Creative Moments

Hi everybody. Hope you had a tremendous week with good blessings chasing you everywhere you went. You know sometimes we stay so busy that we don't always pay attention to the blessings around us. At church we have a Thanksgiving and Praise List in our bulletin where we mention special blessings of the week and those everyday blessings too. Things like the sunshine and the rain. The birds and the flowers. The smile of a child. A good sermon. An appreciated card. Being alive. There are so many reasons to be thankful. What are some of your everyday blessings? A good day at work. A restful night's sleep. Maybe a baby sleeping through the night for the first time. A new rosebush. An old rosebush blooming. We are so blessed.

We're also blessed with numerous electronic devices to entertain us. At least I think that's a blessing - most of the time. But I read an article this week about boredom and how now we have so many electronic means of entertainment such as i-pods, cell phones, laptops, and DVD players, that we don't have as many of those times when we're not busily trying to fill our minds with outside noise and pictures. Times when our minds are just idling with nothing to occupy us. Times when we might be bored. But those times are also times when we allow our thoughts to wander and from that wandering comes new ideas. When I first got married and had two little children, time was at a premium. But I had to iron every week. There's nothing much more boring that pressing pants and shirts, but that was when I could think up new things and write poems in my head. And what sounds more fun than sitting on a porch as the sun comes up or goes down and letting your thoughts meander down memory lane. A person has to have a few quiet moments now and again and a little boredom never hurt anybody. Unless of course you grew up on a farm and you made the mistake of telling your daddy you were bored. Then you might be out in the field picking up rocks or chopping thistles! So hope you have some restful moments this week to gather your thoughts and come up with some great new ideas.

A little writing news update - the Blue Grass Book Festival wasn't all that well attended this year. No Paula Deen to pull them in like last year, I suppose. I didn't get to go to the Blue Grass Festival last year, but all my writer friends who did kept telling me how wonderful it was and how many book buyers were there. So I was really looking forward to seeing a lot of readers this year. But alas, the sun came out after several days of rain and I think everybody stayed home to mow their yards and plant flowers. Who can blame them?

Still it was a fun day. I met some great writers and a few kind readers. I sat at the same table with Susan Green Gilmore whose book is titled Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen. Isn't that a great title? And the book looks like fun. My titles aren't bad. Summer of Joy and Orchard of Hope. But let me tell you, when people walked by our table, they were pulled in by Susan's title and more times than not bought her book. I told them I was going to rename my book Summer at McDonalds. No, that doesn't do it. It has to have the salvation in there too. How about Joy and Salvation at McDonalds? Of course there weren't any McDonalds in Hollyhill back when I wrote about Jocie and her family, so that won't work either. Oh well, I'll just stick with Summer of Joy.

Titles are important eye catchers. I sat next to a guy once at another book fair whose book was The Aluminum Christmas Tree. People were drawn to that one as well. It caught their memories. Next time I want to sit next to somebody whose book is titled something dull and uninteresting, say Today is Another Day or The Brown Cow. Or Red? Oh, wait, I think that one did very well. What is your vote for most un-eyecatching book title? Whatever it is, I don't want to use one like that on my next book. I want one that makes people stop and pick up my book to read the back copy. Maybe my new book, The Outsider, will have that kind of title. For sure it has that kind of cover art. It's very eye-catching. You can check it out on my website www.annhgabhart.com if you want.

So count your everyday blessings this week and I hope you run out of fingers and toes to count them all on. ;) Check in later this week for the quotes of the week.

Time in May to Enjoy

Here it is May already and such a beautiful May day here in Central Kentucky this first Sunday of the month. Yesterday was Derby Day and while the weathermen threatened rain and storms it turned out to be a beautiful afternoon for everybody who takes part in Derby activities. The night before wasn't quite as nice for the Derby parties as rain dampened a few hats. I'm not a Derby partier although I have had the church out for picnics on Derby Day just because it was the only day we could agree on for the most to be able to come. I used to have a picnic here every Spring but then Darrell started being on the road singing most weekends and I have a hard time finding a Saturday when he's going to be around to help host the event. But in years past, we always had fun. Our church has a small congregation, but we like to think of ourselves as a big family of God. And we are definitely part of the family of believers.

Back to Derby Day. I have never been to a Derby. Don't really have any plans to ever go to a Derby, but there are those who say every Kentuckian should experience it at least once in his or her lifetime. I do enjoy watching the race on t.v. Of course now the coverage goes on all day and I wouldn't mind seeing the crazy and the extravagant hats and hearing all those human interest stories about this horse or that trainer or owner, but I don't have time to watch t.v. all day. I usually just watch the 6 p.m. Run for the Roses. You know I never saw those roses yesterday. Big Brown was being so fiesty after the race, he would have probably eaten them. Of course it was sad with Eight Belles being put down. I've researched horse racing for a couple of books in the past and that's always a sad part of racing. Some horses want to run so much, have such a big heart, that they break down trying too hard.

Anyway, as I was saying, I don't have time to watch all the race coverage. How often do we say that? We don't have time. Our pastor used to correct us when we said that we didn't have time to do this or that. He told us we all had the same amount of time in the day the Lord gave us. It was just how we chose to use that time. Like now I'm blogging when I could be walking in the sunshine or cleaning up my kitchen or reading a book. I could be doing a lot of things and some of them are things I really should be doing. I've been putting off doing some chores like cleaning out my closets for so long that my closets are reaching critical mass point where I may very well end up under an avalanche of clothes I should have taken to the Goodwill Store months ago. But there are so many more interesting things to do and so many more "I said I would do it" things to do. I have another speech on Thursday night. They're expecting me to show up with something to say. All right, those of you who know me -- I know what you're thinking. When doesn't she have something to say? But I want it to be something that people will enjoy listening to for thirty minutes or so. I want to come up with some fun trivia questions. I want to get some good doorprizes together and I will do my best to get it done. But in order to do that I'm going to have to put those closets off a little longer and hope I survive the avalanche when it comes.

My talk to the Administrative Assistant luncheon on Thursday went okay and I had fun meeting some of the women who keep the churches going in the Frankfort area. The luncheon was sponsored by the Corinth Christian Bookstore in Frankfort. They are so supportive of the area churches and of writers like me. They always let me have a book launch at their store and have other writers in as well. In fact Beverly Lewis is going to be there for a signing on May 16th. They're excited to have such a well known author at their store. So go by if you're in the area and you're a Beverly Lewis fan. I've been told she's a super nice person. I may meet her on the next day at the Blue Grass Festival of Books at Joseph-Beth's Bookstore in Lexington. I'll be signing books there on Saturday, May 17 from 9 to 5. I hope some of you will come by and talk to me so I won't be tempted to wander away from my post and spend all my money on more books I don't have time to read. See there's that "I don't have time" again. It pops up everywhere.

Maybe I should think about how I'm spending my time. Is it the way the Lord wants me to spend it? Is it the way I want to spend it? Am I just letting the hours roll past without thought and those hours are rolling into days and then weeks and way too fast becoming years slipping by. "I don't have time." You know, one of these days that's going to be so true. Now while I do still have the time the Lord has given me, I need to make the best use of it. I need to squeeze and shove all the minutes together and make time for work and family and friends, but first I need to make time for the Lord, the giver of all time. The closets can wait.

Hope you have all the time you need this week and every week.

Great Writing News and Encouragement

I had a great week as a writer last week. I got offered a contract for a couple of new books. All I have to do is write them. I think this is where I need to start begging for your prayers. The first deadline is a bit sooner than I'd like. I have discovered I'm not the fastest writer on the block, but maybe this time with the deadline looming I can pull more words out of my reluctant brain a bit faster. It looks as if I'm going to have to keep my nose to the grindstone for a while.

You know, when you think about it, that is without a doubt a disturbing image. One's nose to the grindstone. Does that mean you should just pay attention to what you're doing or does that mean you need to sacrifice a bit of skin off your nose? That's what a grindstone does. Grinds away things. Sharpens knives and tools. Now that could possibly make sense for me. I need to sharpen my writing tools and my writing thinker upper. So maybe that's how the grindstone can help.

We're always spouting old sayings that we have no idea where they came from or how they got started. Some we can figure out. Like a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Or snug as a bug in a rug. We might not want a bug in our rug, but we don't have any problem imaging said bug as snug. I think I just came up with a tongue twister. Try saying those last couple of sentences ten times fast. But back to the old sayings. Some are not so easily imagined by our current generation. Like the grindstone one. Most kids have never seen a grindstone. Ah, how quickly the years pile on and our language is ever growing and shifting and changing. New words pop into use and old words fade away. Sometimes that makes writing historical fiction difficult. You not only have to come up with the right idea, the right plot, the right characters, you also have to be sure not to use words that weren't around back then. Can you think up some modern words that shouldn't have been there that you might have caught in some of the books you were reading?

But I was sharing my good news of the week with you. I got the offer about the two new books. My book, The Outsider, due out in August is getting some early interest and has been picked for a main selection by Crossing Book Club as well as an alternate selection for several other book clubs. So that's great news. That means the book will be out there and available in a lot of different ways. The book I've already written that I titled Angel Sister got a good report from my editor, so that was encouraging. No publication date as yet. It will be a while, but I think it will eventually be out there for the rest of you guys to read. They were such a great bunch of characters. I always think I have a great bunch of characters. They're not all sweet and kind, but they are all mine. And some of them are fun and crazy weird.

And then my granddaughter in WV turned five. Is there anything more fun than have a fifth birthday and opening a pile of presents and blowing out candles and eating cake and ice cream? How many of you remember your fifth birthday? I don't remember that birthday specifically, but we had a wonderful aunt who always did our birthdays up special. She made our cakes and decorated them and I can remember standing out by the lane to our house and watching for her car on my special day. That's the best thing about birthdays. Feeling special. Feeling loved. If I could make a birthday wish now and blow out all my candles, that's what I would wish for everyone in the world. That they could feel special on their birthdays. Of course, no one will ever put that many candles on my cake again. It would set off the smoke detector if they tried and I'd have to take at least five tries to blow out that many candles. So maybe instead of a wish, I'll make it a prayer.

Since I'm talking about a special day, I'll tell you about a special celebration I just came from. A couple in our church are celebrating their seventy-fifth anniversary. Wow! Now that's something. He's 95 and she's almost 92. They still live in their own home and they still read through the Bible almost every year. They are beautiful people.

I had a good time at the Southern Kentucky Book Fest. Thanks to everyone who came by to talk to me and maybe buy my book. Thanks also to those of you who came to sit in and listen on our panel as we talked about how we used our Kentucky roots to help establish the setting and tone for our books. The next book fest, Bluegrass Festival of Books, is coming up in Lexington at Joseph-Beth's in May. Hope if you're in the area, you'll come by and say hi.

That's all for now. Check in with me again next week. And feel free to comment about your most fun birthday or anything at all. Ann