It's Minty Fresh all right . . .

And the dental implant saga continues.

On Monday, the "procedure" had a few bumps.  The digital xray machine wasn't working right.  Instead of two x-rays, I ended up having four.  (GRRRRRR.  I could go the airport if I wanted that kind of radition treatment.)  And the oral surgeon/dentist needed to cut more of my gums than he thought he would, so I have an extra stitch that hangs out of one of my front teeth. I keep forgetting it's there and think--"Oh, something's stuck in my tooth" and have nearly pulled it out twice now.

Luckily, once the Novocaine wore off, it didn't hurt at all.  My face again didn't swell up.  Win-win, huh?
Not exactly.  You have to swish your mouth (for a FULL MINUTE) with a minty-fresh special mouthwash that will kill the germs keep the area free of food debris.  (Take my word for it, that one, full minute seems like about 40 when you're swishing this stuff around.  Suddenly your body goes into I NEED TO SWALLOW mode--only you can't.)

Um, and the taste?  It's minty fresh all right.  But then it leaves a horrible aftertaste that sticks with you for HOURS.  No wonder they have you do it after breakfast and before bed.  It takes HOURS to get rid of that icky metalic taste.  (And, if experience is any guide, I know it really takes pouring the stuff down the sink and never using it again to finally get rid of it.)

Okay, I don't want an infection, so I'm going to keep this up for a while, and then switch to Listerine like I did last time. It tastes bad, too, but it doesn't leave an aftertaste that lasts for hours (and ruins your lunch).

Meanwhile, my tongue has lots to play with.  Metal caps, stitches, raw gums.  Yeah.  Fun!

And how will you be spending today?

To Frost or Not to Frost?

Here in the Land of Lorna -- we've always had pie for Thanksgiving Day Dessert.  One or two people have a tiny slice and then nobody wants the leftovers.  Mr. L usually spends the next couple of weeks eating said pies for breakfast. (Naturally, I freeze them in individual slices.)  However, much as he loves pies, Mr. L gets sick of them after a while.  So this year I've decided to do something different for Thanksgiving dessert:  carrot cake.

Hey, it's got veggies in it--it's good for you, right?  There's just one problem:  I can't stand that cream cheese frosting.  Ick--it's too sweet and cloying and kinda slimy, too.  I thought I'd make a lovely carrot cake in a bundt pan and lightly dust it with confectioner's sugar.

Whoa, Nelly!  Brother and Hubby don't WANT it lightly dusted with confectioner's sugar.  They want the whole thing slathered in slimy icing.

Okay, I'm game to have cream cheese frosting on hand, then anyone who wants it can dig in, but since it's likely I'm the one who'll be eating carrot cake for the next two weeks for breakfast, I don't want my breakfast covered in goop.

So, what do you think I should do?  Frosting or sugar?

I'm a producer!

Lights, camera, action!  (Well, almost.)

Over the weekend my friend Ellery Adams and I worked on a book trailer for A Crafty Killing, the first book in my Victoria Square Mystery Series. (It doesn't come out until February 1st, but -- gosh-darnit, you can preorder it now!)

I don't know about Ellery, but I had a lot of fun on my end.  It's just like being a small-time movie director/producer.  I wrote the script, chose the pictures and sent it all to Ellery to put together.  (She's a wiz at that kind of thing.)  When she had assembled everything, she put a short piece of music to it and said I should probably look for something different.

Holy cow, if I enjoyed finding the pictures, I did NOT enjoy finding music.  First of all, there's a ton of it out there, and trying to find something that went along with my script was difficult.  I would play the video with the sound turned down on my iMac and play the music on my PC.  There's about 4 feet in between my two computer desks and it might as well have been a mile the way I was jumping back and forth, starting the video--stopping it, starting the music, jumping back to restart the video.  I estimate I listened to about 20-30 pieces of music in two hours trying to find something that fit and was the correct length of time.
 
And now it's done.  Wanna peek?  (Click here.)

So, what do you think?

If I could just master that one task . . .

I love spreadsheets.  Well, Excel spreadsheets.  (Don't talk to me about that THING Smashwords presents us with that LOOKS like a spreadsheet but is simply incomprehensible and has no mathematical processes.)

Years ago, I took a two-day course in Excel.  Because I had never seen it or used it, it was as understandable as trying to speak Chinese without ever hearing it.  (Doesn't that just boggle the mind.)  I came away from the course feeling frustrated and like a failure.

But I still needed to be able to use the program.  The only thing I learned was how to write a formula to add and subtract, and that actually came in pretty handy.

I used spreadsheets quite a bit when I was at my last day job, but I rarely had to set them up.  Since I've been an author, I find I simply can't live without several spreadsheets going at any given moment.  From the time I get up in the morning until the time I shut down the computer at the end of the day, there's a t least one spreadsheet (and often three) going.  It's the second program I open every day.  (The first one is AOL.)

But, darnit, I still don't know how to properly use the thing.  I only learned how to multiply back in September.  (Really handy.)  And I would DEARLY love to learn how to control that darn old freeze panes.  (I can never get the thing to freeze where I want it to.)

I love my Excel.  Will someone tell me how to freeze panes so I can love it even more?

Kinda like being on Star Trek . . .

Back in September, Mr. L surprised me with a Kindle e reader for my birthday.  I'm afraid it sat on his desk for quite a while before I had time to start playing with it.  (He knows far more about it than me, I'm afraid--not that he did much with it, either.)

In early October, I bought a couple of short stories and read them.  Not bad.

This week, I bought my first real book.  It's non-fiction, because that's what I tend to read while I'm working on a book of my own.

I wasn't really sure I wanted an e reader, although I dearly wanted to find more e readers for my work.  In fact, my preference would have been for a Nook -- simply because it has a color screen.  (What can I say, I'm swayed by pretty pictures and flashing lights.)

Every time I mention that my books/short stories are available as e reads, I get the same comment over and over again.  "I ONLY READ =REAL= BOOKS."  Or, I like feel of a paper book in my hand.  The feel, the smell, the texture."

First of all, an e book IS a real book.  It's just delivered in a different fashion.

Second, I love a real book, too.  But I like the convenience of having several (and possibly hundreds more) books at my fingertips at any given time.  (I'm going to start tossing it in my purse so that when I have to wait in line at the bank, grocery store, wherever--I can entertain myself.)

For the past couple of evenings, I've sat on the couch, kitty on lap, and found it extremely convenient to not have to juggle a book, turn pages, and at the same time annoy said cat.  With a flick of my thumb, the pages turn.  While I haven't figured out how to change the font size yet--it's an option that's available to me. (Gee, not having to wear my glasses to read?  FREEDOM!)  Even more cool, it looks like the "pads" they use on Star Trek.

The Kindle is heavier than I would like (it's 9 ounces and Chapter & Hearse (my latest published book) is 7 ounces), but weighs less than a hardcover.  It seems to need to be charged every week, whether I use it or not.  Sadly, you don't get to see the cover of the book.  (Well, I guess there IS a way to add the cover to a text file, I just haven't figured out how--and neither have most Kindle authors.) I guess they figure you don't need it, but it would be nice.

Some books are cheaper on Kindle.  And talk about (nearly) instant gratification.  I can have the book I want to read in under five minutes.  No trucking out in the cold to the store. (Although, I'm going there today anyway.  I love visiting my local bookstore, but I must admit, it's a destination I usually plan for.)

Here's one I'll bet you didn't know:  authors make more money on e books than on paper books. (Okay, not certain that's true on hardcovers yet, but I would bet it is--simply because the royalty rate is higher.  Haven't seen my new contract yet on what that rate might be.)

All in all, I'm liking that little gadget more and more every time I use it.  Will it replace a print book for me?  That depends on the book.  I'm a sucker for full-color coffee table and cookery books with LOTS of photography.  I can't see me holding a larger version of Kindle, Nook, iPad to read that sort of book, but for a novel or non fiction book -- why not?


If you have an ereader, tell us what you like about it.  If you don't have an ereader, would you be willing to give one a try?  (Hint-hint: Staples is selling Kindles and Sam's Club is selling iPads.)

Putting the pieces together

I've been working on the new Booktown book for about 8 weeks now, and feeling like I was making pretty good (but not great) progress. I'd written all the main scenes of the main plot.  Unfortunately, I hadn't written them in order.  I had a vague idea of where the story was going (although I think I have six suspects and no clue whodunit).

Last week I had a hard time getting to work on it--part of that had to due with contract negotiations for the next three books.  I was so bamboozled by the net outcome that I was too frazzled to write.  That's not good because the whole idea is that I'm going to be writing MORE not less.

Monday I figured out why I was stalled:  Duh--I had run out of main story!  Time to work on all the connections for those main plot scenes.  But first, I had to put them in order.  That sounds easy, but when your document is one long string of unconnected scenes . . . talk about messy.

I sat down with my time line and my list of scenes and starting figuring out which scene went on what day.  Of course, I thought the story started on Monday but then realized that too much was happening too fast and had to move the start back to Sunday, which means I have to get Angelica to change clothes in the first scene.  (Oy!  As it is the woman doesn't travel light.  Uh, just like ... her creator.)

Next up, putting the scenes in order on the manuscript.  That meant printing them all out and trying to put them into chapters.  I usually have between 24-26 chapters in a book.  Separating these scenes gave me 13 chapters.  Then, as I was putting the chapters in my notebook, I realized I had one of my big scenes in the wrong spot.  Okay, move it back and renumber the next 20 pages.

Now that I can see the flow of the main story, I can (and did) start writing the connecting scenes.  Whoo-hoo!  For the 2nd day this month, I actually got my daily word quota.  (I was doing pretty good and making at least half or three-quarters up until last week.)

Of course, the big, black hole of Thanksgiving and having a house guest looms before me.  (Did I mention I have galley proofs that are due this month, too?)  I write in the dining room.  My guest will be stationed in the adjacent living room for most of my working day.  Not that she'll make a peep, it's just knowing somebody is there will mean I ain't gonna get any writing done.  (Good time to work on the galley proofs, huh?)

I've got three craft shows coming up.  I've got decorating the house for Christmas coming up.  Christmas shopping.  Christmas baking.  I've GOT to work in all my annual Christmas movie watching, too.  (Hey, I've seen White Christmas at least 43 times--I've GOT to see it for the 44th time or it won't be Christmas.)

I've said it before and I'll say it again:  I need at least another four hours in my day.  EVERY day.

I don't want to cut out any of the "fun" stuff for Christmas, and yet I need to get my work done, too.

How about you?

 (How did I get so much accomplished when I had a day job, too?)

For the "girly" in me . . . and Katie

The holidays must be approaching, because my mailbox is full of catalogs.  Most of them go straight into the recycle bin, but some of them go into the reading pile.

One that made the cut was The Victoria Trading Company. How the heck did I get on their mailing list?  I suspect it was either through Romantic Homes or Victoria magazine.

I'm not a big fan of catalog buying because they really rip you off with the shipping.  But I'm also a sucker for paper products.  In this case, calling cards and pretty Victoriana address labels.  Yup, I ordered 'em.  Normally I wouldn't order anything for myself this close to Christmas, but I figured Mr. L wasn't going to get me anything like that, and ... what the heck, I can deduct them on my taxes.  Yes, these labels and calling cards are to help me promote my Victoria Square Mysteries.

When I first started the series, I wanted to make it all girly and cute and wonderful.  Lots of cabbage roses and quaint dainty things. The thing is, I don't write all girly and cute and wonderful.  When Katie Bonner (my protagonist) showed up on the page, she was a take-charge woman who doesn't take any guff from anyone.  She's got a tender heart, and she loves to bake, but if someone threatens Artisans Alley -- watch out!

So, I had to find a way to work in the "girly" aspect, because -- let's face it, with a name like "The Victoria Square Mysteries," it's a natural.

There's a tea shop on the square, a chocolate shop, a heavenly bakery, and my favorite shop--Gilda's Gourmet Baskets, and there will be other wonderful girly things in the future, too.  Meanwhile, Katie's in her jeans, sweatshirt, and gardening gloves, cleaning up the landscaping and making everything look pretty to help the square look its best.

So what's all that got to do with my calling cards?

I dunno.  I just like them.  I love all that kind of stuff, even if I'm more like Katie (in her L.L. Bean wellies) than all fru-fru.  (A girl's gotta dream, right?)

What do you like that would surprise even your closest friends and family?

(By the way, the first Victoria Square Mystery, A Crafty Killing, will debut on February 1st.)

Getting ready for the Christmas rush , , ,

Why is it every time my office STARTS to look tidy, I have to go and mess it up again? This time, I'm getting ready for my first of three holiday craft shows.

It turns out that I need a LOT of stuff for one of the jaunts.  First of all, I have two cases of books.  Then I have a box that contains goody bags, a few extra books, my newsletter sign-up book, book stands, plastic bags (that say "thank you" to put people's purchases in).  I also bring a CD player and Christmas CDs, table, tablecloths, bookmarks, posters, cash box, price sheets, and my lunch.

Whew!

You'd think it would be easy to get all this stuff assembled.  But nooooo!  I had to hide the two boxes that hold some of the stuff I take every time.  So I had to search for them in the basement.  Then I had to assemble the Goody Bags.  That took three hours.  And on and on . . .

So now I have six boxes sitting around in my already crowded office, a 3 x 2 foot poster and a couple of smaller ones, too.  Two baskets, and my tiny CD player. Feels a little cramped in here.

Friday night I'll pack up the car so that I can jump in at 7:50 on Saturday morning and drive to "the show."  Then I have to unpack, move the car to an adjacent parking lot, come back to the church.  Set up and be smiling and happy for the next seven hours.  Then I'll strike the set, go get the car.  Pack up, drive home, where hubby will help me unpack the car and then hand me a nice big glass of Lord Calvert and soda.

Ahhh...

Two weeks later, I'll do it all again.

A week after that, I'll do it all again.

It's kind of a love/hate thing.  I love to meet readers and talk with them.  I love the excitement of the show and seeing a lot of my old friends from the days I had a booth at an antique co-op, but I'll also be glad at 4 p.m. on December 11th when I'll be done for another year.


And in case you wonder what I'll be doing at these craft shows . . . I'll be signing books.

Will I see you there?

More books in my future . . .

And so I've been offered the opportunity to write books 7, 8 and 9 in the Booktown Mystery Series.

Guess what?  I said YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Ya think I'm a fool?)

It's been a roller coaster week or ten days as my FANTASTIC agent has kept me informed of the negotiation process.  Actually, all I had to do was answer the phone and say, "Uh-huh" and nod vigorously at all her suggestions.  Next up, putting my name on the actual contract.

This is a wonderful opportunity.  The books will be coming out in hardcover.  I know, a lot of people are going to say, "I can't afford hardcover!"  That's where ebooks and libraries come into the picture.  A year after the hardcover comes the paperback edition.

Hardcover is a good and bad thing.  Good, because it earns me (and my publisher) more money (and did I mention my healthcare premiums are going up TWENTY PERCENT in January???), and there's the possibility more libraries will either buy or rent the books.  Bad because . . . well, my paperback readers will hold off a year before buying/reading the books.

Ah, but it'll be available as an ebook for considerably less than the $25 hardcover price. (But still more expensive than a paperback.  Hopefully publishers will rethink their ebook strategy in the coming years and lower the prices ... but that's another blog post.)

I've already got a three-story arc planned for those books (but not the nitty-gritty details) and it should be a fun ride.  And I'll still be writing the Victoria Square Mysteries (using my Lorraine Bartlett name), and they'll be in paperback for the foreseeable future.  Did I say win-win?

But still ... I worry.

Would you consider buying a Booktown mystery in hardcover?

What's sauce for the goose . . .

It's that time of year when the grocery store fills its seasonal aisle with all kinds of red, green, gold and sparkly stuff.  I'm not immune to a little bit of glitter and love to walk that aisle and soak it all in.  (Knowing I have no more room to add any more to my already stuffed-full closets. Ah, well . . .)

Next to the sparkly aisle were shelves of seasonal delights for the taste buds.  Everything you need for your holiday meals.  Of course, I'd been waiting weeks to buy more cans of jellied cranberry sauce.  Unlike most of the rest of the country, I use the stuff year round.  And the minute the holiday season is over, the sale price goes off and the "real" price goes back on.  That real price is 50 cents more per can than what I have to pay in November and December and I decided to stock up.

But wait.  As I went to grab the can I turned to Mr. L and said, "Does this can look stubby to you?"  (Stubby as in SHORT?)  "No, I'm sure it's the same as it always was."

Oh yeah?

Sure enough, we got it home and took out other standard cans from the pantry and guess what.  The standard can of cranberry sauce (and it's not just the store brand--even Ocean Spray) is now 2 ounces less than it was just a couple of weeks ago.  I noticed in the "regular" aisle they still have the standard sized cans and they're still the REAL price.

Manufacturers and retailers don't want to raise the price--because people like me remember what we paid a year before--so they just give you less product and hope you don't notice.

Well, I'm still going to stock up on the cans because let's face it, I love the stuff.  And I put it on roast chicken throughout the year.  They tried to pull one over on me and didn't succeed.  But I'm still missing 2 ounces of cranberry sauce with every can.

What trick has a manufacturer played on you lately?

Now that's ugly . . .

As reported yesterday, Mr. Landscaper came to visit and brought his Bobcat.  We had talked about getting just the landscaping on the left side of the house removed.  He, and his young helper (son?) went right to work and started ripping out overgrown landscaping.  Once we saw how open it was, we asked him to start ripping out the stuff on the other side, leaving the HUGE rhododendron in the middle.



Okay, first of all, we rarely go in our front yard.  I usually approach the house from the north and to tell you the truth, I knew the landscaping was overgrown, but until I saw this picture, it just never registered.  As Mr. L said upon seeing it, "No wonder we never got any trick-or-treaters."

As we stood in the cold watching all the action, we started thinking about what we wanted for the front of the house.

As I stood there watching, I was reminded of all those episodes of Curb Appeal I've been watching and man, is our house in desperate need of some curb appeal.  It's ... ugly.  We just never knew it because the landscaping was so overgrown.  I mean, even when we bought the house it was overgrown so we never really saw the front.

Man, it's worse than ugly.

I can see a trip to the paint store and the architectural salvage yard in my future.



After Mr. Landscaper left, we stood looking at the rhododendron and thought -- we should have had him pull that out, too.  But I wanted to see it bloom one more time.  Now I realize . . . it's only pretty for one week of the year.  It needs to go.

Over the winter, we're going to think about what we want for both the house and the yard.

In the meantime, how would you make the front of our house look better?

Curb Appeal: My House

When you work at home, and the only people you get to talk to are your husband, brother, mother, and the occasional call from your agent (and very nice calls they've been indeed), you kind of get starved for real life.  I mean, other than the check-out lady at the grocery store who asks, "Did you find everything you need?" and I answer, "Yes," that's about it on any given week.

(Pathetic, isn't it?)

I mean, I converse via emails all day long, but actual conversation?  Not so much.

Therefore I find yourself looking forward to big stuff like:  the phone man coming.  Yup, he was actually supposed to come yesterday.  We have (had) two land lines.  Only my aunt and my brother would call us on one of the numbers so finally we said, "Why are we spending $38 a month just to get one or two calls a month?"  Duh.  So, we're having that line eliminated and wired into our other land line.  Of course, they shut that phone off at the office at the crack of dawn yesterday, and the other line only has one phone attached to it.  If it rings, we have to run the entire length of the house (and we have a rather rambling ranch house).  Luckily that line has an answering machine.

The other big thing:  we're having the HUGE arborvitae in the front yard taken out.  Mind you, we've already had the thing cut in half a few years back, but it grew back with a vengeance.  So much that it hides a third of the front of our house.  I've been watching Curb Appeal--The Block, and they're always ripping out out-of-control landscaping.  (They do it a lot on This Old House, too.)  Since our next-door neighbor just had their out-of-control arborvitae taken out, we decided to use the same landscaper to do it.

Whoa!  People will be able to see ALL our Christmas lights this year.  (And I'll finally get my burning bush--albeit next year.)  Weeee!

(Simple pleasures, simple minds.)

Not that I expect to talk to Mr. Root-puller (I'm assuming they'll chop that sucker down first), but it'll be something exciting to break up the day.  (I mean, besides Tricia getting caught with . . . oh, but that's for the book, not the blog.)  I'll try to post before and after pictures later this week.

What excitement are you anticipating on this fine day?

Not at a book club near you . . .

I've been told (and I guess my sales numbers back it up) that people love to read my Booktown Mysteries.  That makes me feel really good.

My friends tell me that lots of reader groups read their books.  That makes me frown in puzzlement.  I never (okay, almost never) hear from groups that have read or want to read my books.

I'd be happy to supply bookmarks for book groups, but I rarely get asked.  As you know, I don't travel by air, but through the miracle of telecommunications, I can "go" anywhere in the world.  I'd be glad to talk to book groups via conference call or Skype, but I never get asked to do that, either.

I wonder why?

Who's Stressed?

All I have to do to get stressed is look at the calendar.  I've got three "big" (for me) events coming up this month that are sure to disrupt my already disrupted writing schedule.  I don't get a lot of writing done when my life is disrupted.

The first biggie is the Churchmouse Holiday Bazaar. (Why are all these craft shows called bazaars?)  I do three craft shows a year and this is my favorite.  I have an nice location and as it's relatively early in the holiday craft show circuit, people are happy and in a buying mood.  (That changes as you get to the last one, two weeks before Christmas, where the people have been to several craft shows and are bored by the whole thing and just want to eat pizza and baked goods while they wander around not buying anything.)

I take "goodie bags" filled with bookmarks, postcards and recipe cards from other authors.  I'm in the process of assembling all that. It'll take me 2-3 hours to get them ready, but I'm still waiting for a few more authors to send me stuff.  (So that's on the schedule for next week.)

Two days after the craft show, I have my dental implant surgery.  I've been assured that this is nothing to get upset about.  It's not as bad as the last one (the extractions and bone graft) and since they gave me enough novocaine to numb an elephant, I had no complaints about pain.  Still, just thinking about it is giving me the heebie jeebies.  Call it a procedure if you want to, to me it's still SURGERY.

Last . . . Thanksgiving.  First of all, it's three days after the surgery and my mouth will have fresh stitches.  It's hard enough to eat with two teeth missing; adding stitches to the mix makes it worse.

I'll have a house guest for three days.

I don't know who is hosting Thanksgiving this year.  It might be me.  More work.  And did I mention a house guest, too?

I figure I've got a week of good writing days before the anxiety becomes too great and I fall apart.  But everything that needs to get done is on my mind.  Plus the book.  Oh yeah, and I have a galley proof to hand in by the 29th, too.

Do holidays put your knickers in a twist, too?

Does a picture say 1000 words?

According to the survey I took last month, you guys actually LIKE to hear me talk about the business of publishing.  So today, I'll hark once again on the cover saga.  (And if you're impatient for the end, just scroll down to the bottom of the post.)

As you know, my first novel (under the name L.L. Bartlett) tanked pretty quickly.  It got moved up by four months and none of the work that needed to be done for it to be successful was done on time (like sending it out to get reviewed by the big four reviewers).  Boy did I learn never to rejoice when offered the chance to have a book publisher earlier than originally scheduled.  The cover was HORRIBLE.  I can say that, I suggested they do a phrenology head.  But I never asked for FOUR of them!!  My agent at the time said it was horrible.  "It will not sell books!"  Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The original print run was 500 copies.  I worked my tail off (and spent five times my advance) to try to sell copies to libraries--that's the only place my publisher marketed the books.  And who could blame a reader for not wanting to shell out $26 for an unknown author.  My second print run was for 132 books.  It sold out.

A year later, I sold the mass market paperback rights to Harlequin's Worldwide Mystery Library, which was essentially a book club.  The book got a very nice cover of a cold fireplace, a red leather chair, and an opened book.  The fact that the book did not have a cold fireplace, red leather chair, or such a book didn't seem to deter their marketing department.  They did a beautiful job packaging the book, and it has a very nice print run of 23,000+ copies, all of which sold.  Sadly, the readers who purchased the book via the book club were not inclined to go searching for my other work -- like the book's sequel Dead In Red.  Nor did they go to my web site to find out if I wrote other books.

I don't think the cover turned people off, but it didn't turn them on, either.


Next came the audio edition of the book.  My editor at Books in Motion assured me they'd provide me with a nice cover.  I didn't know they'd do a poor take off of the Harlequin cover.  Guess what.  Despite the fact it's a pretty good audio performance by the narrator (Kevin Foley), the audio edition (which is still available as an MP3 download ($20.29) or in CD form ($28.99), has not sold well. 

Wonder why?

Back to that first cover for a minute.  I didn't even get my cover until about two months before the book came out. Uneducated as I was about the publishing business at that time, even I knew that was too late to send out Advance Review Copies.  Luckily, I had made my own.  They needed a cover.  So I suggested to my graphics designer husband that he might want to give it a try.  I asked for (and got) a deer in a target.  I proudly hung the cover up on the wall outside my office  (I still had a day job then), and asked for comments.  Universally the women said:  "I wouldn't read a book that has dead deer in it."  But there ARE NO DEAD DEER in the book I cried.  Nope.  They were turned off.

Fast forward to October 2008 when I decided to put the book up on Kindle.  I needed a cover.  I grabbed the deer.  In two years it sold precisely 381 copies.  (Joe Konrath doesn't have to worry about me surpassing him in sales.)

It was time to change the cover once again.

I contacted Konrath's cover artist hoping he could help me, but he is very busy and was slow to answer my emails.  So I decided to go with someone else, and boy am I glad I did.  Award-winning romance author Patricia Ryan (who also writes mysteries as P.B. Ryan), had just decided to start doing e covers. She'd done her own and those for a friend, and did them very fine indeed.  The minute she said she was going into business, I contacted her.  (Was that only a week ago?)

So.  What do you think?

It's available on:

Kindle

Nook

Smashwords

iPad

Sony e reader

and more.

Pretty, pretty flowers!

The following pictures were taken yesterday in my garden.  I could NOT believe that it was November 2nd and there were still lovely flowers still blooming.  Can you say global warming?

This silly lilly is still blooming.  Okay, it's not as pretty as it should be, but it's still blooming.  I don't think I've ever seen any of our lilies bloom this late in the year.




Over the summer, the sister-of-my-heart, Leann Sweeney, sent me a lovely hydrangea.  Isn't it pretty.  It's been blooming since mid-summer.




The marigolds are still going strong, too.




And one of my favorite flowers, cosmos--still in full bloom.



Are they still here this morning?  I'm afraid to look.  The temps dropped to the high 30s the night before.  But even if they're all gone today, they were there yesterday, and they were PRETTY!

Is anything still blooming in your garden?

Stop Looking At Me With Those Sad Eyes

As you know, I brake for yard sales.  This summer I started collecting movies on DVD that were new and old to me.  I figured they'd be fun to watch on a cold, windy day somewhere down the line.


One sale had about a gazillion old movies.  The kind you get at the dollar store for ... a dollar.  They were selling them for a quarter so I figured--what the heck and bought a couple.  One of them is The Little Princess starring Shirley Temple. The other were old Sherlock Holmes episodes that are going in the Malice Domestic charity basket from Haven't Got A Clue.

These cheapie DVDs come in cardboard sleeves and tend to get lost on my DVD shelf.  (Lately DVDs seem to be pushing the books out of the way.)  Therefore, Shirley has been sitting on my shelf for at least a month now looking at me with her kid eyes and I can hear her cheerful voice say, "When are you going to play me?"

Well, let's see.  I've already read the book once this year.  And I saw a movie that was out a couple of years ago.  (Got it and The Secret Garden for a steal from Amazon.)  So, the Shirley Temple version of The Little Princess has not been on the top of my to-be-watched list.  Not when I'm going through Voyager for a second time and realizing how many I missed the first time around.  (Wow--that's fun!)

I'm thinking that a cold, windy, SNOWY day in February will go well with the suffering poor Sarah Crew has to withstand in her attic garret.  So, sorry, Shirley, you've got a wait on your hands.

Maybe I'll turn the DVD over so I won't have to see her little imploring eyes.

What movie is on your list to watch on a cold, snowy day some time in the future?

Do I need yet another hobby?

Ever since I gave up my booth at the Craft Antique Co-Op, I've had a hankering to open an Etsy online shop. (In case you don't know what an Etsy shop is, Wikipedia says:  Etsy is a social commerce website focused on handmade or vintage items as well as art and craft supplies.)  The problem is, I'm not crafty. I had a lot of linens left over from my booth and wondered what I should do them. Ah-ha! There's my Etsy Shop!

Well, not really. I mean, the reason I gave up my booth was because I really didn't have time for it. The cleaning and repairing of merchandise, the inventory, and selling. If I opened an Etsy, I'd still have all that -- PLUS photographing and maintaining a site, plus packaging and shipping.

So for the time being, no Etsy shop for me.

But that doesn't mean I haven't been accumulating merchandise for that day. First of all, I love handwork. The effort that people put into making doilies, potholders, and dresser scarfs, and all the embroidery, tatting, etc. It's lovely. I can't bear to see the stuff end up in free boxes -- or worse yet the trash. And I can't believe how cavalierly people get rid of great grandma's chair tidies and doilies as though they were just junk.  Hey, your gramma made that with her own two hands.  You might not want it right now, but one day you might say, "Hey, I had something my gramma made and sold it for a quarter."

Shame on you!

Of course, not all of it is in tip-top shape, either. Stains, tears, and linens that are just plain worn out from years of use. I need to sort through everything and figure out what is good, what needs a dip in Oxy-Clean, and what should go in a scrap bag.  (Hey, maybe someone more crafty than me can make it into something else.)  I haven't done that yet, but every so often, I take the stuff out and look at it, which makes me smile.

Is there some project you've got simmering on the back burner for a later time?

What a dilemma . . .

I feel torn.  I have several writing projects I want to work on and there's just not enough time in the day.

First and foremost, I need to be working on the 6th Booktown Mystery, and that's okay because I think this could be the best book in the series (so far).  Still, my progress has not been as fast as I would hope, although I've been writing at a fairly steady pace.  But instead of averaging 1250 words a day, I've only been averaging 1000 words a day ... and not on weekends.  That needs to change if I'm going to hand the book in on time.

I also want to be working on the rewrite of the next Jeff Resnick book.  I figure if I could devote about 20 hours to it, I could upload it to Kindle/Nook/Smashwords.  The problem?  I don't have 20 hours.  And, quite frankly, I don't have the audience to justify taking those 20 hours out of my writing schedule.

Although . . . maybe I should try to justify it.  To do that, I need to sit down and figure out what my sales are for this year on the previous two books and the two short stories.  That's kind of difficult, thanks to the spreadsheet Smashwords gives you.  The books are not listed in any kind of order, and mixed by a bunch of different vendors.  I think just figuring that out would be a day's work.

How can one justify working on a project that doesn't bring in the income one needs to stay afloat?  And yet, working on that series feeds my "artist's soul."

Anybody got a similar dilemma?

I like it COLD!

Back in February, Mr. L and I bought a new fridge.  Actually, I bought it.  For some reason, he wasn't available the day we decided we had to get rid of the old one.  (It was freezing EVERYTHING, especially the milk.)

Fast forward into summer and -- gosh darn it, didn't we wish we still had old Mr. Freezer Fridge, because now our milk is constantly going bad.  I don't mean one or two before their sell-by dates, I mean ALL OF IT.

The new fridge has these really big door shelves that will hold a gallon container of milk.  Great.  Except the milk is always warm.  Not great.

So now we've moved the milk from the really convenient place, and put it on one of the shelves, where stuff usually gets shoved in front of it.  Then we have to search to get the milk out for stuff like adding to coffee or recipes.  Not very convenient.

Truth be told, we just don't like this new fridge.  It's too small.  The guy at the appliance store assured me this was THE standard size fridge, but it isn't.  The next time I was in the store I looked a bit harder and saw that there are quite a few taller ones.  (Of course they were all stainless steel and cost about $500 more, but that's beside the point.)

Well, at least the milk isn't going bad anymore.

And what's bugging you today?

Just like my Dad . . .

I've talked about how much I miss my Dad since he passed away a year ago.  (Boy, it doesn't seem possible it's a year already.)  Besides missing him for his advice and just plain company, I miss him because he could fix anything.  No lying!

In fact, just before he went into the hospital in July 2009, he fixed the cord on my electric kettle.  (It turned out it wasn't just the cord that was broken.)  At first he said (in the words of his instructor at the Portsmouth Dockyard, and in a heavy Manchester accent), "It's nooo good.  Ya might just as well chuck it away."  But then he thought on it for an hour or two and figured out how to make it work again.

We fixed a few things together, too.  When I bought my first house, he gutted most of it and rebuilt it himself, adding French drains, and rewiring it, too.  Um...I was smaller than him, so I got to crawl around in the boiling hot attic which was full of dead wasps.  That was a fun time. (NOT!)

At the end of this summer, my fan died.  One day it worked fine, the next day it was pushing up daisies.  Somehow I didn't have the heart to throw it away.  But, lately I've been in a "if-you-haven't-used-it-in-a year (or longer) it's-time-to-get-rid-of-it" mood, so yesterday it got walked to the curb for the trash men.

Off I went grocery shopping.  But all the while I was picking stuff like kitty snacks and Halloween candy from the shelves, I was thinking about how much I loved my blue fan.

Back I came.  And there sat my fan.

I bought it just after I moved into my first house.  (See above for description of the attic--no, not the wasp part, the boiling hot part.)  It was $25 at K-Mart and it worked great.  It worked so great, I went back a month later to get another one and they didn't have the same model, but I bought one anyway.  It has long since gone to fan heaven.

My Dad would never have tossed out a useful item without trying to fix it first.  So, in view of all my neighbors, I retrieved my fan from the trash and brought it back inside.  As I suspected, it wasn't broken at all.  But it had been living near our forced-air heat run for the last 17 years and it was full of dust.  (Ick--we're breathing in all that crap all winter?  Oy!)

With just the first shot with baby suck (mini shop vac), it started to run again, but then I took the back off and really gave it a good clean with vacuum, compressed air, and a dust cloth.  Now it runs like new.

All the time I was cleaning it I felt like my Dad was standing behind me giving me advice.  And best of all--I got my beloved fan back.  (Just in time to retire it for the winter. Oh well, you can't win them all, eh?)

Do you try to fix broken items?

Is the third time a charm?

Last Saturday, I posted on the Cozy Chicks Blog about changing the cover of one of my e stories to try to boost sales.  In seven months, I'd sold only 24 copies of the story.  Paint me unhappy.

The story was one of my unsold "confessions."  My first professional sales were writing short romancey-women's fiction stories.  (Darn, and I can't find the print version of the first one I sold--and can't retrieve it off the old 5.25" floppy disk where it still resides, along with a bunch of my other old stories.)  This one was my absolute favorite--a little story that warmed my heart.  In fact, it must've warmed somebody's heart over at True Love Magazine, because they had me rewrite it three times -- and still they didn't buy it.  I rewrote it one last time and uploaded it to Kindle back in April.  At that time, it was called Only Skin Deep (as in "beauty is only skin deep").

As mentioned, it didn't sell well.  So I figured I'd change the title and cover and see if it would sell with a little more pizzaz.  I put it up on Kindle last week and, as mentioned above, asked for comments.

My writer friends were in agreement, SEX SELLS. So Not only did I have a "sexier" picture, but I changed the title.  (A take off on Love with A Perfect Stranger.)

My readers felt the cover cheapened the story of the mother and child.

So, back to the drawing board I went.

But, my readers (most of whom have NOT read the story--just the blurb), rated a bunch of pictures that other readers and I put up on Facebook, and we kind of voted.  (Cover by committee.)

Here's the same story description and the new cover.

A one-night stand changes Leslie Turner's life forever when she discovers she's pregnant. Keeping the child means losing her business. Even more devastating, the baby is born with a disfiguring birth defect. Her carefully planned life falls apart . . . until years later when she once again meets her baby's father. Can they ever be a family?

So, do you think THIS version will sell the story?


And in case anyone wants to try it, the links are below.


Kindle     Nook      Smashwords

A Project Left Undone

After my Dad passed away last year, I found it very painful to enter his basement workshop.  (And still do.)  You see, it's just as he left it.  The last few months before he entered the hospital/nursing home, his knees gave him such trouble that he couldn't get up and down the stairs anymore.  Therefore, there were a lot of projects left undone.

Back in the 1990s, my Dad was a serious carver.  His specialty was little Santas called Tomtes.  He had a couple of carving buddies and they traded patterns and carving books and they all made the same projects.  My dad would make the blanks on his jig saw.  There's still a huge hunk of bass wood (about three feet tall and 8-9 inches square) in the garage.

One of the projects the buddies did back in 1993 was hunting dogs.  A LOT of them.  My dad gave me one of them, which has been on my shelf for years.  After he passed, I found a whole box of unfinished dogs and one small finished one. I asked my mother why Dad never finished the dogs and she said he got bored with them.  He prefered to carve people--characters.  (Hmm...like I prefer to write about them!)




I brought the box home and asked Mr. Lorna (who has a steadier hand and is a painter in his own right), if he'd paint them for me.  He was reluctant to do so.  In fact, they sat on his desk for more than six months gathering dust.

So I decided to finish them myself. (Here are three in various states of completion, which my Dad did.)



Thank goodness for white paint.  If I mess up, I can cover up and start again.  So far, I've only finished one dog (because he was almost done anyway).  But I've given two others noses and eyes, so at least they aren't blind with no sense of smell anymore.



(The little guy on the left still has his rough edges.  Not sure I want to tackle actually carving him, but we'll see.)



(The above are two my Dad finished.  They're my guide.)

I'm going to take on this project slowly because I don't want to mess them up.

I'm not sure what I'll do with them all when I'm done.  I'm reluctant to give them away to family and friends because I'm not sure anyone would love them as much as I do.

First, I need to finish them.  Then we'll see about (maybe) finding them new homes.

Have you ever taken on a project someone left unfinished?

The only GOOD snowman . . .

I knew I'd pay for thoughts of cool breezes back in July when I was frying in my little summer cottage office.  It was so hot, the sweat was running down my face.  Oh, to be cool, I thought.

Well, it's cool.  In fact, it's COLD.  And, there's SNOW IN TODAY'S FORECAST!!!

I am not prepared for snow in October.  Yes, I know we've had snow in September before, but that was a LONG time ago.  If I had my way, we'd have a light dusting of the stuff on Christmas Eve that would last through 4 p.m. the following day, and we'd be done for the season.

I prefer to see snowmen that are either on greeting cards or stickers and maybe made of nylon and inflated.  (Like Sam the Snowman from Rudloph The Rednosed Reindeer.  Ordinarily, I wouldn't have one of those inflatable things in my yard, but I'd make the exception for Sam.   Mr. Lorna doesn't agree so we are Sam the Snomanless.)

I'm going to get whiplash today because every couple of minutes my head whips to the left so I can look out the window to see if it's snowing.
Snow, snow, go away.

I have spoken.

What's the weather like where you are?

I can almost taste it now . . .

When I was a kid, I figured I'd get married at 18 and I should be prepared.  So, I started collecting recipes.  I figured I'd have to feed the brute who was going to let me be a stay-at-home wife.

Well, things didn't work out that way.  I went off to work and stayed single for a VERY LONG TIME.  And when I finally got married, it was Mr. Lorna who did (and still does) at least 75% of the meal prep.  (Mostly so he can get a decent meal, although I've gotten better at cooking in the past couple of years.)

I was poking around in the basement a couple of weeks ago and found my little recipe box.  Boy, my handwriting was a LOT neater in those days.  (These days I have to squint and sometimes use a magnifying glass on my edited manuscript pages to figure out what the heck I've written.)  And darned if that little recipe box didn't contain 95% cakes, cookies, quick bread and muffin recipes.  Yup, I've got a sweet tooth, and my baking has always been better than my cooking.

I'm ecstatic because I've found the recipe I always used for pumpkin bread. It was one of the first recipes I made all by myself.  I haven't been able to make it for years before I lost the copy I had.  Thank goodness it was a copy--because there's the original bad boy in that little gray file box.  (I'm going to type it up and put it on the computer.)

Yesterday was grocery day and a big can of pumpkin went into the grocery cart.  Got the walnuts, too.  Ain't nothing like toasted pumpkin bread for breakfast.  Ahhhhhh....  I have a feeling that pumpkin bread is going to make it into one of my future books.  Whichever one comes up the fall, first.

What's the first recipe you remember making all by yourself?