Grandma Camp and Book Clubs

Did you ever go to "grandma" camp? That's what I call it when the grandkids come to spend a few days. We don't worry too much about anything except food on the table at mealtimes, having plenty of Popsicles and doing something fun. One of the things we did with them this year was go fishing. I think my son had taken his twin boys fishing already but without fishing success. We picked the right day, the right pond, and the right bait. I don't do the fishing stuff. That's their Pa's expertise. But I went along to enjoy seeing them and to make sure nothing but fish got hooked or fell in the water or ... well, you know the drill. 

Thank goodness my other son was along to help with taking hooks out of the fish. They were catching and releasing, and as my son told his wife when she came, they weren't fishing they were "catching." Seven kids fishing and seven kids caught fish. Even my granddaughter who freaks at the sight of a bug, was putting worms on hooks and pulling fish out of the pond. I was amazed. But just take a look at this little guy's face when he looked at the big fish he pulled in. He told everybody after that about his "big mouth bass." 

They had fun. Grandma and Pa got tired but enjoyed getting to spend time with the kids. It was a rough week for us. Losing my mom last Saturday and her funeral this week. We had already planned the kids coming to stay while my son and his wife went on a business trip. Having the kids kept me hopping and didn't leave much time for thinking. That will come. I'll miss seeing Mom and hugging Mom, but she was ready to move on to glory. 

Another thing already planned was a visit to the Lexington Senior Citizen Book Club. I love book clubs and I like it when I'm able to visit with the club. This was a great group of readers. They read my book, Scent of Lilacs. (By the way, it's still a free download if you haven't grabbed it for your e-reader yet.) They had some great comments and then tried to stump me with questions about Hollyhill and Jocie and friends. It's always interesting to hear what other people think about the stories that I write. Are you part of a book club? I'd love to hear from you if you are. 

And it will be fun to know what memories you have of "grandma" camps when you were a kid or maybe you're the grandma making fun sleepovers for your grandkids. Share a story if you want. I love getting your comments here too.

Wednesday I may come up with another mystery picture contest. Meanwhile, if you're a member of the Book Club Network, you can come check out Revell Books giveaway there. 5 copies of Love Comes Home and 5 copies of several other authors' books too. Revell's Facebook page featured Love Comes Home on their Fiction Friday. If you see this before 10:30 a.m. Monday you can still hop over to their page and leave a comment to be in that drawing. 

Thanks for dropping by and don't forget to tell me about your memories of "grandma" camp.

Fun Book Event

It's Sunday night and my book event this afternoon at the Anderson County Library went great. Thanks to all of you reading friends and family who came out to hear me talk about writing about the Sixties in Small Town, America. In my case, that's Lawrenceburg.

When I decided to re-invent myself as a writer for the third or maybe it was the fourth time, I went back to basics and tried to write about something I knew really well. That turned out to be growing up in a small town back in the Sixties. A lot of the people who came to my book party today had already read some of my Hollyhill books so they knew that I had used how Lawrenceburg looked back then as the model for the town in the books, Hollyhill. I told them I had to change the name of the town because the Lawrenceburg Series just doesn't have the same ring as the Hollyhill Series.

I think my Lawrenceburg readers enjoy trying to figure out if I based my characters on any specific persons, but I never do that except for maybe a minor character here and there. Still, as I told them today, writers take what they discover about everyone they meet along with what they know or feel about themselves and put it in a stew pot on a little stove in the back of their head that's warmed by their creative fires. From those combined and cooked together characteristics come all our characters. This character might have somebody's ill temper or sunny smile while that one might have somebody else's fear of spiders or love of lilacs. I always feel as if my characters are totally a product of my imagination, but yet at the same time they become real enough to me that I sometimes think it might be nice if they would come by and have a cup of tea with me. Of course I wouldn't invite the rude or mean characters in to stay long. At least not until they changed their ways or gave me some new plot ideas.

But back to my book party. I do appreciate everyone who came. I love to talk about writing and about my books. Oh, let's face it. I just love to talk. And I love getting to know people. You know, so I can add all their fun characteristics to my pot of character stew for another book down the road. I gave away a lot of doorprizes and we played some just for fun Sixties Trivia. We focused in on some Lawrenceburg things, but we also talked about the Beatles and going to the moon. While some of the people there couldn't exactly remember about the Sixties since they hadn't discovered America by then. You know - been born. And some others of them were mere babies. But there were plenty of the rest of us who have been around a few decades and we had fun doing some remembering. Do you know what year the Beatles were first of the Ed Sullivan Show? What did the first man on the moon say? Stuff like that.

I've got a busy week ahead with a church workday Monday and my granddaughter in WV having a big fifth birthday. She was born on tax day, so her birthday is easy to remember. Then this weekend I'll be going to the Southern Kentucky Book Fest in Bowling Green, Kentucky. If you live in the area and make it to the Book Fair on Saturday, please come by to say hi. I'll be on a panel about My Old Kentucky Home Revisited; Novels about Kentucky at 1 p.m. on Saturday. Janna McMahan and Laura Benedict will also be on the panel. That's sure to be fun. I was on a panel with Janna in South Carolina. She's a great writer. I haven't met Laura yet, so I'm looking forward to that. You can check out other authors there on their website www.sokybookfest.org. Harlan Coben and Mitch Albom are their headline authors. So come enjoy a fun day of books.

May you have a blessed week.