Another Favorite Sunday

~~What's your favorite way to spend Sunday? We had a good one here with a touch of Spring after the snow last week. Got up in the fifties. Felt like it had been July since it had been that warm. Well, October anyway. The thing about Kentucky weather is that it's changeable and so it's unusual not to have some pre-season warm days in January and February. We sneaked one in here on the last and it looks as if the kids in our county might have to go to school all week long. It's been a while since that happened.

~~So today I enjoyed the sunshine on a Sunday. And I thought about how I spend Sundays. Church, of course and tonight I went to hear my husband's Southern Gospel group, the Patriot Quartet, sing at a church here in town. That's them in the picture. My husband's the one singing bass. Or since I guess it's a little hard to tell which one that is in a picture, the one on the right. I've spent a lot of Sundays at gospel music concerts.

~~When I was a little girl I spent most of my Sundays playing with my cousins as our parents took turns visiting back and forth. We had a ball and in fact that's when I started writing. I made up a story with me and my sister and my cousin as kid detectives solving a mystery out on the farm. That was fun. And started me down the writing path that I'm still going down all these years later. It's a path that's been frustrating at times but one I've never considered stepping away from. That's because I love stringing words together to tell stories. Even when it's hard. And it is hard a lot of the time. But then there are times when the characters come to life and the stories come together and then that sweet reader somewhere tells you that favorite line "I couldn't put it down."

~~But I've not spent too many Sundays writing except for a few hours doing journal entries. Another kind of writing I enjoy and one that is never hard because in a journal anything goes - as some of you who have been reading this on-line journal surely have noticed. You probably wonder what bunny rabbit I'm going to chase after next. And if you stick with me on those rabbit chases, thank you. If you don't, then you're probably not reading this. But that's another great thing to do on a Sunday - read. That's a great thing to do any time. And be with family. We did that a lot when our kids were little. They got to grow up playing with their cousins the same as I did. And now I go see my Mom on the Sunday afternoons I'm not traveling with the quartet to wherever they're singing or my own kids aren't here visiting.

~~I guess I think of Sundays as days for church and family. Good days. I hope you had a good Sunday today and that you can think back to many Sundays of good times. If you've got a minute, it might be fun to hear your favorite Sunday times.

Connecting with My Reading Friends

I know. It's not Wednesday or Sunday (that's my usual posting days), but I'm testing out some new links with Amazon.com's author pages. There are so many ways to connect with readers these days. Facebook. Twitter. Author pages. Blogs. Blog tours. I've tried to stick my finger into the internet pie on all of them but twitter. Still not twittering. Are any of you? The facebook has been a fun way to keep up with friends and family. And I'm hoping to have a Facebook Fan page soon. You can talk more about your books and do book giveaways, etc. on the Fan pages. Or at least that's what I've been told.

My only problem is wondering why anyone would even think about signing up to a fan page for me. I don't think about having fans. I think about having reading friends. But I have to admit I'd like to gather more reading friends, and didn't our mamas always tell us the way to have a friend is to be a friend? That's sometimes hard to do when you spend hours making up imaginary people. Coming up with new stories takes some solitary time. A lot of solitary time. That's why some writers talk so much when they get a chance to be away from their desks. And it's also why some don't. Sometimes we're still in that story. Still hearing conversations in our heads that no one else can hear, but that we hope everybody else will someday want to read. Just as soon as we write it down.

I'm hoping to get some stuff written down soon. Being between books is not my favorite place to be, but I had to catch up on all the mundane "the house will fall in if you don't take a shovel to it" chores.

Come back Sunday and we'll talk.

A New Book Calls for a New Giveaway

Hi, everybody. Hope you're having a great week. It's hot here, but the sun is shining. That's good after rain and more rain last week. Darrell finally got up some hay and now with sunshine in the offing, his mower is broken. That's a farmer's life. When I was a kid, my dad mowed hay with a sickle mower and I don't think he ever managed to mow a whole field without breaking the blade at least once. Of course we had a few rocks where we lived. Actually we had a lot of rocks where we lived. Our farm isn't far from that one, but not as rocky. A lot of difference only a mile or so away. Once upon a time, long, long ago our farm was supposed to be part of a shallow sea. At least that's what the geologists think. We do have a lot of fossils and pebbles and sandy soil in places.

Wait, I'm not supposed to be off chasing rabbits. I'm supposed to be telling you about my new book giveaway. I sent out a newsletter a couple of days ago and I thank all of you who have responded. If you haven't heard back from me yet, you will - if my internet doesn't give up the ghost or something equally dire. Of course, I did go to the store and buy all kinds of painting supplies to paint my kitchen. That's pretty dire. :-o! Guess I'm really going to have to get at those July chores after all.

Anyway, the newsletter went out with news of my summer book giveaway. I'm going to be drawing a name out of the hat every Sunday in July and then again on August 1 to give away an autographed copy of my new book, The Believer. I'm really excited about the book and hope you will be too. I think it shows the unique beliefs of the Shakers even better than The Outsider and that the romance between the two main characters is compelling. At least I hope so. Guess I will soon find out when readers start letting me know what they think. If you haven't entered the giveaway and want to, just send me an e-mail from my website. You can also sign up for my newsletter there if you want to get some occasional reports on what's going on in my writing life and here on the farm.

I know you're getting some of that info here in the blog. This is my 151st blog entry. I could have written another book. I guess I did write another book, just not one that would make any sense if it was put together page after page. Some writers obsess about making their blog entries perfect, full of wisdom, and extra meaningful. Sorry, guys. You're just reading my journal. Free association. Chasing rabbits. Just talking to friends.

When I first started writing a journal when I was about fourteen, I always addressed my entries to Dear Nemo - the Latin word for nobody. At least I thought it was the Latin word for nobody. My Latin is definitely very rusty now. Dear Nemo. Dear No one. But you know I always pictured my Nemo out there listening. And now maybe my nobody has actually turned into some real somebodies. So glad to be writing to somebody. Thanks for reading.

Hope you don't have to paint any kitchens and can kick back, put your feet up and enjoy some good books. Till Sunday. I won't be drawing this week, but will on the first Sunday in July. You've still got plenty of time to get your name in the hat.