I’ve been waiting for a long time to find an illustrator to work with. I found Linda Bartosik through a blog challenge and she agreed to give this book life again. I love this little goat, he’s so much fun but a bit of trouble. I’m happy to be able to say it is available again on Amazon.
When I was a kid Friday was the worse day of the week.
Yes, I said Friday. That was the day mom served corn beef hash, with cheese and macaroni. The kind in the blue box that wasn’t gluten free. Back then I could eat that.
Corned beef hash was the first thing I thought about in the morning and all through the day. That ugly pile of meat would be waiting on my plate for dinner. It would be there congealing long past dessert time. Me and the hash staring each other down until I ate those required three bites. The cheese and mac would be nothing but a memory two seconds after it hit my plate. I would beg for more but no, unless I ate the corned beef there would be no more mac and cheese.
As time went by my mind shifted, if I wanted the good stuff (mac and cheese) I had to do something I didn’t like (eat the corned beef hash!) One day I rushed through the front door and said, “I’m ready. I’ll eat it.” It was a mindset that changed.
As I look through my life those corned beef hash moments appear over and over.
I love to paint, but I don’t like cleaning up.
I enjoy making new recipes, but I don’t like cleaning up.
Sewing is fun, mistakes are not so I don’t like to rip out stitches.
I love my cats, but I don’t like cleaning the litter box.
A clean house feels so good, but cleaning it? No thanks, I’d rather not.
I love writing books, but I don’t enjoy marketing them. Buy my book, please. That’s more than I’m comfortable doing.
So, it looks like all the good things in life come with a downside that you must do, if you want to do the thing you love. So yes, Corned Beef Hash is my life metaphor.
So tell me what’s your Corned Beef Hash metaphor?
And oh yes, please do check out my books on the my books tab at the top of the page. There, that’s done now I can go back to writing.
Barbour Publishing love A Bride’s Dilemma in Friendship, Tennessee that they are putting it out again. This time it is included with a A Bride’s Flight from Virginia City, Montana by Murray Pura!
It’s two for one deal.
It’s coming out in November. I don’t think you can preorder it yet. I’ll let you know.
It’s also the start of another round of A to Z. Where blog posts feature a letter of the alphabet.
I’m sitting in a chair surrounded by people I’ve just met at the (AWSA) Advanced Writers and Speakers Association conference.
Annetta Dellinger, the group leader and Joyologist pulls out a sheet of paper and says, “I’ve been visiting your website and I have some questions.”
While I wait my turn I wonder what she’ll ask, will it be about my quilts, or blended families or maybe she’ll want to know about Mind of Her Own. I start putting words together in my mind on what I’ll say.
It’s my turn. I hope I can get this out without stumbling over the words. Deep breath –I’m ready.
Annetta asks, “Why do you have stringing 26 letters into stories in the header of your blog?”
Brain melts, tongue takes over. “I stole it.”
Someone says, “At least she’s honest.”
I feel the capillaries in my cheeks lighting up like a Roman candle on the 4th of July. Quick recover, you can do this. “It came from a song and it touched me, I did tweak the artists words but the idea is the same. All we have are 26 letters to tell our stories about God.” Whew.
So here is my official statement:
The song is called 26 Letters by Ben Glover
Here’s the chorus:
Chorus:
26 letters is all I got
To tell You how I feel about You
26 letters and you know I’m never ever
Gonna write the perfect paragraph
I try to express
With adjectives of thankfulness
But, I don’t know if I can do it
With 26 letters
Writer’s often get asked, “What is like to get published?”
I’m not sure what other writer’s say but my answer is something like this:
It is an amazing feeling but the getting there takes a lot of work.
I was hanging out on Missy Tippen’s blog and found the perfect look at what the process of getting published looks like.
Missy sent me to Nathan Bradford’s blog. He has posted The Publishing Process in GIF. It’s a realistic but fun view. Check it out. It will make you smile.
Michelle Shaeffer.com had this amazing ‘to do’ board video and I wanted to see if I could make her system work for me.
Michelle has a much larger company than I do. My company has 3 employees.
Me and
Oliver and Wendell.
So I have this ‘to do’ board but instead of ‘doing’ those things I made a video. I think my hand gets in the way once, sorry about that! If you don’t have time to watch most of what I said about post it notes and washi tape organization is below the video.
I could have made a huge board with all the daily chores that need to be done around the house but honestly that was too depressing! So I thought this board would work better for my office chores.
I have two Ikea bookshelves –full of course and one of the sides is close to my desk. Perfect place to do my board. Michelle uses white board but this was handy and free.
I bought some fun tape at Target in the scrapbook aisle. There were a lot of choices but I went with something tame.
I probably should have used something to make sure the lines were level but that’s not my style. I did measure to make sure there would be room for the post it notes.
I kept it manageable for me. My columns can be changed by removing the top post it. I have 5 ‘to do’ lists that I can easily keep track of. One thing I loved about Michelle’s idea was the horizontal line at the end of her boards to keep track of what’s been accomplished. I like to see what I’ve finished by the end of the week.
Right now my columns are:
A Time to Dance—rewrite for ebook
Numbers—where I’m keeping track of an ad I placed and how it effects the amazon ranks
L&L –another book I’m working on
Blogs-where I keep ideas or where I need to write a post for someone else
Social-media—what tweets, fB, google+ I want to focus on for the week
Critiques and Reviews—I need to know where I stand in the stack of books I have to review and what needs to be sent back to my critique partner.
It’s true! The Huffington Post recently ran an online article about Laura Kaye. Like my character Louisa Copeland, Laura Kaye also suffered a bump on the head.
In real life, Laura Kaye woke with a writing skill that turned her into a best-selling writer.
When I took on the writing of Mind of Her Own I wondered if this could possibly happen and through research found that retrograde amnesia would work for Louisa to be turned into Jazz Sweet, best-selling romance author. To read about it happening to someone in real life feels a bit strange.
I wonder if Jazz went on to write some best-selling books? If you’ve read MIND OF HER OWN what do you think?
I’m over on Seekerville today 4/18 talking about missteps and plan B. Hop over and join the conversation and maybe win a copy of Mind of Her Own. Seekerville
Super exciting news for readers of historical ficiton. Barbour has listed these books (including mine!) for $2.99 until March 31. So load up your kindle, nook, phone or ipad!
A Bride Opens Shop in Eldorado, California by Keli Gwyn
A Bride Sews with Love in Needles, California by Erica Vetsch
A Bride’s Dielmma in Friendship, Tennessee by Diana Lesire Brandmeyer
A Bride’s Rogue in Roma, Texas by Darlene Franklin
A Bride’s Sweet Surprise in Sauers, Indiana by Ramona K. Cecil
As most of you know last week was all about marketing for me, was it a success or full of woe?
I feel that it was a success, I had two great authors Pam Hillman and Johnnie Alexander Donely also marketing at the same time since our books released at the same time.
Some of the ‘how to’ I learned from the Indie Author Book Marketing Success.
While the book may not be for a beginning author I know I would have read this back when I started writing. I’m the kind of person that wants to know everything when I get started–no harm in that.
I’m not an indie author, but I found a piece of gold in each chapter that I can apply to marketing a traditional book. It’s good to know what has worked for others so you have a less rocky road to travel.
Staci Stallings included a list of hashtags which is worth far more than the price of this book.
Face it even traditional authors are responsible for so much marketing this book is a huge help.
I want to thank you all for being so patient with me last week while Mind of Her Own was on sale. I hope you were able to get a copy along with Johnnie’s Where Treasure Hides and Pam’s Claiming Mariah. It was a challenging week of learning how to write tweets and facebook posts. As a reader and before being published I didn’t realize how much extra work a writer must do to get books noticed…kind of like when you become a teacher and find out you need to also be the volleyball coach, take on car lane duty and be an art teacher!