Discombobalated

Okay, so it's not Wednesday. It's not even Thursday, the day I usually remember I forgot to post on One Writer's Journal on Wednesday. But I've got excuses. A good writer should always be able to come up with excuses. Or reasons. So, I'm blaming those grandkids who were here a few days ago. By the time they left, I didn't know what day it was. Since I wasn't brave enough or energetic enough (the truth is I'm not young enough) to take the four kids to church, I felt like I was missing Sunday and who knew what day it was after that? If you don't have Sunday, the days just melt together. So you might say I was discombobalated.  Now there's a word that sounds just like it should. I looked up its meaning on line to be sure I wasn't discombobalated about that too.

Discombobalated or discombobalation is a word used to say that something confuses you or a word used to say that someone is a bit mental in their head. can be used as an insult!!

Don't you just love words? Without them, storytellers would be in a fix. Especially if they weren't good at being a mime or drawing pictures. Words are what I need. I've had a romance with them ever since I was a kid. Words spread across book pages carried me away on adventures, caused me to fall in love over and over, let me chase along behind people saving the world from the bad guys, and made me laugh and cry. Words were my favorite games in Scrabble and crossword puzzles and playing hangman with my sister on our chalkboards. I just did a guest post about having a romance with words on Romcon. If you want to check out the post and leave a comment there, you'll have a chance to win a copy of my new book. I'm also visiting on Katt Scribbles this week where you can leave a comment for a chance to win a book. Lots of those opportunities this month. Along with my own giveaway at my website.

It's always a kind of gift when the very right word comes to me from seemingly nowhere when I'm writing. Sometimes it will be a word I would never think to say in my own conversations, but somewhere in the murky depths of my writer's mind it's been buried, waiting for the right scene, the right character, to rise to the surface, waving its hand in the air, screaming, "Here, I am. Use me." A lot of the time, I'll pull out my ancient dictionary, not the on-line kind, but the open it up and flip through the pages kind, to make sure the word means what I think it does. Discombobalated was not in my dictionary. I had to go on-line to find it. Lots of new words have gained entrance into the book of words since my old dictionary was printed years ago. 

But it was the right word. I was discombobalated. It could be that I am discombobalated. But I do know it's Friday. I do know that I'm supposed to have my first book launch for Words Spoken True tonight at the Corinth Book Store in Frankfort. I do know that the weathermen are talking about a winter storm advisory starting at two o'clock this afternoon. It hasn't snowed but a skiff all year. The photo above is the bit of snow we had a couple of days ago. Not even enough to call off schools. By noon tomorrow, we're supposed to get an inch, maybe two, but the weather guys are making it sound like we're going to have a blizzard. A weatherman misses snow, I'm thinking. It would have to be the day I was hoping to meet and greet some readers that the snow would start falling. Oh well, maybe all of you have four-wheel drives and you want to test them out. If so, come on down to see me. I'm sharing the time with another local writer, Jennifer Johnson, with her book, Shoebox Surprise. 

Thanks for your patience with this discombobalated writer. I appreciate you dropping by. What words do you like? Which ones bring a feeling or thought to mind for you just from hearing it? Joy. Boisterous. Whisper.  Readers! That's one of my favorite words. :)

Writing Workshops & the Winners are...

I've been working all week on getting ready for the Kentucky Christian Writers Conference in Elizabethtown coming up this Friday and Saturday, June 24 & 25. I had actually thought this was my first writers conference when I went last year, but then I was reminded that I had led some workshops at the Green Rivers Writers Retreat some years back - probably in the 1980s or 90s. That was in Louisville and I drove back and forth so maybe that's why I didn't think about it actually being a conference. But I did meet with writers and try to share my limited writing knowledge with them. That's what I'm going to be trying to do again at KCWC.

The picture is of me and last year's keynote speaker, Virginia Smith. Ginny did a great job of delivering the keynote speeches last year. Ginny does a great job every time she speaks. Just check out her website, Viginia Smith and you'll see that she has some interesting topics for her talks. And she's always fun. She was last year too. This year they have Cecil Murphey who has written so many books it's a wonder he hasn't lost count. Maybe he has! He has his name on some of the books and some of them he ghostwrote such as 90 Minutes in Heaven by Don Piper. They say he's a tremendous speaker and encourager so I know the conference attendees will more than get their money's worth. 

I always feel a little inadequate - oh heck, I feel a lot inadequate when I am asked to lead a workshop. I'm a writer, not a teacher. But at the same time, I enjoy teaching. I did a community ed writing class for several years here in my county and found it fun. Time consuming, creative energy draining, but fun. So I do have some experience teaching and almost all the comments on my sessions last year were favorable. Wonder why that one really critical remark is the one that stuck?   (Sigh)

Last year I had workshops on character and rewriting. I was a little surprised to discover that a lot of writers thought the rewriting topic was not all that interesting. I like to rewrite. For one thing that means I've finished the hard part of writing and have the story told. But I'm not trying to encourage the wisdom of rewriting your work this year. My workshops are "Dialogue - The Fizz in Fiction" and "Facts in Fiction - Using History in your Story." 

I think I came up with good titles anyway. Now to put the meat into the session and deliver it in such a way that my advice will encourage other writers. Even if they leave my class saying that was a lot of nonsense and I can do better than that. A lot of good books have been written by writers who said that very thing. Motivation is necessary for characters in stories and for writers.   

But in the three conferences I have been part of I have found one thing true of them all. It's the people you meet, the friends you make that give you the most lasting benefits. The writing information is good. Feedback is good. Discovering new markets or new possibilities of ways to use your writing talent is good. But best is making friends who know how hard writing can be, who may have experienced the same discouragement over rejections or joy over acceptances. People who understand because they have the writing bug crawling around inside them too.

So if you're at the conference in E-town, be sure to introduce yourself and tell me you are a reading friend. Then we can be face to face writing friends too. 


A couple more items here. My first book launch for The Blessed will be next week on Thursday night, June 30th at the Corinth Book Store in Frankfort, KY at 7 p.m. If you live in the area I'd love to see you there. Then I'll have a Hometown Book Launch at the Anderson Public Library in July on Sunday the 24th at 2 p.m. Door prizes and chocolate there. Both places I'll be talking about writing my new Shaker book, The Blessed. On June 30th at the book store I'll be sharing the podium with Catherine Sheets, a Frankfort author with a new book out titled A Place Called Morning. 

And now for the big news. I have the winners of my Celebration giveaway. The winner of the "never win anything" (at least from my website) is Abi of ND. She picked Orchard of Hope.The winner of the "I've been blessed" drawing is Ann Marie. The winner of the angel figurine and a book is Donna of KY. The winners of autographed copies of The Blessed are Susan of NE, Sally of TX, Katie of CA, Linda of MI, and Virginia of VA. Thanks to everyone who entered the drawing. I'll be doing some more giveaways in September (you know, because when you get older you have to celebrate by giving stuff away), so check my events page on my website for when and how to enter. I'll also be guesting on some blogs that will be giving away a copy of The Blessed. That info is also on my website event page. 


Blessings to all of you. And wish me smooth talking and intelligent words for my workshops this weekend. If you were attending one of the workshops, what would you most want to know?



Snf no

A New Book Cover - Coming 2011

What do you think about the cover of my next book, Angel Sister, scheduled for release in February 2011? I really like it. The little girl is a perfect Lorena and doesn't it just look like she's gazing up at her "angel sister?" I had been holding off sharing the new book cover since The Seeker has just hit the market and started landing in readers' hands. I didn't want to overwhelm everybody, but then Fiction Finder posted Angel Sister's cover on their Facebook page yesterday. So I thought I'd better get with it and let my reading friends see it first from me and share some of my excitement over another beautiful book cover.
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As you can tell, this is not a book set in my Shaker village of Harmony Hill. It's set in 1936 and is the story of the Merritt family. My mom and her three sisters used to tell stories about when they were growing up and usually ended up laughing until they cried. They had to have lived in a community with the weirdest assortment of characters you might ever want to meet. So I took all those stories I'd heard so many times, got Mom to tell me a few more, and then read some WW I history (there's a flashback romance to WW I) and put it all in the fiction blender in my head and after changing the characters into people whose stories I could tell came up with Angel Sister.
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It is without a doubt a story of my heart and I'm hoping readers will too even if it is different from my Shaker books. Don't worry I'm still working on a couple of those for the future too. But you know, that's one thing about my books. Even the Shaker books. They're different. That's good, isn't it? You don't want me to tell the same story over and over again only changing the characters' names. You want different, don't you? I certainly do. In writing stories and in reading them, too.
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But back to the book now, The Seeker. The Corinth Parable Bookstore in Frankfort, KY is hosting a book launch for me this Friday, July 2 at 7 p.m. I'll be talking a little about writing The Seeker and then those who are there will have time to talk and ask questions - my favorite part of any talk. If you're in the area, come out and join in.
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And now for this week's winner of an autographed copy of The Seeker. It's Samy of Pennyslvania. I'll be getting the book off to you sometime next week, Samy. The rest of you still have a few more chances to win if you sent me an e-mail from my website or made a comment here. And if you haven't thrown your name in the hat, you still can.
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Hope you have a great week and thank you for reading. And if you get a minute, let me know what you think of the cover for Angel Sister. Last but not least, if you're reading this, Happy Birthday, Johnny!! Today's my oldest son's birthday. Can you still claim 39 when your kid has to stretch the truth to say he's that age? But I remember my first sight of him as a little baby. He was screaming in outrage, but he was still beautiful. And so loved. My life was forever changed.

Too Many Words

The letters on the keypads of my keyboard are disappearing. You think that means I've typed too many words? Look at it! The n and m are completely gone. The l is going, and the e is half gone. And the e key is worse than disappearing. It's collapsing. Still works, thank goodness. Can you imagine trying to write anything in English without an e key? I tried to hook up a new, well actually an old keyboard to the computer today. I could see all the letters on the keypads but unfortunately my computer chose to ignore that keyboard. So maybe it's time to go keyboard shopping. Before the e stops working altogether. And me needing to edit Shaker 4 before Mr. Deadline breaks down the door and lets me know time's up.

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I'm having troubles with more than the keyboard. The internet keeps freezing up. Or actually "not responding." Do you think the Lord gave us computers because He wanted us to learn patience? Or how to handle irritation and overcome frustration? Or learn to write without using the letter e? That would take some creative thinking. In this paragraph alone there are 34 e's. If I didn't skip over a few when I did my count.

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I'm not frustrated over my book, The Seeker, landing in people's mailboxes this week and pushing their way out onto the store shelves. We decided to stay with the July 2 book launch at Corinth Parable Bookstores even though people are already picking up the book. The store may offer hotdogs to bring people in. Free food is always an enticement. Plus I'll be talking about how I wore out a keyboard writing about Shakers. Some of you might want to hear that while you're chowing down. We usually have a fun question and answer time after I talk a little about writing. That's always my favorite part of any talk. I like trying to come up with answers. Maybe that's why I like writing. The challenge of coming up with answers about what my characters are going to do next.

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Questions, anyone?

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P.S. Don't forget to send me a message to throw your name in the hat for a free autographed copy of The Seeker if you haven't done so. Two winners so far - Charmaine and Shirley. If you've already entered, you don't have to enter again to be in the drawings. The names stay in until I've done all the promised drawings. Check out my website for details.