the Quakers and wanted to know more about them. Sounds like your stories will help me there. Tell us about the series you just finished.

I just finished the Gabriel Sisters series which portrayed three Quaker sisters who try to bind up the wounds of our nation after the Civil War. One goes to teach at a Freedman's school in the South; one established an orphanage for the many orphans left by the war and the third who was a nurse in the war becomes a doctor in the West. Recently I agreed to write another Quaker series which will dramatically portray the Quakers' part in establishing the Underground Railroad and working toward abolition.

All those books sound really exciting. I love reading about women who made a difference in our country's history. Definitely all these ideas sound as if they easily fit into your brand of brave stories about strong women. What else have you been working on?

Last year, I had time to revise and polish my very first manuscript, La Belle Christiane. This book never sold because it didn't follow some of the unwritten rules of Christian fiction. I still thought it's a good story and now it's FINALLY available in digital and print. I did this because I didn't want it to sit ignored in my files forever. Interestingly I find that La Belle Christiane included my fascination with the Quakers (I have an older couple of Friends) and I have a crusading heroine. Here's a short blurb:

In the 1770's, after her mother's violent murder, Christiane Pelletier flees France. Daughter of a French courtesan to frontier wife to companion of Lady Washington, Christiane moves into the heart of the American rebel elite. But one man in her life can never be forgotten. Once he was her friend. Now he is her enemy. Will he become her destiny? Only God knows.

What fun to have that very first book that you've always loved finally available to readers! Thanks for telling us about it. And thanks for these special offers to my blog readers.

Okay, everybody, here's your chance to get some great reads downloaded on your e-readers for free or to get a discount on a print book. Instead of offering one free download (not print copy) of this book, Lyn is offering a free coupon to anyone who wants it today. Go to http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/92021 and enter this discount code VM67X . This offer is good for today only. To buy a print copy, go to https://www.createspace.com/3669135.

For a discount code for $3 off $15.99 print edition, go to http://LynCote.net and click Contact and email Lyn.

And as an additional offer, you can get Lyn's Autumn's Shadow free on Kindle through Monday March 5, 2012.

http://amzn.to/y9PY6Q
The first book in the series is priced on sale at 99 cents on Kindle the same days.http://amzn.to/v8BqEz

Now Lyn has a question for you.

Did you know much about Quakers before today? And does a heroine using "thee" bother you as you read?

Lyn, thank you so much for coming over to visit and letting us know more about the Quakers and your books. And thank you, readers, for dropping by and for answering Lyn's question. We'll look forward to you sharing your thoughts, and Lyn will be back over to talk with you too.

If you want to know more about Lyn and her books, please check out her website, http://booksbylyncote.com.

One Last Chance to Make It Right

2012-03-01T08:37:00.000-05:00

"Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell." (William Strunk)

I got the pages for my next Shaker novel, The Gifted, dropped at my front door yesterday. I wrote the book months ago and sent it in to the acquiring editor. Then I had to sit on pins and needles a few weeks until she had time to read it and say, "Yes, the story works." Or words to that effect along with some "but you need to fix this or that" suggestions. Once those edits were done, the book headed on to the next editor in the publishing company.

This second editor read through the book, caught more problems with the way I told the story, discovered my pet words. I seem to have some in every book. I run through a variety of them. Just. Still. Of course. Comfort words for me. Words that help me transition my thinking while I'm writing, but words that can be repetitious and often unnecessary when noted with an editorial eye. Here, with the galleys, I could fix things, rewrite things, make the story better after the discerning eyes of the copy-editor spotted weaknesses. I could also fix the things my own editing eye was able to see after a few months away from the story.

Now, I have the pages - the stack in the photo above. At this stage of the editing process, I can't do major rewrites. I shouldn't need to do major rewrites. But if I did go crazy with my red pen, it wouldn't be good because edits and corrections are harder to make once the editorial process has gotten this far along. With the pages, I got a list of queries from the editor. Things are noted that both of us missed in the first few go-arounds. Proofreaders have read the book and their sharp eyes have noted a few mistakes here and there and have questioned this or that. Things still need fixing. I need to make every word right.

Perfection is rarely possible. At least for me. There's always something with each reading of any of my books that I think might be worded better or presented in a fresher way. This book will be no different. But I will read through it. I will pay attention to the suggested improvements. I'll tweak a word here and there. I'll do my very best to write the story so that when you, the reader, opens it up and begins to read that the words will disappear and the story will play out in your imagination - not as words but as images.

That's why writers edit and polish and try to make every word tell as William Strunk advises in the quote above. Words can be beautiful. The way they're put together can thrill the mind. And they can tell a story. That's all I'm trying to do - tell a story. And so, I'll read through these pages and do my best to make my words sing so that my readers will be carried away by the melody. Not perfect, but the best I can do with the help of my editor friends.

What things pull you out of a story when you're reading? Have you noted editing or writing mistakes in the books you've read?

On another note, all the entries are in for my Louisville contest to celebrate Words Spoken True. The blog tour for the book was last week and reviews are popping up all over the net. I'll be using Random.org to draw for the winners later today. I'll let everybody know either in a newsletter or with a special post here.

Sunday, I'll have a special guest here on One Writer's Journal. Well known and popular author, Lyn Cote, will be sharing about her books and why she started writing about the Quakers. She'll also be offering a free download of one of her books, so come back on Sunday to see what Lyn has to say.

Thanks for reading. Now if I can keep from sneezing long enough - I've caught a nasty cold - I'll get to work on those pages.