Happy Holidays!
The Stiletto Gang wishes you and yours the most joyous holiday season and all the best for a happy, healthy new year. See you bright and early January 5, 2009!
Maggie Barbieri
Evelyn David
Susan McBride
Marilyn Meredith
No Time Like the Present
Author and entrepreneur Lisa Dunster Moeller is the creator of Common Threads Journals, a one of a kind line of journals designed to have more than one owner in its lifetime. Motivated by a desire to help her two best friends through the difficult experience of divorce, something she too had suffered, Lisa began to collect bits of advice and other words of wisdom to pass on. Her writings, collected in a small, hand decorated blank book, became the first shared journal.
The idea that everyone has insight that someone else will find helpful inspired Lisa to reach beyond her personal circle of friends, hoping to inspire people to renew their sense of connectedness to one another. Lisa believes that by reaching out through the universal experiences of love, loss, triumph and tragedy, we learn to celebrate the things that unite us and make us one. Common Threads Journals were created to give everyone a way to record and share their stories.
~~~~~~~~~
Recently it seems as though my life has been one reminder after another that life is short. It’s a bit cliché I know, a phrase we hear all the time, but it makes it no less the truth…there is no time like the present. These recent reminders have been weighing heavy on my mind, so I decided to set aside my original plans for this guest post and send out a message to the readers of this great little blog that feels a little more important.
With the holiday season upon us, lots of people are busy shopping for presents for the people they love. As the hustle and bustle of the holiday season begins to take over your life I’d like to suggest you give yourself a present too: take time to nurture the relationships with the people you love. Everyone likes to receive gifts, but really there is no greater gift than making time for someone…and there is no time like the present.
The idea that we might lose someone close to us, like a spouse or a parent, is one of the most terrifying feelings there is. It is during those times in our lives that it is easy to make time for the people we love. We feel vulnerable when mortality stares us in the face, and those times often leave us taking life a little slower, taking time to smell the roses (to use another bad cliché), and spending more quality time with our loved ones.
Sometimes just being on the fringe of an experience like that can be a good reminder, which is where I found myself recently when someone I love very much was faced with the possibility of losing a parent to cancer. Following that experience with my friend, my husband and I were in a vehicle collision caused by icy roadway conditions. We were extremely fortunate not to be hurt and not to have seriously injured anyone else. We found ourselves counting our blessings and telling each other we loved each other a little more often than usual.
There are plenty of examples of life experiences that send us that message, that important reminder that life is too short for anger or regret, for anything but love and meaningful connections. What I’d like to see, however, are more of us living our lives according to that message, without needing to have the importance of it scared into us by a near tragedy. I realize that is not a simple task, because our daily schedules are busy and sometimes even unmanageable. I know the holiday season is no exception to that chaos, but really, if you don’t start now, when will you?
I’m not suggesting you clear your schedule and turn every minute into quality time spent with family and friends. It doesn’t need to be that drastic. Perhaps it could be a phone call to an aunt you don’t see as often as you’d like or an email to a friend you’ve been falling out of touch with. Maybe, as a friend and I recently discussed, it could be spending a day with your mom going through treasured family heirlooms and documenting where they came from, so that when she is gone you’ll know which teacup belonged to your great-grandmother and that the lamp table you would have otherwise gotten rid of had been crafted by your great-great-grandfather.
My books, The Common Threads Journals, are all about the importance of making deeper, more lasting connections with the people around us. I spend a great deal of my time talking to people about my books and about the importance of connecting with others, but even I have trouble doing it sometimes. Apparently the universe recently decided I needed a reminder: I needed to live my ideas not just talk about them. Unfortunately I don’t always get the message right away, so it has to be sent several times, in several ways, just to get my attention.
My wish for you is that you start making time for the people in your life before the universe decides it needs to get your attention. Start taking some steps to nurture those important relationships. Tell the people you love that you love them: tell them often. Start doing it now. Don’t wait to be hit over the head with the message, because there is no time like the present.
Lisa
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Lisa Dunster Moeller, a Northwest native, was raised in a small town by loving parents who instilled in her the importance of service to others. Still a small town girl with a big sense of her responsibility to the greater good, Lisa works as an administrative specialist for a municipal police department in Washington State while managing the family pumpkin farm along with her husband. She also volunteers for various charities, including the American Cancer Society, and is active in her community.
Storybook Acres Press
PO Box 245
Everson, WA 98247
Phone: (360) 441-5065
http://www.storybookacrespress.com/
http://commonthreadsjournals.blogspot.com/
To purchase the books online:
“Celebrating The Holidays”: http://tinyurl.com/5e543s
“Healing A Life Unraveled”: http://tinyurl.com/6cgtvt
Tools of the Trade for Writers
My recommendations five years in –
1. Buy a computer, flat screen monitor, and printer. (Okay, the flat screen monitor is not strictly necessary if your eyes are very young. Buy a computer with as much RAM, processor speed, and hard drive storage as you can afford.)
2. Buy and install Microsoft Word. (Yes, you can use other word processing software, but this is my list and that’s my recommendation. Plus most agents/editors/publishers want your manuscript delivered in Word. I hear you grumbling, but I too used WordPerfect for years and was able to teach myself Word. You can learn to use it. And the Home and Student version is not that expensive.)
3. Set up an internet connection. (Hopefully something faster than dial-up since the writing, finding an agent and acquiring a publisher will provide more than enough frustration). Make sure you have up-to-date virus protection. I don’t care for “security suite software.” Too many programs to slow down your computer. Between pop-up blockers, phishing protection, and extra firewalls – surfing the internet can become more like sitting on a leaky air mattress and paddling with your hands. Yeah, you’re safer but it’s not much fun. McAfee Virus Scan, kept updated, along with the firewall that comes with your computer operating system is usually more than adequate unless you troll the bad part of town a lot. If you like Norton, great. But if you ever want to change to something else, you’ll find Norton has buried itself into many of your software programs and is almost impossible to remove.
4. Build a website. If you’re ever lucky enough to have readers, they’ll expect you to have a website. Lots of places on the web will host your website for a small monthly fee. They have software on site so you can build your own or you can hire a web designer to do it for you. If you have extra cash hire the web person. If not, you can learn to do it yourself. There is an enormous amount of information on the internet about websites available. Hey, if you’re a writer, you should be a reader. So read … you can learn just about anything by reading and practicing. (I’m also giving myself a little pep talk with this blog. I’m trying to learn how to animate graphics. Four hours and now I can make a dog wink.)
5. Set up a MySpace page and make friends. Every friend you make is a potential reader of your book. Plus, you meet some great people. Sure you’ll get the occasional spammer or crazy person, but you can delete them with a single click. Much easier than dealing with your obnoxious next door neighbor.
6. Buy photo software, install it, and learn to use it. Not a day goes by, that I don’t use photo software to resize my bookcovers for promotional items and postings. Did you think that Irish Wolf hound changes hats by herself? I like Microsoft Digital Image Suite 9. It does everything I want it to and is very user friendly. Yes, Adobe makes some great photo software that will do more, but I was looking for something with a short learning curve and something inexpensive. Microsoft Digital Image Suite 9 is just right for me.
7. There are some wonderful books on writing. Read some of them so you know what you don’t know. The more I read about writing the more I realize writing is like anything else, you get better with study and practice. It’s a craft. Just because you want to write, doesn’t mean you can. I’ve got a list of books that I found helpful – email me at evelyndavid@evelyndavid.com and I’ll send it to you.
Since I’m using Word to type this, I know that I’ve got 565 words at this point. More than enough for my Thursday blog. I’ll run spell check before I cut and paste this into “Blogger.”
Did I mention blogging? That should be item number 8. Maybe author newsletters should be number 9. But I’m not sure you really need to do both even though Evelyn David does. You have to save some time for the actual writing.
Okay. Time to wrap this up. I’m headed back to the animation drawing board. My goal is to get a dog’s tail to wag.
A writer’s life is so exciting.
Evelyn David
Lacking the Decorating Sense
This past Saturday night, my good friends (and former Stiletto Gang guest posters) Tina Jordan and Ted Hindenlang hosted the most fabulous book signing party for me at their home in our little Village. It was a fabulous night. Tina and Ted live in one of our Village gems—a 1918 Colonial that Tina has lovingly decorated with thrift store finds, tag sale treasures, some new stuff, and other things that came with the house, including a gorgeous baby grand piano that she has tried in vain to sell on Craigslist. One problem? Well, apparently nobody wants it . (Or maybe they don’t want to move it.) Other problem? Oldest daughter, M., has suddenly found a love for it and playing it. Tina got a mini-recital Saturday night prior to our arrival. But I have to describe to you this lovely home and all of the treasures inside. Because Tina’s got that decorating style that I just can’t pull off and everyone who came in marveled at. There was tremendous oohing and aahing over the finds that she has picked up over the years, knowing exactly where each and everyone was going to go in the house and what purpose it would serve.
Tina’s got the “eye”, as I call it. I don’t have it. And few do, I’ve decided.
My good friend and Village librarian, Mary, remarked that she picked up a antique milk crate at a tag sale. She loved it. Brought it home. And then wondered, “What in Sam Hill am I going to do with this?” But fortunately for Mary, like me, she watches a lot of the Food Network. She watched as Tyler Florence (one of our favorite chefs—maybe because he makes so much meat with such loving care?) took his old, antique milk crate, wadded up his dish towels and stashed them in the crate on his counter, never having to search through the elusive junk drawer for a towel to sop up whatever mess he had made while lovingly making that beef tenderloin. Mary was inspired. Her milk crate now sits on her counter, stuffed with a mélange of brightly-colored towels, always at her disposal.
I love the idea of tag sales and thrift stores and going up and down the streets of Cold Spring, a little Village a bit to the north of here with store after store of treasures and antiques. But I see things and I don’t know what to do with them. A beautiful gilt mirror with just a tiny crack in the corner? I would love it. Somewhere. Anywhere. But I know I’ll get it home, hang it somewhere and look at it and think, “why did I buy that? It’s a cracked mirror.” Then I’ll see something like it in someone else’s home where it will look like it was made exactly for the wall where it has been hung. I won’t notice the crack, but I will notice the beautiful gilt and how it fits the wall perfectly.
My mother and father recently gave us one of what is apparently part of a famous series of “toilet paper oil paintings.” Hey—the guy was on Oprah. He’s famous. Ours is a predominantly blue winter scene that was painted in five minutes in a Catskill lodge in the 1970’s by a man who has made a fortune from these paintings. I tried hanging it in our dining room, where we had a big expanse of wall that needed a big piece of art. Unfortunately, Jim and I lack the appropriate “kitsch” gene to pull off the hanging of this art and it is now hanging in my attic office, seen only by me and appreciated only by me. This was part of the 70’s décor of my youth and fit in perfectly with everything else—shag carpeting, plastic slipcovering, and the like. But today, I can’t pull it off. Mom has made me promise that before the toilet paper oil painting goes the way of many other things in my home (the Goodwill store), I’ll give her one last crack at finding a home for it. Good luck, Mom. And good luck to toilet paper oil painting. I can’t say I’ll miss you. The only person I know who could make the painting work is Tina. I may have her do an intervention before the painting goes back to Mom. Maybe it just needs a new frame?
And another thing about Tina and the book signing party: she works full time, has two children, two dogs, and a very busy life. And her tree was up, decorated, with other holiday decorations scattered throughout her house so that the whole effect was like being in a holiday wonderland, populated by many of my dear friends, all clutching copies of “Quick Study,” waiting to have them signed.
Who’s luckier than I am? You don’t have to answer that. I don’t know a luckier person alive right now.
But here’s my question and I welcome my Stiletto gals’ input on this (because I know they have some), what is it about some people that they see treasure when the rest of us just see junk? And do you have the gene to pull this off, or are you like me, queen of the “matchy-matchy”?
Maggie Barbieri
No Sanctuary
Last night we attended our church’s Christmas party. What a great time. It was held at a gal’s house who lives farther up in the mountains, off the main road, over the river and round several curving roads. Nearly every adult who attends our church was there. As all good Baptists do, everyone brought tons of good food.
After eating we played a crazy game that we play every Christmas. Everyone brings a wrapped tree ornament. Numbers are handed out. The first person picks a package to open and displays the ornament. The next person can steal that ornament or open another, and so it goes. Where the actions comes in is the stealing of the ornaments because there are always some that people like better than others.
We had a guest last night who doesn’t attend our church. Unfortunately for her, she kept unwrapping the most prized ornaments which were then promptly stolen. Her gem of a remark was, “Lutherans don’t act like this.” (She was kidding, of course.)
What does this have to do with the title of this blog? My next book coming out is from my other series, and it’s called No Sanctuary. It’s about two churches, two ministers and their wives and of course, murder. I thought having the book launch at my church would be perfect but wasn’t sure how the church council would feel about that because of the subject matter. My son-in-law, the pastor, had no problem, but I knew I needed to run it by those who decide such matters. Since I knew they’d all be at the party, this is where I approached them.
They all said it would be fine. Of course the event will be in the fellowship hall, not the sanctuary, and it won’t be on Sunday. I’ll serve food–anything Baptist needs to have food attached–and it certainly will be a pleasant affair.
Now, going back to holiday celebrations, the next celebrating my husband and I will be doing is dinner out with my critique group and whoever they want to bring, husbands or significant others. We also do this every year and I’m looking forward to merely socializing with my writer friends–who by the way are of several faiths.
Again, I wish all of you a wonderful holiday season, no matter how or what you are celebrating, just remember to connect with your friends and enjoy your family.
Marilyn
http://fictionforyou.com
Let’s Make a Deal
I don’t want to be the grinch who stole Chanukah, but holiday shopping this year, even on a limited scale, is frustrating at best, deadly at worst.
We’ve all heard the tragic news story of the security guard at a Long Island Wal-Mart, who was trampled to death by an out-of-control, bargain-hunting Black Friday crowd. The mob mentality ruled that ugly morning, as shoppers stepped over, around, and even on the victim, in their zeal to score good, nay fantastic, deals. Gunfire broke out in the parking lot of a toy store in California, when two shoppers continued their in-store arguments over merchandise.
Are these incidents the result of shoppers who are frustrated before they ever walk into a store because the economy is in the tank and the holidays are going to be spare, if at all? Is it the American competitive spirit now taken to the cash register, with shoppers determined to find the biggest bargain and get the most bang (literally at times) for the buck? And what, if any role, do the stores play in this madness?
I suspect there is more than enough blame to go around. Undoubtedly, there is an urgent need to switch the focus from the materialistic to the spiritual side of this holiday season. As thoughtfully discussed by Marilyn, Susan, and Maggie last week, this holiday season we need to give more of ourselves, and less of our pocketbooks.
But since many of us are still buying a few gifts this year, even if the number and cost have been drastically reduced, here’s a plea to the storeowners.
I understand that the holiday season is, for many of you, a make-or-break time. In the best of economic times, many retailers net half their profits from October through December. But these aren’t the best of times – not even close. I want you to stay in business, you want me to buy your products. It can be a win-win – but here’s what you need to do.
1. Cancel Black Friday and any other events that encourage a survival of the fittest, mob rule mentality. When you offer four free video systems – or frankly anything else – and you have a crowd of 200 who’ve been waiting out in the cold for hours, it’s a recipe for disaster.
2. No more gimmicks. I want to look at a price on an item and not wonder if I have brought the right coupon – or somebody else in line is getting a better deal. One price should fit all.
3. Hire sales help who know your merchandise. They should be able to do more than ring up the sale. You want a staff that understands how to “make” a sale as well: Suggest a tie to go with the shirt; discuss which books might be appropriate for a beginner reader; tell me what are the hottest new games in the Wie universe. And it would be nice if they did it with a smile and good grace. As the Southern half of Evelyn David nicely summarized: a salesperson should be a problem solver instead of just another problem for the customer.
In exchange, I promise:
1. To honor that this is a business and you need to make a profit. I won’t try to take advantage of honest mistakes in pricing or abuse your return policy.
2. To treat your merchandise carefully as I search for the perfect gift so that if I don’t buy it, someone else can.
3. To behave with good grace and a smile; to wait my turn; to follow the golden rule and treat you and your sales staff the way I hope to be treated.
Let’s put some fun and dignity back into holiday shopping. What else do you think businesses should do to make holiday shopping a better experience?
Evelyn David
Meet Duffy Dombrowski: The Man of Female Protagonists’ Dreams
Tom Schreck was the director of an inner city drug clinic; he’s a black belt and a world championship boxing official. As an author he created the Duffy Dombrowski Mysteries, a series Publishers Weekly called “A Knockout!” Follow Duffy, the not-so-social-worker, as he moonlights as a bad professional boxer, drinks with his collection of lovable loser friends and somehow tries to exert a measure of control over his adopted Black Muslim basset hound Al. All this while trying to right the wrongs forced upon his vulnerable caseload.
“On the Ropes” was a Lovey and Crimespree Magazine nominee for “Best First Mystery” and an IMBA Bestseller. Tom is featured in the Echelon anthology “Missing” and his next Duffy Mystery is due out sometime in 2009.
First of all I’m honored to be a guest of The Stiletto Gang.
Any assemblage of women under that banner has to be a fun group.
And here’s a dirty little secret about me—my wife likes me to pick out her heels for her. She finds it only somewhat disturbing that I know more about women’s shoes than she does, but she does like my taste: at least 3.5 inches, (preferably sling backs), patent leather, black or animal print and with an obnoxiously pointed toe. Something tells me that’s all I should say on this topic.
I write the Duffy Dombrowski Mystery series. Duffy is a low level social worker whose caseload includes crack whores, addicts, small-time crooks and various other members of society that you’d find if you looked under enough rocks. At night he moonlights as a bad professional boxer, taking any fight he can for the extra cash. He beats the really bad fighters and loses to the good ones.
He’s also been saddled with a rescued basset hound named Al who flunked out of the Nation of Islam’s security force due to his personal hygiene challenges. Al has raised disobedience to a new level, prefers to have Duffy wait on him, and has a tendency to make the surrounding air unbreathable. He also has an uncanny knack of showing up at the exact right time and has saved Duffy’s ass on more than one occasion.
So a counselor with a repulsive caseload whose main hobby is a sport that involves assaultive behavior and a pet whose main traits involve flatulence, drooling, and the destruction of household furniture…
Just what today’s female readership is longing for, right?
Well, I think they should for several key reasons.
Reason One: Duffy is sensitive without being all Phil Donohue about it. He’s a Robin Hood for the little guy but he’s no bleeding heart limousine liberal—he lives it everyday. He also knows a manipulative con artist exploiting the system when he sees one.
Reason Two: Duffy can kick ass and think. He isn’t violent for the fun of it — except in the gym — but when someone is abusing the vulnerable, Duffy knows it’s going to take more than reasoning to get it to stop. Sure, he usually takes time to think things through before he throws a punch…usually, depending on how the rest of his day went.
Reason Three: Duffy isn’t a cliché. Sure, he can fight but he gets beat, he can’t cook, he lives in a trailer, not a 52-foot houseboat, he’s a counselor not a shrink, and he knows nothing about the law, forensics or science. He’s real and he’s genuine.
In other words I think Duffy would make a great boyfriend to all those frustrated female protagonists out there. All the loser men who fear commitment and intimacy and all the limp wristed wimps that our favorite female sleuths have to put up with would be refreshed with Duff’s company.
That is, if they could stand the trailer, the drooling, farting hound and Duff’s penchant for Schlitz.
Well… maybe.
Tom Schreck
http://www.tomschreck.com/
For an in-depth review of On the Ropes check out the following blog –
http://acmeauthorslink.blogspot.com/
Slippery Things
Sometimes you lose them forever. Sometimes you just misplace them. Sometimes they aren’t real.
Memories are slippery, amorphous creatures that wiggle through our fingers and disappear under the bed with all the glowing eyed monsters, single rogue socks, and books that are never where you left them.
Unlike other people who profess to remember early life experiences, I’ve never been convinced that I have “real” memories of my life before age four. I have photographs implanted in my mind of events – images that come from actual photographs, home movies, or relatives’ retelling of events. But real memories at ages two or three? I don’t think so. Not me.
Drive-in movie theaters populated the landscape when I was a preschooler. I have a distinct memory of a long car trip from California to Oklahoma. My family was moving home, back to Oklahoma, pulling a trailer, with only enough money for gas and not much else. My dad drove straight through. I lay on a mattress in the packed backseat (remember when cars were big enough you could put mattresses in the backseat?). Level with the windows, I had a 360 degree view of the sky. I remember a string of drive-in movie screens that I could see from my makeshift bed.
I know the trip was real. I know we drove at night. And I also know that no one took photographs and told me about the drive-in movie screens. The adults would have had no reason to talk to me about the flickering images seen from the highway. No one but a bored preschooler would have been fascinated by the quick peeks at scenes from movies as we passed by.
It’s strange to think that my first real memory might have been scenes from B movies. Images moving on a screen without sounds or endings.
That night I discovered the power – I could make up my own stories.
Other people claim to have memories of events at a much earlier age. Maybe they’re real memories. Maybe as a toddler I was just so self-absorbed that I didn’t pay much attention to what was going on around me. To some extent I’ve always lived in my head. From my enthrallment with my grandmother’s stories of talking mice families living in her house, to my discovery of entire worlds hidden in books, to the miraculous glory of movies, I had found a way to leave the here and now. I could be anyone, travel anywhere, and change anything that I wanted – whenever I wanted.
In my mind, I could rewrite the endings to those books, television shows, and movies so that the main characters not only rode off into the sunset together, but had lives afterward. I added scenes that happened after the credits rolled, after the last page was turned. In my mind I wrote the epilogue, the years after Shane came back, the rebuilding of Tara, and the marriage of Candy and Jeremy long after the cancellation of Here Comes the Brides.
About five years ago, with the encouragement of Marian, my co-author and friend, I began putting scenes on paper. The words I heard in my head became dialogue between people I created. The people did what I told them to do.
It was magic. It was powerful.
It was another form of what I’d always done.
Or at least that’s my memory of it.
Evelyn David
In Gratitude, Part I
We at the Stiletto Gang have been in existence almost a year, by my accounting. It has been a lot of fun, blogging about this and that and learning about my fellow writers and all of you posters, who always let us know when we’re on the right track, and when we’ve ridden off the rails. We’ve prayed together, laughed together, and shared some excitement, like when new books come out. And we are all very grateful here that you take time out of your busy schedules to see what we have to say and how we have to say it and when you think we’re right on. Thank you for that.
I wanted to take the opportunity to acknowledge Marian, Marilyn, Rhonda, and Susan, who have become wonderful friends and sounding boards throughout the past year.
1. Marian, or the Northern Half of Evelyn David: Our Monday go-to girl, I remember back in January of this past year, we presented at a library in Vorhees, New Jersey, and had a fabulous time. Seeing her talk to some of the at-risk writers who came to hear our talk was inspirational, and although I already had met Marian once before, I was reminded of how special this woman was. It was at this event, as I shoveled pastry and coffee into my pie hole, that she asked me if I’d like to join the Stiletto Gang. There wasn’t a moment’s hesitation. Marian is a marketing force to be reckoned with. Me? Not so much. I was honored for the invite and I was not about to say no.
Marian has taught us the proper usage of “OY!” (my new favorite expression, peppered into ALL conversation), poo-poo-poo (correct my spelling, Marian…this is a catch-all and ward off for all bad things, I believe), and how to prepare Passover dinner correctly. (Not that I’ve done this yet. Maybe next year?) She has shared her thoughts on writing, family, and life and I for one, am extremely grateful for her insights.
2. Marilyn: Our friend to the Far West—thank you, too, for all of your marketing genius, but most of all for keeping us abreast of the goings on of your large, extended family. I don’t know how you keep them all straight! It has been a pleasure reading about your remembrances, hearing about your book signings and visits to writing conventions, and learning about the members of your family. I appreciate your “stop and take time to smell the roses” reminders every now and again; who of us don’t need those? And I enjoy learning from your vast experience. You are truly blessed, Marilyn, and we are lucky to have you with us on this venture and in the world.
3. Rhonda: Our Southern Evelyn. Someday, we’re going to sit at one of our kitchen counters and eat that apple cake, which I have yet to make (slacker that I am). Somehow, I just know, despite having never met, that we are kindred spirits. Rhonda is our techno-goddess—you’ve got a Stiletto problem, Rhonda’s got a solution. And her solution comes with patience, and I think a smile (I can only guess). Never in a bad mood, always willing to help, always looking for ways to keep our site fresh and vibrant. Rhonda doesn’t disappoint. She’s got a full-time job, a full-time writing gig, and a busy life (she actually takes care of her yard, from what I gather…something I can’t do for the life of me) and manages to do everything with aplomb. I look forward to the day, as I know Marian does, too, when we can meet.
4. Susan: Our newest Stiletto girl but the one whom I’ve known the longest, despite having never met in person. Back when “Murder 101” was just a twinkle in my and St. Martin’s eye, my editor said we needed some blurbs. She told me that she was going to go to Susan McBride, who she proclaimed “one of the nicest people she knew” and who might be willing to read the manuscript and comment. Well, if you bought my first book in hardcover, you’ll see that not only did Susan read and comment, she gave me a rave. And I think that went a long way in getting the book noticed by a readership who loved Susan’s Debutante Dropout Mysteries (I’m a HUGE fan) and were looking for something similar. Thank you, Susan. I’ll always be grateful to you for taking the time to take a chance on a new writer and for lending your support. And I’m thrilled that we have you for the Stiletto Gang once a month. Your thoughts on life and living are in complete agreement with ours, but I always learn something new. We’re both survivors and we’re finding our way in that designation but together, I’m sure we’ll forge new paths. Best of luck with the new “Debs” series—I, for one, am loving the first one!
I have so much to be grateful for this year but only six hundred words (I’m over at almost 900). If you don’t mind, there will be more of these. In gratitude to all of you.
Maggie
Holiday Crunch
Is everyone beginning to feel a bit overwhelmed like I am?
Some of what’s happening with me is my own fault. I say “yes” when I really ought to say “no.”
We did cut down on Christmas decorating this year because of our three cats. Last year they thought we’d brought them a new toy and they managed to completely denude the tree of all ornaments and broke a lot of them.
I’ve got a bunch of gifts on the bed in the spare room that need to be wrapped. Yes, I know, I said was giving everyone money, and I am, but for those who’ll be over here Christmas Eve, I want them to have a few presents to unwrap.
Saturday I was holed up in the back room of an antique store from 9 to 5 with my books, hoping for people to stop by, chat, have some cookies and hot cider, and maybe buy a book or two. That actually worked out better than you might think. A tour of homes decorated for Christmas was going on and many people stopped at the antique store between houses. There’d been a good article in the local paper about Kindred Spirits, my latest, and I also sent out some invitations.
Next Friday and Saturday I’ll be doing the same thing in the back of Porterville’s Art Gallery on Main St. Hopefully I’ll have some newspaper coverage for that too, I’ve taken the information to the reporter that I have a relationship with (she’s a friend) and a copy of the book. I’ve sent out invites to people who live down there, so we’ll see. But all day, from 10 to 5 is tiring and things pile up at home when I’m gone like that.
I just received an order via PayPal from a book that I just sold the last copies of on Saturday. I’ll have to go up to our local gift shop where I have my books on consignment and get one back so I can mail it since it’s for a Christmas present. (I have ordered more, but they won’t get here in time.) While I’m at the gift store, I’ll resupply what they are out of and give them copies of my latest.
I have a bunch of books I need to review for a writer’s organization I belong to. Truly, I don’t mind doing it, in fact I usually enjoy the books, but it’s going to be hard to squeeze it in with all that’s going on right now.
And guess what, hubby and I decided to play hooky this morning and go see Australia. We went to breakfast first then headed to the movie which started at 11:30 a.m. A warning, it lasts for three hours though I can assure you it doesn’t seem that long. It was a wonderful movie, like an old time epic Western. Watching Hugh Jackman take a shower was quite a highlight.
So now I’m home, trying to play catch-up while my chili-beans cook in the slow cooker. (Put them in early this a.m. before I left home.)
Seems like I don’t ever really get caught up.
Though I’m putting the finishing touches on another Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery–still reading it to my critique group–I really need to start putting together another Rocky Bluff P.D. novel. Have some ideas, but that’s about it right now.
So, I’ll try to finish up a few things before dinner. Hope you all are more organized than I am at this point. But do take time out and enjoy yourself like we did today.
Marilyn
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