Icicles and Snow Cream

~~We missed most of the snow this go around. Barely got enough snow here to think about it but they got slammed or maybe I should say buried to the north and east of us. I like snow once or twice a year but then I'm ready to move on toward sunshine and flowers. But even though we didn't get the snow, we got rain and then cold so we had plenty of icicles. I remember when I was a kid, we would have long icicles hanging down from the edges of the roof and we thought it was a treat to break them off and eat them. Then we'd go find a patch of extra clean snow and scoop up a pan full and Mom would make snow cream. Does anybody dare do that anymore? Or are we all too afraid of pollutants and acid rain and who knows what being in the snow? If I could have reached the icicles in my picture I might have tried a lick or two which doesn't make sense since I would never even consider taking a drink out of the creek even if the water looked pristine. I'd be too worried about those nasty little invisible germs. Maybe I think the freezing gets rid of those germs.
~~I've been researching the background time period for the book I'm working on. It was close to the time of one of the cholera outbreaks in Kentucky where hundreds of people died. For a long time nobody could figure out what caused cholera. They thought it might be bad air and the townspeople who could would flee to the country. Of course it was later determined that it was caused by contaminated water supplies. The Shakers worried about cholera breaking out in their village when it was raging in the nearby towns, but because the Shakers were so forward thinking in regard to cleanliness, they were spared the cholera deaths and many other epidemics of the time. Their leader, Mother Ann, had written that good spirits would not live where there was dirt. That was one of the reasons they were so adamant about keeping everything clean and orderly.
~~Thank heavens we don't have to worry about that sort of epidemic these days. But wouldn't it be nice to be able to go out and scoop up some snow and not have to worry about it being polluted? Wouldn't it be nice if we could still climb up into the mountains and see clear to yonder? Wouldn't it nice if no fishermen had to worry about the fish in the rivers being safe to eat? Wouldn't it be nice if nobody threw trash out along our country roads or on our city streets?
~~We're still living in a beautiful country with many blessings all around. Hope you're having a great Super Bowl Sunday.

A Wirebound Notebook and a Pen

~~A wirebound notebook and an inkpen are looking better and better to me tonight. My computer has a headache and that's giving me a bigger headache and making me think fondly back to the good old days before electronics took over our lives. When I started writing back in the olden days, I loved filling up wirebound notebooks (some of the relics are in the picture above) using fountain pens filled out of an ink bottle of blue black ink. Alas, I no longer have any of those pens, so that why there's a ballpoint pen in the photo. What is it about writers that makes us obsess over just the right pen and color ink?

~~Could be the right pen and paper wakes up the Muse inside you. I loved getting a new notebook and thinking about all the words I was going to write on its pages. You could fill up that kind of notebook. And I did. The stories inside me had to spill out somewhere and the notebooks were enticingly blank and waiting. Those blank pages never gave me the shivers. Those blank pages were begging for the words tumbling out of my head. It didn't matter all that much what the words were. I was writing for the fun of it - just a rush of story sliding from my brain down my arm and out my fingers into the pen and onto the lined page. No rewriting. No worry about what anybody was going to think. Nobody ever read those stories but me. So there was just the magic of words forming a story.

~~The desire to be published didn't come until I got a little older. With that desire came the need to improve my writing, to polish the words and sentences, but more importantly to try to tell stories other people would want to read. A good story, that's what readers want and that's what I wanted to write then. That's what I still want to write today all these years and many stories later.

~~In the process of writing my stories, I've gone from the notebooks and pen to typewriters to word processors. The computers are nice. Typos are easy to correct. Words can flow across the blank screen with nearly effortless typing. When the computer works. But when it gets a headache and maybe even gets, heaven forbid, a virus, then a writer has problems. Problems I'm having as my computer threw a little fit Monday and has been sulking ever since. The spell check has disappeared. The thesaurus won't come up. It sticks its tongue out at me and says find your own word and didn't you learn to spell in school? Thank my teachers I did.

~~But what strikes the most fear in a writer's heart is that it might just go black and not fire up again. That's because this writer doesn't really want to go back to those notebooks and pens.
The ten-cent store where I used to buy bottles of that blue black ink is long gone, replaced by Wal-Mart stores. And no editor is going to read notebook writing. They want files they can get across the internet with a few clicks of a mouse. There's no going back to the simpler times when you could look at a typewriter and see it needed a new ribbon or had a broken key. Now you look at a screen that says stuff like "fatal error" or "we need to shut down now" or "we can't find a solution to this error" or "throw the thing out the window." Oh wait, maybe that last is something I feel like saying sometimes. But I won't throw it out the window. I'll keep trying to figure out ways to keep it humming so I can keep putting words on that blank screen to tell my stories.

~~Hope all your computers are humming and clicking and doing all the things good computers are supposed to do. Thanks for reading.

A Snowy Day Down on the Farm

~The weather people talked about snow for days and it finally showed up down here on the farm. We got about four inches - a light dusting compared to what they got west and south of us. But plenty for me. I like a little snow every winter, but I'm always ready to see it go, too. This morning it was so cold when I went out that the snow squeaked and crunched underfoot and blew up little mini-puffs of snow in my wake. A good kind of walking snow. Tonight would be a good night to take a snow walk since the moon is almost full and is reflecting off the snow making a glistening light almost as bright as day out there. But it is very chilly.

~I took my camera out on Saturday afternoon and took this picture of the hay bales and cedars. It made me think of the title of the book Snow Falling on Cedars. That's a very evocative title for a book, but one that I doubt I would have ever had the nerve to suggest to a publisher. But then again, maybe I would. I did The Scent of Lilacs. I did Wish Come True and Bridge to Courage for a couple of my young adult books. Not exactly the same feel as the snow falling title, but I think interesting titles. And all fit the story. I read Snow Falling on Cedars, but it's been a while and I can't remember if the title was central to the story or not.

~I enjoy thinking about titles and wondering where the authors might have come up with them. With my Shaker books, the publishers suggested I use a The Something theme and we came up with The Outsider for the first one. The Believer fits the second story perfectly and The Seeker is right for Charlotte and Adam's story. I have absolutely no idea what The Something the next book is going to be. But then I often write the book before I come up with a title. I guess I keep hoping my subconscious will nudge a great title up into my conscious mind and I'll go bingo and know it's the perfect title. Of course, right now I'm just hoping my subconscious will push a good story up into my conscious mind. I like my new characters, but they seem to be very secretive about their stories. I need them to start whispering some of those secrets into my ear. Or they can just run them straight through my fingers if they want to.

~I'm about rested up from my grandbaby sitting, but my desk is still looking like a disaster area. Plus I can't seem to locate the book I was reading before I headed to WV. No, it's not under all the paperwork on my desk. I've already checked that out. It takes talent to lose a book in your own house, but that seems to be what I've done. I gave up on finding it. Now I'm just waiting to discover it in whatever interesting spot I last laid it down. Either that or the reading gremlins carried it away. Do you have gremlins at your house? You know those mysterious beings that run off with paperclips and scissors and all your inkpens when you most need to write something down.

~Some of you have already entered my February book drawing for two of my books and The Frontiersman's Daughter by Laura Frantz, but for those of you who haven't, you still have time. I won't be doing the drawing until the end of the month. If you want to throw your name in the hat, just send me a message from my website or leave a comment here. I appreciate each and every one of you. Thanks for being reading friends.

Classes at the Grandbabies' Spa

~I made it through the five day "spa" vacation with my four grandkids in WV. In my last post I compared the babysitting time to being at a diet and exercise spa, but that certainly wasn't all of it. I did lose a couple of pounds according to my very unreliable scale. That's the best kind of scale to have, isn't it? That way you can always say the crazy thing must not be working right if it shows you gained three pounds over a weekend or something totally ridiculous like that. Certainly it wouldn't have anything to do with that cheesecake you ate. ;-)

~There wasn't any cheesecake eating going on this weekend for me. Just leftover hotdogs and that delicious mac and cheese. Eating that stuff you can believe I got plenty of running exercise to lose even one pound.

~But I got to thinking about other classes the grandkid sitting experience opened up. Say craft class - learning to express yourself with clay. I'm really good at making snakes and worms. Here's Katie with her turtle creation she did all by herself while I checked on the twins who were napping.

~There was the negotiation class. "If I tell you fifty eleven stories, will you go to bed?" Give or take a few stories. Or "Eat two bites of your chicken and then you can have ice cream."

~I can't forget time management. Diaper this one, diaper that one, break up a scuffle between the girls, load the dishwasher, load the washer, wash the babies, wash the girls, cook that mac and cheese, hunt sippy cups, pick up toys, straighten rugs, grab Matt off the back of the couch, put Ashley in time-out, keep Katie away from Ashley in time-out, make popcorn, take a gulp of tea, diaper this one and that one again.

~I think I may have failed the time management, but I did manage to get Ashley off to first grade both school day mornings. That surely deserves a C plus. So a passing grade.

~Now it's time to get back to work here at home. First I have to wade through my e-mails and catch up on chores. Tomorrow I plan to see if I can find a desk under all this stuff that has accumulated on my desk. It grows if you don't keep an eye on it, you know. All that has to be done, but I'm itching to be writing even though I'm a little stuck on what's next. My characters keep popping into my head and I'm hoping my subconscious is working on that what next problem. But for sure I want to be pursuing the story again with my fingers on the keyboard and my mind back in my Shaker village in the year 1845.

~Don't forget about my February giveaway - your choice of two of my last six books and Laura Frantz's The Frontiersman's Daughter. You can leave a comment here to be entered or send me an e-mail from my website, www.annhgabhart.com. Thanks to all of you who e-mailed me after you got my newsletter. I enjoy hearing from my reading friends. Hope you have a great rest of the week.

Double the Exercise!!

--No picture this Sunday since I'm in WV trying to keep up with my four little grandkids up here. Believe me, I'm finding out why the good Lord fixed things to that young people are the mamas and daddies. It's becoming more than obvious that I might have too many miles on my speedometer to keep up with four kids six and under. But right now things are good. The twins, seventeen month old boys, are taking a nap and the other grandmama came and got the four year old and six year old girls to take them to a movie. I need to send her roses.
--The boys are cute as can be and pretty good babies except that they know their grandma is a sucker for a pitiful look and reaching up hands and will pick them up at a whimper. Then the other one wants his time in too. My hip is sore from packing them around, but think of the muscles I'm building. It's just like being at one of those exclusive spas where you diet and work out. The diet because who has time to eat when you're busy keeping four little mouths fed. Although I do have to admit I'm doing the mommy thing and eating stuff leftover that I normally wouldn't think of eating. You know, leftover box mac & cheese. Cold. You mommies have been there. You understand.
--As for the spa bit, it helps that my son's house is three story. That adds a lot of good stair climbing - with weights. The twins are both little chunks. Plus there's a side advantage of honing my mediation skills since one twin pretty much likes to take everything away from the other twin. Refereeing anyway.
--Then there's the crisis management class. That includes the older kids. The oldest is a little drama queen who spent a half hour crying last night (drama queen style) because all the books she had to read were too, too easy. That included her grandma's books, the ones I wrote some years back for middle readers and young teens. She was just so misunderstood and needed something thick to read. She finally went and pulled out one of her older sister's Harry Potter books. The older sis isn't here. She's on the trip with her parents. The little drama queen who needed those hard books to read proudly told me this morning that she's on page three. I figure her parents will be back in plenty of time to convince her the book is too old for her if they don't want her to read it yet. Her big sister was a big Harry Potter fan and the six year old wants to think she's as old as her when she's eight years younger.
--I can't forget the culinary experience and challenge. You know trying to fix a peanut butter sandwich just like mama does. Or figuring out anything the four year old will eat that doesn't have as the main ingredient sugar. The twins eat hearty and just about anything you put in front of them - or that they find on the floor. Of course the peanut butter is on the top shelf since we're still not sure if that's what made John have his allergic reaction. They haven't gotten to the allergist yet.
-- So at my age I'm still learning about challenges. And doing my best to meet them. Oops! The boys are crying. Thanks for reading. You'll find out if I graduated from the spa courses with honors on Wednesday. I'll settle for a passing grade. That would mean everybody got fed and in bed at an almost reasonable time and nobody got hurt.
--Thanks for reading.

Who to Thank?

~~This is a picture of my mom and my youngest grandbaby and her youngest great grandbaby.

~~I wrote an author's note for one of my upcoming books thanking the people who had helped make the book possible. I never know for sure who I should thank first. My editor? My agent? My publisher?

~~Then I realized that person - the one I should thank first - was my mom. She never told me I couldn't be a writer although she must have thought I had big dreams for a little country girl. Dreams that might never come true, but she never discouraged those dreams. She wanted me to be happy and if that meant chasing after what seemed like an impossible dream, she didn't tell me that. Instead she wished wings for my feet. Then when I got married too young and had a couple of babies, again too young, she was probably thinking I'd do well to get the babies diapered and fed. And she was right, but I also wrote a few words here and there between diaper changes and chores. Because she loved me, she never said I was too young even when I was. She just helped me be old enough and loved my babies along with me.

~~When I spent money Darrell and I couldn't spare on a writing course I found in the back of a magazine (I was desperate for a way to learn how to go about being a writer), she never said I was crazy or foolish. She didn't even look as if she thought it. She just kept loving me and believing I could do whatever I set my mind to. The same as she had always done. And does even still.

~~She never had the writing bug except for keeping a journal of her daily life some of the time, but she lived life to the fullest. She married when she was nineteen and moved out on the farm with my dad. I was her third daughter and the baby. She saw that we grew up to be responsible adults. She taught us how to work. But best of all she taught us how to laugh and enjoy life. Now age is catching up with her, stealing some of her sparkle. But the sparkle's not completely gone as you can see in this picture. All it takes to bring it back is a sweet grandbaby beside her.

~~Since we're talking about grandbabies, I'm off this weekend to babysit the WV grandbabies while their mom and dad combine a business trip with a little rest and relaxation. Those last two aren't what I'm expecting with four kids six and under, but we'll have fun.

~~I sent out a newsletter today with a new giveaway. If you want to get in on the fun of being in a drawing for two of my books - your choice of which ones, and Laura Frantz's book The Frontiersman's Daughter (set in pioneer Kentucky days), all autographed, then leave a comment here or send an e-mail from my website, http://www.annhgabhart.com/.

~~Thanks for reading and if you don't see a post here on Sunday, you'll know I didn't get the grandbabies to bed on time.

Focusing on a Dream

~~ I took this picture with Steve Ladd at the New Year's Eve Gospel Concert at Sand Spring Church. My husband's group, the Patriot Quartet, was singing that night along with several other groups and Steve. Until recently Steve was the tenor for the well known gospel group, Gold City. He gave that position up to start a solo ministry in order to be with his wife and two children more.
~~ The life of a gospel singer in a traveling group can be very difficult. The groups stay on the road much of the year and it makes family time difficult. That may be why so many of the gospel groups are family groups. Darrell didn't luck out about that when he married me. I can hum a good tune in the kitchen, but it's unlikely anybody will want to hum along with me. But Darrell has had the itch to sing gospel music all his life and has been singing with various groups for over 35 years. He and the other guys in the Patriot Quartet now are weekend warriors who travel all over for Saturday and Sunday concerts. You can check them out on their website and even listen to some of their songs. http://www.patriotquartet.com/
~~ But back to Steve Ladd and what I was planning to talk about tonight. Steve said that when he was eight years old his parents took him to hear Gold City in concert and he came home saying that someday he would sing tenor for that group. That's quite a goal for a kid of eight to focus in on. He was already singing with his family in churches. His dad was a traveling evangelist. So he knew about singing. Then he said when he was a young teen, people kept telling him that his voice was going to change, become deeper. So every night, he prayed that the Lord would let his voice stay high. Else how would he be able to do as he planned and sing tenor for Gold City. The Lord certainly honored his prayer and his dreams. He can sing some high notes and he did sing them with Gold City just as he began planning to do as a kid. You can tell by looking at him what a nice guy he is, so if you ever get a chance to go hear him, take it. You'll be blessed.
~~ His story made me think about how I had some of the same feelings when I was a kid. Not to sing for Gold City. That's for sure. Or anybody else. But to write. I knew when I was ten that I wanted to write. And not just write. I wanted to write stories that people would read. You can't imagine what a big dream that was for that little country girl who didn't know anything about anything and especially nothing about how to become a "Writer" with a captial W. Still, I never thought about it being something I couldn't do. I just took up my pen and began writing. Later I sought whatever avenues I could to figure out how to write better. That wasn't an easy thing for me as a young wife and mother with limited resources. Translation - no money for dreams. Yet I never put down my pen. At least not completely. I chiseled out time for my writing, sneaking minutes and hours when I could between my many other chores. I kept count of those hours and minutes in a writing journal. That helped keep me focused and accountable for my time.
~~ For years - even after I was published - I was hesitant to say out loud that I was a writer. It sounded presumptuous. Like I was claiming something I had no right to claim. Or maybe it simply meant so much to me to reach that goal that I didn't want to claim it too soon. Even now with nineteen books published and several more in the works to be published, I'm shy about telling people I'm a writer. And yet that's still my goal, my dream. To write books people will want to read. But in order to read your book, people have to know about your book. Nowadays, writers are supposed to do everything they can to collect reading friends. So you have to tell people about your books. I guess that's why I have this poem by Sir William Gilbert written on my desk calendar.
If you wish in this world to advance
Your merits you're bound to enhance.
You must stir it and stump it
And blow your own trumpet
Or trust me, you haven't a chance.
~~ I still don't blow a lot of trumpets. But I do talk about my writing and my books every time someone asks me to. And I talk to you. Thanks for listening. And reading.