Hitting the Send Key

I just sent off my new Shaker book to my agent and my editor before my deadline tomorrow, July 1. It's a good thing I had a deadline on this one or I'd probably still be dragging my feet and trying to figure out what happened next in the story. I had to really push myself to get Lacey's story told and say a few prayers for inspiration.

The truth is I feel that way on nearly every book I write. There comes a place in the middle where things just bog down and I find myself in the doldrums. I've always liked that word - doldrums. Doesn't it just look and sound like what it is? But on the other hand, I don't like finding myself in the doldrums when I'm writing. That's when you have to start puffing at the sails, praying up some wind or dipping your oars in the water to push your boat (story) to a better place on the sea of storytelling.

I did huff and puff and pray and row through the doldrums to get my story told and I'm hoping I got it told in an entertaining way. But with Mr. Deadline almost ready to knock on my door, I didn't have quite as much time to work it over as I usually like to have. I wanted to read it over one more time before I hit that send button, but then again I always want to read over whatever I'm working on one more time. I want to catch every mistake, change every awkward bit of phrasing, make it perfect. And I can't. I'm not perfect. I will never be perfect. There will always be one more word that I could change to bring the action more to life or that will smooth the writing. Always. I have to be satisfied with making my writing as near to perfect as I can. And face the facts that while smooth writing is certainly good, the story is more important. Tell a great story and the writing can be fixed. So of course I want to do both. Tell a great story and make my writing smooth at the same time. It's good to have goals.

I've always set myself goals even when I wasn't fortunate enough to have Mr. Deadline marching toward my door. In those days I had to set my own deadlines with hope that an editor somewhere might eventually like my story. But I did have my own deadlines that I usually missed by a few months because I always thought I'd have more writing time than I ever actually did. Still it was good to have those self-imposed deadlines so that I could stay focused on finishing and moving forward with my writing. You can talk about writing and think you want to write more than anything in the world but until you put your fingers on the keyboard or pick up a pen or pencil, no writing gets done. So thinking about when I wanted to have a project finished helped me stay motivated to dig those words out of my head.

And so I've hit the send key on a new book. That's a lot different than it used to be when I typed everything and then carried it to a copy shop to make a copy. I was the pits at doing carbons. Not a good enough typist for that. Word processors have made my fingers even lazier, but now I just have to be a good proofreader. So then after I paid the what to me was an exorbitant amount per page for copying my manuscript, I bundled it all up and took it to the post office. Now I hit a send key and off it goes. Sometimes that's almost scary easy. You just know that somewhere in that manuscript there's a glaring mistake you forgot to change but the send key has been hit. You can't call it back. You just have to sit back and wait. A nervous time for a writer like me.

At least I can hear the good things readers are saying about The Seeker, and having The Seeker out on the market is proof that I did it before. Maybe the magic will happen again with this new book I just sent in.

My first book launch is Friday night hosted by Corinth Parable Bookstore in Frankfort, KY. If you're in the area, come by and say hello and tell me what you like to read. Thanks for reading and I really appreciate those of you who follow this blog and your encouraging comments.

Sleeping in a Barn - Almost

Well, it's not as big as barn, but it is pretty airy. My in-the-process-of-being-remodeled house, that is. I've got holes in the wall, remember. Big holes. And a new basement garage door that isn't hooked up to the electricity and won't stay down without a plank holding it there. And a new heat pump that is saving me big bucks on electricity because the duct work is in various stages of completion so it's not hooked up. My new front door lacks a window glass and my old front door has a three inch crack at the bottom. Like I said, airy. Like a barn.


Up till last night, the Kentucky weather had been cooperating with nice warm days and nights that didn't get all that cool. Things were fine. I could put up with the occasional gallinipper or big old fly that made it into the house. The dust from sawing out the plaster wall openings was thick enough to write a sonnet in, but at least it covered the dust already there. I did finally find my tea this morning in the boxes of stuff that I had to empty out of the cabinets, so I was good.


Good but chilly. And tonight is supposed to get even cooler. The weathermen are saying a possibility of scattered frost in places. Now frost outside is bad enough this time of the year, but frost on my hair sticking out of the covers is a whole different matter. Guess I'd better pull out the extra blankets.


Actually when I was a kid, I slept in a bedroom that received only a whiff of heat from time to time from the woodstove downstairs. I burrowed down in the featherbed and slept like a log. Woke up quick in the morning too when I had to put my feet out on that cold floor to get ready for school. You notice I didn't say bare feet. I had enough sense to wear socks to bed! But I guess I've gotten spoiled since then. Now my feet hit the nice warm carpet and the house is warm. At least it used to be before we decided to knock holes in our walls.


The new room is going to be great though. I'm enjoying it already and it's just walls and windows and roof. With lots of fresh air holes.


It was quiet here this weekend. Darrell was off singing up in Ohio somewhere. Nobody here but me and my computer. I'd hoped to really make a run on the new book, but naturally I hit a stubborn spot and the words came slowly. I did get past that spot, but there'll be more. I've got to get a year to pass in a couple of chapters. How about I say, And then it was fall. It snowed in the winter and warmed up in the spring and the Shakers enjoyed every season. Somehow I don't think that's going to work. But I've got to get something to work and soon.


I can see the end. I just haven't figured out how I'm going to get there without writing too many words. Sometimes I get too wordy. I'm sure none of you are surprised by that after you've read these blog entries. Hope you'll stick with me.


Oh yeah, and don't forget to post a comment or send an e-mail if you want to be in my book giveaway contest. I'll be drawing for a winner in a couple of weeks. I'm giving away an autographed copy of Virginia Smith's newest Sister to Sister book, Age before Beauty and a copy of my book, Summer of Joy. Then in June I'll start some giveaways for my new Shaker book, The Believer, due out in August. I had great news about it last week. It's going to get a spot in Wal-Mart's New Releases section. Who knows? My Wal-Mart here in town might even carry a copy. I've been told they've had it at times, but I've never seen it there. Maybe I don't shop at Wal-Mart enough. Truth is, I'd rather shop for books at a bookstore. Corinth Christian Bookstore in Frankfort has been kind to carry my books and let me do book launches in their store. We're hoping to do something special for the new book, The Believer. If we get it organized, I'll let you know what and when so that if you live close enough you can come be part of the fun.


Can you believe it? My mouse just quit working on this computer. Somedays are just like this, I guess. I'm hoping it'll wake up so I can get this posted. How do you wake up a mouse? Maybe you wave cheese under his nose. I'll bet you can come up with better lines than that, but I don't think cheese or anything else is going to work with this mouse.

P.S. I pounded on it and pleaded with it, but it wouldn't wake up. Just had to go find a new mouse.

The Joys of Mud

Spring is a great time for mud and since we're adding on a room that required some digging, we've got plenty of mud to go around. My grandkids are loving it. They like sitting up on the dirt piles digging for treasure. Who knows what might be under the very next dirt clod? Gold maybe. Well, not likely. More likely at best a geode with a shiny middle or at worst, another dirt clod just like the one on top. But the kids don't care.

They came out last weekend. It was warm and so the creek down below the house drew them like ants to sugar. Of course it didn't take long before the mud was spattered all over all of us. The seven-year-old who is very neat by nature took off her shoes and plopped her feet right down in the muddy creek and let the mud squish up between her toes. You remember doing that, don't you? Nothing quite like cool mud wrapping around your feet like socks and the sucking sound your foot makes when you lift it out of the mud. Of course the nine year old boy, well he was in kid heaven trying to catch tadpoles in the pond and dig new channels in the creek mud with a stick. Then the new dog, Oscar, knocked the two year old in the mud. She didn't think that was fun at all. Guess she's not quite old enough for some of the joys of mud.

The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful. - E.E. Cummings, American poet, 1894-1962

So that got me to thinking about mud. When I was a kid one of our favorite things to do was make mud pies. Do kids do that any more? My sister and I had our own little outdoor kitchen with pans and spoons fenced off from the chickens . And we had fun.

Mud-pies gratify one of our first and best instincts. So long as we are dirty, we are pure. - Charles Dudley Warner, American Editor and Author, 1839-1900

Of course other mud memories out on the farm aren't so pleasant. We used to have to go to the barn and try to step on rocks to keep the cow stomped barnyard mud from swallowing us whole. Well, maybe we wouldn't have really sunk to China, but I was never sure. If I happened to miss a rock and let my foot sink down in the mud sometimes I had to pull my foot out of my boot and balance on the other foot while I yanked my boot out of the mud. That mud was no fun at all. I didn't find a quote to quite go with that experience. I'll just let you picture a little girl half afraid of the cows, balancing precariously on a rock while tugging at a mud covered boot. And you've heard people talk about good clean mud. That mud wasn't good clean mud. It was very used and yucky mud. Made a girl learn balance, though.

And now to the muddy thoughts a writer can sometimes think. I like the idea behind this quote.

“Writing is like walking in a deserted street. Out of the dust in the street you make a mud pie.” - John LeCarre quotes (English Writer, b.1931)

I'm trying to stir up a lot of dust in that deserted street in my head right now so I can get that mudpie made. The new Shaker book is coming along, but there's lots of dusty street yet to walk down before the end comes in sight.

I hope some of you have had fun getting the excerpts of Summer of Joy from DearReader.com. It's fun getting the e-mails and reading along with you and wondering what you might be thinking about this or that section. It's a great way to sample a book and I'm hoping any readers sampling mine are going to want to read the "rest of the story." I'm ready to respond to any questions or comments readers might post of the Reader forum.

Don't forget my new book-giveaway. Send me an e-mail and I'll put your name in the hat for Virginia Smith's new Sister-to Sister book Age Before Beauty and my book Summer of Joy. No mud pies in my book, but I think Ginny's character does a mud pack on her face. Now that's something I've never done. No cucumber slices on the eyes or mud on the face - at least not in an attempt to make me more beautiful.

And remember the proverb "Don't pray for rain if you're going to complain about the mud."

A Story's Beginning and Dog Adventures

We had a cold few days around this neck of the woods last week. Got down to 3 below, but actually didn't feel all that bad because the wind didn't blow much and the sun was shining brightly. The next day when it was 20 something degrees, I actually got colder when I went walking. No sun that day and major wind.

We had an interesting week dogwise. My big chocolate lab decided to take a wander and was gone overnight. Turned up beside the parkway about a mile and a half away as the crow flies and six or so miles by car. Somebody had called the animal shelter about a chocolate lab being hit beside the road but said he was still moving. I had called earlier hunting Dub and so they called me. I said that can't be my dog. He wouldn't go that far. I guess I should never say never. We get in the car to go check it out and there's Dub laying up on the rise beside the parkway. I get out thinking, "Poor dog." And he stands up and wags his tail. He hadn't been hit. He'd just been doing his "stretch out and sleep in the sunshine" routine that has fooled others into calling me to ask if he was still breathing. So he comes down the hill wagging his tail and looking at me as if to say, "Good, my ride home is here." A neighborhood female is courting and even though Dub is supposed to be neutered, he's still twitter-pated and had followed her off. We gave her a ride home too along with the other two neighborhood dogs that were with her. You should have seen us trying to get those dogs in our van and shut the door without any of them escaping. All while the traffic was whizzing by. We would have gotten our time on Funniest Videos for sure. Anyway, Dub's been confined to the house ever since. He's hating that - being inside in the warm - getting lots of attention. I'll never keep him on the farm after he's found out the perks of running off!!!

I've begun my next Shaker book. My deadline is looming out there and getting me worried so I'm back to the 'make your fingers touch the keyboard and crank out some pages every day and hope the words make sense' mode. I think maybe the hardest thing about writing a book is the beginning. At least I think that until I get about a hundred pages in and then I think the hardest thing about writing a book is trusting my story through the middle. So far the endings of any of my stories haven't put me into a panic but there's always the first time for everything. I like my new characters, but I would have liked to have had a few more months to absorb some more history. I want to be true to the time of the story and get the atmosphere right.

The hard thing about writing a book in half the time it usually takes me is all the other things going on at the same time. Just because I'm writing a book doesn't mean the laundry doesn't need doing or the grandkids don't need visiting (they don't stay young long) or the dog doesn't need chasing or I could name a hundred things that can get in the way. Even writing stuff can get in the way of getting a new book out of my head onto paper or the computer. I'll be getting the pages of The Believer soon and have to do edits, etc. I want to make more personal appearances and bookstore visits. I want to do more research reading. I want to keep writing my blog. I need to go to the Shaker Village and walk around and let the buildings speak to me.

I've always thought I ought to be able to do it all, but sometimes I can't. And ouch! It's hard to admit that to myself. What I need to remember is that I have the time the Lord has given me and ask Him to help me use it wisely and well. And not to spin in place worrying about doing this or that. Just do it! Five pages a day. I can do that. Lots of writers spill out many more words a day than that. But you know, none of us are 'lots of writers.' We are unique individual writers with our own abilities and talents, and we have to figure out what works best for us. Not what works best for those other writers. And if the five pages I write aren't the right words, then I can work them over the next day and keep trucking.

Now I'd better go see about my dog, Dub. You know, make sure he's comfy and has plenty of fresh water and a nice warm bed. That dog thinks he's hit the jackpot for sure.

I hope you all have great weeks and stay warm while you're reading (or writing) some great stories. Enjoy!