A Writer's Voice

I did an internet radio program this afternoon with Ivy on Dottin' the i. She has regular interviews with writers of inspirational books, both fiction and nonfiction. This is the second time I've been a guest on her show, but this is the first time I've had the nerve to listen to the show. Here's the link in case you'd like to go back and listen. Dottin' the i. All the interviews are archived there, so you can probably poke around and find out about a lot of interesting writers. Today she was interviewing me about my book, Summer of Joy and my inspiration for writing the Heart of Hollyhill books. We talked about the Sixties and Jocie and Wes and small towns. She also asked how I was able to include the faith moments along with the story. I told her that I like that to be a natural part of the story. 

Anyway, I've never particularly liked hearing my voice. The first time I heard myself on a recorder in high school, I thought I might take a vow of silence. That lasted maybe five minutes and then I started talking again. Since then, I've gotten more used to hearing my voice, but I'm still a little surprised each time. Somehow my voice sounds different inside my head. But today wasn't so bad when I listened to the program. I didn't stumble around searching for what I wanted to say but once or twice and didn't say "umm" or "uh." Several years ago a morning radio program ran a contest where callers could win a prize if they called into the show and were able to talk for thirty seconds without saying uh. Hardly any caller could do that. So at least I made it thirty seconds without saying uh. At least, I think I did.
 
I've done a few storytelling videos to post on my Facebook page and my friends have said I sound fine. I still think I could sound better. I'm trying to post one of the videos here, but it's not working and it's getting late. Sometimes technology won't cooperate with me and my ideas.

But you know there's another kind of voice that a writer has to consider. Each writer has an individual "voice" that comes through in his or her writings. That voice can be as unique as a person's fingerprints. If you've read a few books by the same author then you might be able to recognize that author's work without seeing a by-line. The hardest question I'm sometimes asked is what other authors do I think write in the same way I do. I don't know. I want us all to be different. I want to have my own voice and not be like anyone else. 

"The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and dance and live as only you can." (Neil Gaiman)

So enjoy your voice and your stories. And thank you for reading mine. 

You can read about how I developed my voice and got the inspiration for my Hollyhill books at Finding Hope Through Fiction and you have one more day to leave a comment at The Book Club Network to be in the drawing for a copy of Summer of Joy. Plus, you've got a few more days to enter the giveaway on http://bit.ly/1eROuiu to win that copy of Summer of Joy.

Meeting a Character in Person

Readers make Blogging Fun

One of the best things about blogging is getting to know you readers through your comments. You are such an encouraging community for me. Writers spend a lot of time in "solitary confinement" while digging stories out of their heads. Of course, we're not totally alone. We have all those characters yanking on our imaginations trying to get our attention. 


Conflict Makes a Story

Sunday I wrote about how life can be messy even for fictional characters. I guess in stories, life has to be a little messy because if there's no problem, there's no story. Got to have conflict. Got to have something your characters are trying to defeat or achieve or perhaps simply survive. Once a writer decides what that conflict is going to be, then to make a story really good, the writer needs to keep making it harder and harder for the character to reach whatever goal is out there for him or her. You've got to throw some boulders in his way. That's true even if the story isn't suspense or mystery. In romance, the characters have to overcome whatever obstacles stand in the way of love. In my work in progress, I'm a little worried I have set up some obstacles too big for love to come calling. That's the trouble with writing books set in my Shaker village. The Shakers took many pains to eliminate romance from their society. 

An Encouraging Comment

But back to your encouraging comments. I got one of those Sunday from Lisa. I shared it on my Facebook page on Mailbag Tuesday, but one thing she said set off an idea for tonight's post. Here's her sentence. "We even said if we met one of your characters on the street, we think we would recognize them!"

That's a really nice compliment. It sounds fun to think about meeting my characters. I know I'd be ready to listen to some Jupiter stories from Wes the way Jocie does in the Heart of Hollyhill books. And it wouldn't be so bad to sit in Mount Pleasant Church and hear her dad preach a sermon or two or be there for a Christmas program with Miss Sally directing. Of course, I do sit in a little church on Sundays that is a whole lot like the Mount Pleasant Church. 

Meeting a Character in Real Life

But once, I did meet one of my characters - not on the street but in a restaurant - and I knew her at once. We were in one of those buffet restaurants (my husband's favorite eating places) and in walked Fern. If you've read my Rosey Corner books (Angel Sister and Small Town Girl) you know Fern. She's also hanging around for a big role in my third Rosey Corner book coming in July, Love Comes Home. But in case you haven't read one of the Rosey Corner books, here's the first time we actually see Fern in Angel Sister.

The skin on Fern's face was weathered and mottled with broken red veins on her high cheekbones, and her steel gray hair looked for all the world as if it was trying to escape from her scalp. The blue of her eyes had faded like old work jeans and had an unfocused, almost feral look. She wore a pair of overalls with big holes in the knees she'd probably stolen off somebody's clothesline years ago. Under the overalls was a dirty white slip. She didn't carry any extra weight, but she'd long ago lost her delicate look. She spent her days cutting cedars now to make her cedar houses instead of sipping tea and doing needlework. 

And so, I was in that restaurant eating lunch a couple of years ago when in walks Fern. She had on overalls over a flannel shirt instead of a slip. Her hair was that steel gray and she didn't look as if she cared whether it was combed or not. She was a little heavier than my fictional Fern and she didn't have the little axe Fern carried around with her. At least I don't think she did! 

The book had already been out a couple of years when I spotted this real life Fern, but it was an interesting experience to see somebody I'd created in my imagination have such a near double in real life. That was before I had a phone that took pictures so I couldn't even sneak a picture of her. I might have been afraid to anyway. My Fern in Rosey Corner is nobody to mess with. And that real life Fern looked the same. 

Invite a Character to Lunch?

So, have you read stories where you think you might like to meet the characters on the street or maybe invite them home for lunch to find out pieces of their stories that might not have been in the book?

Chances to Win Summer of Joy

In case you missed out on winning Summer of Joy in my recent giveaways, you've got some more chances this week. You can check out my guest post "Chasing the Writing Dream through Rejection Valley and Beyond" and leave a comment on Charity's Giveaway Lady blog for a chance to win. Deadline the April 9. Then if you're a Book Club Network participant, Revell Books is giving away 5 copies of Summer of Joy. You just have to answer one of my easy questions on the The Book Club Network page. Dealine to enter 03/31. I'll also be a guest post Thursday on Nora's blog Finding Hope through Fiction where I talk all about my small town inspiration for Hollyhill. Last I'm doing a interview about dreaming on Betty Owens' blog Thursday. 

As always, thanks for reading!! 

Joy, Happiness and Just Plain Fun

Fun with Mystery Photos

I hope you've been having fun with my mystery photos.Wednesday's photo stumped most of you. Maybe because it was sort of fuzzy after I snipped out the little bit to try to trick you. Take one last guess and then look down a few paragraphs to see the "rest of the picture." 
 


A New Photo to Guess
 
Here's a new photo bit to guess. This one might be easier for you all. But whether you get the guess right or wrong, you still get another entry in the giveaway to increase your chances of being a winner in my book giveaway. I'm picking two winners who will get one of my books and a grab bag book of a different Christian writer. 

Joy and Happiness

Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give. (Eleanor Roosevelt)


What makes us happy? Is happiness the same as joy?The dictionary says joy is a feeling of great pleasure and happiness. You know that kind of feeling you have when the person you love says they love you too. Or when you hold your first grandchild. Or when you see a flash of a bluebird's wings. Or a crocus bursting out of the ground at the end of a long winter. Or when you're singing your favorite hymn and the words are just as meaningful on the hundredth sing through as the first. Or when you get the news that something you wrote is finally going to be published. 

Joy! It sings in your heart. Makes you smile when you are all alone. Makes your feet feel like dancing. Sometimes you feel so joyful you have to release some of the sparkle of joy into the air by moving. You might clap your hands, twirl around, 
jump in the air or do cartwheels. Joy can explode. 

Summer of Joy

That's the kind of feeling I wanted readers to think about when they saw the title of my third Heart of Hollyhill book. I originally titled the story Sunflowers of Joy. No real reason except I love sunflowers and I wanted that joy to make an appearance in the story. But the publishers tweaked the title a little and came up with Summer of Joy. I like that title too although most of the story happens in the winter and spring. Even so, the title invites us to think about a summer full of joy. And that sounds fabulous. 


The Rest of the Picture
 
Oh, yeah, and see those little records. That's the mystery picture from Wednesday. Amy guessed records among other things and Linda guessed it was from the cover of Orchard of Hope, but she may have meant Summer of Joy and had the titles mixed up. Thanks for all the guesses. Now it's time to guess again. One more chance to get your name in the drawing hat and to have some fun. At least, it's fun for me! 

Joy 

Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are. (Marianne Williamson)

Mystery Photo Contest - New Chance to Win

You know I just remembered last week that I've celebrated every Hollyhill book with a giveaway involving a mystery photo. So I can't let the re-release of Summer of Joy slide by without some of the same kind of fun. So here's mystery photo number 1. I'll post another one or maybe two on Sunday. If you want to be in the running for the prize of one of my Heart of Hollyhill books and a book by another Christian author (How about a choice between a Dani Pettrey book or a Julie Klassen book?), just leave a guess or a comment saying you have no idea. Either will work as an entry. Each new mystery photo I post will give you the chance to guess again and get another entry into giveaway.

Last time I did this, you guys were great at guessing. So since some of you are so smart, it will be more fun for everybody if you guess first and read the comments second. No fair changing your guess then! :) We'll play this mystery photo game for a couple of weeks, so the deadline for entries (comments on one of my blog posts) will be March 18. You have to be eighteen to enter, and please do remember to leave a way to contact you. I had several entries in my last blog contest that didn't leave a way to send them a message.

I've heard from all my winners (Jocie still hasn't heard from the winner on the Heart of Hollyhill blog) and will be sending out the prizes by the end of the week. I also got a couple of great ideas for what I can ask for my Love Comes Home Celebration coming up in June. But first I'll have to come up with prizes.

I'm going to do a Book Talk at the Casey County Public Library Thursday, March 6. If you're in the area, come on out and we'll talk books together. I love libraries. I owe a lot of my writing success to libraries. First, the books I was able to check out when I was a kid fed my love of stories. I would have never been able to read so much without those weekly trips to the library. Second, when I started writing, the library was a gold mine of resources both about writing and about the historical events I wrapped my stories around. There was no internet then. If you wanted to know something, you went to the library and looked it up. And I was blessed with the most helpful librarian ever, Ann McWilliams. She even made me appreciate my name more. Said she liked being plain Ann, and so I thought maybe I should too.

Libraries are no longer just books and card catalogs. Now there are banks of computers and movies and audio books and kids programs. I like that a library can supply so many resources for a community. At the same time, I don't visit the library as often as I used to. I have a huge stack of books waiting for me to have time to read them. I do some of my research on the computer and some from books I own. But I know the library is there when and if I come up with a different idea. Then I'll go search through the card catalog that is now on computer and carry home a pile of books.

Do you like libraries? Do you visit yours now or did you when you were a kid? 

Thanks for reading. Don't forget to guess the mystery photo and watch for another one on Sunday.

Dime Store Valentines and Cupcakes

"Be Mine, Valentine." 
"I Woof You." 
"You're purr-fect, Valentine!" 
"You're doggone cute." 
"We're heart to heart friends."

I know Valentine's Day is past and it's 50 weeks before it shows up again. The candy's gone. The roses have drooped their heads. The cards are beginning to look like clutter. The diamonds are probably still glittering in the rings and necklaces if jewelry was in your Valentine box. But I'm not ready to let Valentine's Day slide away just yet. I tied in Valentine's Day with my Summer of Joy Celebration Giveaway. Two more days until I draw the winners. I'll announce them here on Sunday if all goes according to plan. 

But first let's enjoy a few Valentine stories. I didn't have a great response with the Valentine stories the way I have with other fun stories you've shared. Grandmother stories. Best or worst gift stories. Christmas gifts remembered. Those are some of the stories I've asked for in contests in the past. And I got story after story and loved it. But when I asked for Valentine stories, they came in few and far between. I'm not going to say romance is missing. Instead I'm going to go along with the reader who said she had plenty of Valentine stories but they were private. But a few of you did offer up some stories and I enjoyed reading them all. I shared some of them already and thought I'd let you enjoy a couple more tonight. 

First let me say that I didn't expect all the stories to be about romantic love and they weren't. Linda shares some fun Valentine school day memories. 

"My valentine story involves memories from childhood. I grew up in a similar small town like Jocie. In elementary school we would decorate shoe boxes with a slit in the top and on Valentine's day we would go around our classroom putting little Valentines in each box. I don't remember if we had to do one for everyone in the classroom, but hopefully that's the way it was so there would be no hurt feelings. Also, someone's mom would make cupcakes for our afternoon snack. Back in the day, life seemed so much simpler because decorating the boxes came from our imagination and what we had on hand and the little Valentines came from the 'dime' store."

Oh yes, Linda, I remember those Valentine parties. I had some myself when I was in school, but I best remember being the room mother for my kids and helping with their Valentine parties. I was that mama who made the cupcakes even if I wasn't great at decorating them. During my years of room mothering, Valentine's  was always my favorite party of the year. The kids did decorate shoe boxes and they did have ten-cent store Valentines for each child in their classes. I kept my oldest son's Valentine box for years. He made it out of a boot box. Guess he was expecting a lot of Valentines. I thought I still had it, but when I went to search for it to take a picture, I couldn't find it. Isn't that the way of it? You keep something for years and then you finally talk yourself into getting rid of it and a year or two later, you miss it. :)

And here's a cute idea from Amy to make any holiday fun for your kids or grandkids if you like to cook. She shared this here on a different post, but if you're like me, you don't always read through the comments. And if you did read the comments, hope you don't mind a repeat.

"I don't necessarily have many really memorable Valentine's days. I guess I lead a boring life. I do remember my Mom always making a fun dessert for us, and I've tried to carry this tradition on with my family. One year I took it a step further and created a special restaurant for my family. I made up menus and let everyone choose from two different entrees, their choice of salads and side dishes and choice of desserts. The kids loved it and requested the same experience for Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas dinner that year."

And you know what? Someday when somebody asks them to remember a special Valentine's day, that might be the very one they remember. What fun! Hope my grandkids don't read this. They'll be after me to give it a try. Maybe we'll have a go at it this summer for an everyday party time.

What desserts would you want on your Valentine party menu? I'll take cherry cheesecake or strawberries on a slice of Angel Food cake. Yum!

Thanks for reading and remember, you can leave a comment to be in a special drawing for a Hollyhill book or your choice of one of my other books. That's true over on Jocie's Heart of Hollyhill blog too. She's sharing another excerpt from Summer of Joy all about Wes's story about Bug Juice and Jupiterian Fropples. Wes has some great Jupiter stories. But to be in the drawing there or here, you have to leave a comment with a way for me to get in touch with you should you win.  

Thanks for reading!

 







 

"A Book Worth Reading"

"If instead of a gem, or even a flower, we should cast the gift of a loving thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the angels give." ~George MacDonald

Sometimes an encouraging word can be a special gift. I got one of those today from a reader who was reading my book, Scent of Lilacs. She said she was enjoying the story and then she thanked me for writing "a book worth reading." What a very nice thing to tell an author! 

Of course, I hope all my books are worth reading. I want to write them so that those of you who read them can get to know and love my characters the way I do while I'm writing their stories. With my Heart of Hollyhill books, I had fun going back to the Sixties and populating my fictional town of Hollyhill with characters who might walk down the streets of any small town in the USA. I stayed with those characters through three books and never got tired of them, Scent of Lilacs, Orchard of Hope, and now coming back to stores very soon in its bright new cover, Summer of Joy. 

But there are special gifts that are things too. Not long ago I received that kind of gift from my daughter-in-law. She got e-copies of all my covers even the old ones from years ago before there were e-copies of anything and made me the framed poster, pictured above, to hang in my office. Isn't it great? And such a thoughtful gift of her time and effort as she came up with a perfect gift for me. A writer has a special place in her heart for the cover art of her published books. Those covers are something bright and real with the promise of the story inside. The cover of Summer of Joy in the poster is not the new cover, but it's good to have that first cover remembered too. I'm so fortunate to have loving daughters-in-law who have blessed me with some beautiful grandchildren and who also encourage me in my writing career. 

One Week to Get Your Entries In

The deadline for my Summer of Joy Celebration Giveaway is Friday, February 28th at midnight EST. You can enter by sending me an e-mail from my website or here by leaving a comment. Comments on my posts here also enter you in a special additional drawing for a copy of your choice of one of my recent books. I don't have extra copies of those long ago books. The contest rules and description of prizes for the Celebration Giveaway are on my News & Events Website Page. Here's two of the prizes, a cute little ring dish and a charm bracelet with encouraging words all around. Plus those books that I do hope you will think are "worth reading." 

I also have that extra contest for people who say they "never win." I've gotten very few entries in that so maybe most of you are already winners. But one of you who tells me you never win is going to get a book and a box of chocolates. 

Remember, if you leave a comment here, you have to include a way for me to get in touch. A couple of you have commented without your contact information or even a name. If you don't want to leave that information in a comment here, feel free to e-mail me at annhgabhart(at)yahoo(dot)com or message me on my Facebook page. I know sometimes the comment feature on blogs can be a pain. Besides, you might enjoy joining in the conversation on my FB page. Some of my friends there enjoy my weekly features of Friday smiles, Throwback Thursdays, Shaker Wednesday, and Sunday Morning coming down.

A Book Worth Reading

That's what we all want when we're reading, don't we? A story that keeps us turning pages to find out what happens next. A story that we can be glad we read when we do turn that last page. A book that doesn't disappoint. Not every reader who picks up my books agree that my stories are worth reading, but I'm glad for those of you who do. And I will keep looking for the right words to fill the pages to make the stories you can enjoy. 

Thanks for reading!  

When 45 Records Ruled and the Beatles were New

 Fifty years ago Beatlemania hit America. When I look back on it now, you might wonder why that song "I Want to Hold Your Hand" took the country by storm. The Beatles were already hitting the music scene in England, but here in America, the record companies were reluctant to put out their songs. Maybe because those songs were so different. But then their popularity kept growing and Capital Records rushed out a release of the song. In the first three days after it was released, it sold a quarter million records. Many adults wondered why, but kids when crazy for it. Radio DJs played it over and over. The song was just so different from the other songs at that time. 

The Beatles were just so different. They were crazy young, energetic, willing to do things no singing group had done. Bob Dylan caught the reason why when talking about the Beatles popularity. He said, "They were doing things nobody was doing. Their chords were outrageous, just outrageous, and their harmonies made it all valid." Outrageous is a great way to describe them at that time.

The lyrics of their early songs were super simple. They sounded like songs a teenage boy would sing. They became songs lots of teenagers sang along with the records. The Beatles first big hit in England was "Love Me Do." That became their second number one hit in the America. And a lot of older people wondered why. Cynthia Lowery of The Associate Press expressed the feelings of many critics and adults. "Heaven knows, we've heard them enough. It has been impossible to get a radio weather bulletin or time signal without running into 'I Want to Hold Your Hand.'" 

I remember being one of the kids who sang along. The Beatles never made me swoon or scream. I wasn't that into being a fan of any singer. I was busy scribbling in my notebooks at that time. But I do remember thinking they were fun. They made music fun. I didn't spend my money on 45s. I had to buy film for my camera and ink for my pen. But my sister bought a lot of the popular records and so I got to listen to them anyway. I don't remember for sure, but I think a 45 single cost about a dollar. We had a record player where you could stack on the records, and it dropped the records down one at a time. That was jukebox time in the restaurants too, but my family didn't spend any time in restaurants. We ate at home. When I started dating, we'd go to drive-in restaurants and the music would be piped outside. And then I got married way too young, and pop music moved way down the list of my priorities. 

Things change, don't they? Kids grab onto music the older generation hates. The interesting thing about that is the older generation did the same when they were kids. Kids now do the same. Each generation has its defining music. The Sixties certainly was a time of music upheaval. And you might say The Beatles ushered in a lot of that upheaval. We'd had Elvis, but now we had groups that harmonized on silly lyrics and jumped around and exploded with energy. They were just so young and they made us celebrate being young too.

That's how Jocie is in my Heart of Hollyhill series. Here's the new cover for her book, Summer of Joy. On the cover, she's trying out some of the 45s in Leigh's apartment. Maybe even the song "I Want to Hold Your Hand." Right now you can throw your name in the hat on Goodreads for the chance to win a copy of Summer of Joy. Just click Goodreads Giveaway. Plus, I'm coming up with prizes for my own celebration giveaway coming soon. Watch for my newsletter next week with details. If you aren't signed up for my occasional newsletter, it's easy to do. Just click here, Ann's newsletter, and enter your name and e-mail. I promise never to share that with anyone. I'll post details here too and on my website News and Events page.

And if you're old enough, tell me what you remember about when 45 records ruled. And if you aren't that old, tell me what you think about the Beatles. You might know more about those older Beatles, but it's those young teen Beatles with the shaggy haircuts adults at the time hated that I'm remembering today.

Sneak Peek at Love Comes Home

I usually hold off on putting the cover of my books out here on the net until closer to time for them to actually be on the shelf, but I'm giving you a sneak peek at Love Comes Home since I've been working on edits for it all week. The release date isn't until summer, July 1, 2014 to be exact. So do you like it? What do you think?

I think you're going to like visiting Rosey Corner again. At least I hope so. The Merritt sisters have a lot going on in their lives. While I've struggled with untangling some knotty writing in a paragraph here and there, I have enjoyed going back to Rosey Corner myself to live the story with my characters again as I'm editing. I got to hear some more of Aunt Hattie's prayers and homespun wisdom. I got to witness Graham doing some more matchmaking. I got to walk in the woods with Fern and that is always interesting! I teared up when the boys were welcomed home from the war by their loved ones. I went with Lorena to find out the "rest of her story." And more. Lots more. The book is already available for pre-sale on Amazon.

But while I was enjoying the story again, I was also reading the editor's comments on how to make my writing better. The surprising thing was I never thought the editor was off-base with her suggestions on how to make the story read better. Sometimes a writer can struggle with edits, and not see the need for the suggested changes. But this time when my editor noted a little muddy writing, I could see that I hadn't been clear enough. When she said I'd used the same words too often or too close together in a paragraph, she was right. Sometimes "echo" words are okay. Sometimes they're not. (Note my "I got to" echoes in the paragraph above.) Perhaps I was okay with her comments because she didn't ask for a lot of changes.There was one place where I had to shift the scene a bit, but the rest were fairly easy changes. Of course, there was that one knotty paragraph that I spent hours on and I'm still not sure I've got it right. I'll have to go back and read it again before I hit the send button to turn it in to the editor. 

These were the first copy edits where I could make as many changes as I thought were needed. So whenever my reader's eye stumbled over a phrase or sentence, I worked it over to try to make the reading smoother. The intent of careful editing is to make the words disappear so the story can play like a movie in the reader's mind. A clunky sentence or a bad transition between scenes can jerk a reader away from the "movie" and make her remember she's reading words. That's not good! I want to keep the magic of the story alive in the reader's imagination. I'll get another chance to edit, but then the book will be almost ready to go and any editing changes will need to be minor.  

So now how would you like a sneak peek at a new Rosey Corner character? Clay Weber. I'm hoping you said yes, because here's a bit of a scene from Clay's point of view as he thinks about finding a way to capture the affections of the girl he loves even though she shows no sign of wanting his love. 

    He [Clay] might not be the handsomest guy in the room. But he knew how to stick to something and get it done if it was worth doing.

    Working a farm taught a man that. Every year that a man plowed a field, more rocks rose up out of the dirt to be hauled away. Weeds kept sprouting no matter how many calluses a man got plying his hoe. Horses went lame. Machinery broke down. Cows went dry and hawks swooped out of the sky to steal the chickens. The ground didn’t give up its yield without a man watering it with plenty of sweat. But just because something was hard didn’t mean it wasn’t worth doing.

So there you have a sneak peek at the cover and Clay. Now I'll push Love Comes Home back in line to wait its turn since I do have the re-release of my third Hollyhill book, Summer of Joy, coming out in March. I'll reveal that cover on Jocie's blog, Hollyhill Book of the Strange later this week. I'm gearing up to celebrate the last story in the Heart of Hollyhill series. In fact, there's a Goodreads giveaway opening up on it Tuesday, Feb. 4. Here's the Goodreads' giveaway link. And I'll be doing my own giveaway soon too. Stay tuned for that. 

Thanks for reading and I'd love to hear what you think about the cover of Love Comes Home. 

And the Rain Came Down

--We had our family reunion yesterday. In the rain. At my house. We've been doing this reunion of my mom's side of the family for almost thirty years. In that time we've been rained on three times. A pretty good record. Except that two of those times were the last two times I hosted the party. I told them yesterday I was never having the reunion at my house again. I think they knew I was kidding. Uh, I think I was kidding. I mean I love having company. That's one of the reasons we decided to build on our gathering room, but we built decks too. I was hoping to use those decks and the yard, but the rain poured down all day. When I went out to look at the rain guage this morning, it was all the way full. Six inches. Now I'm not sure if I'd emptied it after the last rain, so it might have had an inch already in there, but then I'm not sure how much ran over after the guage was full to the top. I am sure we had a lot of rain. And my cornhole game boards looked very lonely out in the yard. I got Darrell to give me the game several years ago and I drag it out whenever we have company and either the weather doesn't cooperate like yesterday or we're too busy chasing babies to play. Maybe next time.

--We did have a good time visiting with all the family. Our number was down because of the rain and people wondering if they might have to sit on top of each other at my house. Some of them didn't know about my new gathering room. So those who came were relieved to see my multiple couches and chairs. Even so, we could have used more room, but I'm not ready to knock any more walls down right now. We did miss my son and his family, but it's a long drive from WV with a car full of kids. Maybe next year when it's at somebody else's house and it's not raining like you're thinking maybe you didn't notice somebody building an ark in their backyard.

--Everybody I've heard from says they had a great time at the American Fiction Writers Conference in Denver. My book, Summer of Joy, that was one of five finalists for Book of the Year in the long contemporary category didn't win. Oh well. It was fun being a finalist and since I wasn't going to get to go, I had practice writing an acceptance speech for my agent to read - just in case. Maybe someday I'll get to celebrate a win, but right now I'll keep celebrating having the chance to win. Even better than that I'll keep celebrating every time I see one of my stories in book form ready to move out into the world and get picked up by readers. It was a lot of fun meeting some of those readers at the National Quartet Convention and having reading friends come by the Patriots' booth to talk to me. I'm sorry I couldn't be there on Friday and Saturday, but my daughter and son-in-law don't get home very often. So it was a great weekend for visiting.

--The picture up top is all the family who came. That's one of the requirements at our reunions. If you eat the meal, you gotta take the picture. You can see the wet floor of the deck. What you can't see is my son holding my dog, Dub's leash to keep him for getting in the picture with his cone protective collar on. He was bumping into everybody with that thing. My other dog, Oscar, is front and center trying to lick anybody who will hold a hand down to him. Or toes. My little five-month-old grandbaby, Raegan, loves the dogs and thought it was funny getting her toes licked. I'm the one in the coral pink shirt squatted down by Mom who's sitting in the front. I'll post a few more of the reunion pictures on my Facebook page.

--Hope if any of you are having family gatherings you enjoy the fun of keeping up family connections. And that it doesn't rain on your picnics!!

Book Talks and Dub's in Trouble Again

Here I am with the Butler County Librarian, Kenna, after my booktalk yesterday in Morgantown. I appreciated those who were able to come and hope they enjoyed hearing about how I started writing and kept on writing. Sometimes the kept on part is harder than the start part. But perseverance generally pays off and it has for me since I now have books to talk about to readers.

-I love libraries. I owe a lot of my own reading education to my hometown library and then when I started writing there was a wonderful librarian here in Anderson County named Ann McWilliams who always went out of her way to help me find whatever research material I needed for my historical novels. She was the best and in large part because of her energy and drive we have the beautiful library we have today that is dedicated to her memory. I was in our library this afternoon to return an audio book and the place was hopping. Almost every computer was busy and there were even some people looking at books. At the Butler County Library, Kenna says the inspirational fiction is very popular and that the library patrons are reading my books, too. That's always music to a writer's ears.

-Well, poor Dub is in doggie jail again. Not the pound this time, thank goodness. This time the doggie jail is our basement. And he's there through no real fault of his own. He has itching problems and in trying to scratch his itch, he did something to his ear that made it swell up. The vet had to cut it open and drain it out. So now the poor old dog has on one of those Elizabethian (or as someone else said satellite dish) collars and he's not a happy puppy. He keeps looking at me as if to ask why I'm torturing him like this. And it's also torture for him to be confined. He's a farm dog. He's used to being out there smelling all the smells and watching the deer eat the apples off the tree. He doesn't bother the deer. He just watches and hopes they'll leave one of the apples for him. He's going to have a long three weeks.

-Next week is going to be very busy around here. I've got another book talk on Tuesday. They'll have to be polite and listen to me that day since it's my birthday. (And by the way, that's the day I'm drawing for the winner of my giveaway - two books to some lucky winner for my birthday. So you've got one more day to put your name in the drawing.) But we're also going to be at the National Quartet Convention in Louisville every day. If you're there come by the Patriots' booth and say hello. Their booth is in aisle ten or eleven. It's more fun if people stop and talk and I'll have my books there if anybody wants my autograph. Then next Sunday I'm hosting my family reunion. My daughter and her husband are coming in and maybe my son and his family so I might get to see the WV grandbabies.

-On top of all that, this is the week they announce the winners of the ACFW books of the year in Denver. I'm not going to be in Denver, but I'll be represented there by my agent just in case the unexpected happens and they announce Summer of Joy as winner of the long contemporary novel category. That would really be neat. But it's already neat that my book was a finalist. I did really enjoy writing my Hollyhill books and it's a blessing that readers have taken my Hollyhill characters to heart and enjoyed those stories as well as my Shaker stories.

- Oh yeah, and today is Grandparents Day. One of the kids at church asked what treat I'd bought to recognize the grandparents the way we do the Moms and Dads on Mother's Day and Father's Day. I told her grandparents didn't need a treat. They already had the best treat anybody could have - grandkids. I put this quote in the church bulletin today. "What a bargan grandchildren are! We give them our loose change, and they give us a million dollars worth of pleasure!" I don't know who said it, but I know a lot of grandparents who might have. Hope if you're a grandparent you have fun with your grandkids this week or maybe if you have a grandparent you had fun with them.

The Dancing Room

Another Sunday. Another day to enjoy life. I had a lot of life to enjoy around here on Saturday with both sets of grandbabies (nine of them, but sometimes it seems like a dozen or more) here to give the new room a test run. Since I don't have any new furniture and only an entertainment center and side table and rocking chair out there, there was plenty of room for the grandkids to play. I sort of like the wide open spaces and they liked playing on that new hardwood floor. It looks great. And it looked even better with circles of grandkids playing with each other on it. Katie, my three and a half year old granddaughter, told me she wanted to go out and play in the "dancing room."

Maybe that's what Darrell and I should do tonight to celebrate his birthday. Dance in our new "dancing" room. Only trouble is neither one of us is much of a dancer. Even as a teenager when the twist and such dances were all the craze, I never had the nerve to actually try doing any of them anywhere except in the privacy of my own room. Too self-conscious at the time. Too awkward now. So we'll probably just celebrate without fanfare by thinking about how cute all our grandkids are while enjoying the peace and quiet now that they've gone home. I used to always make him a pecan pie, but now he's continually on some kind of diet. So it's not fair to cook something to tempt him off it. Guess I can wash some celery sticks for him. Or make him something sugar-free. Won't be good, but I could make it.

Anyway with my WV son and his family here Thursday to leave the twin boys and go on to Kings Island on Friday and my close-by son and his family coming over on Saturday to help celebrate Dad's birthday early, I ran out of writing time to find those elusive two words. I told everybody I was just going to say they (my characters) rode off into the sunset and lived happily ever after. The reader won't know how they got up on those horses to ride off or even when the sun started going down, but the story will be finished. Then my younger son said he hated books where it seemed like the writer did just that. Just ended without letting the reader in on what happened. But then he also said he hated just as much the writer who wrote an extra fifty pages after the characters should have ridden off into the sunset. I really don't want to be guilty of either thing. I want to nail the ending. Make it perfect.

Some of you know Darrell is in a gospel quartet, The Patriot Quartet, and you know it's that ending on a Southern Gospel song that really packs an emotional punch for the listeners. If a group can nail the ending, then the audience will sit up and notice. So I'm thinking the ending of a book is some the same. It has to be done right. It has to be emotionally satisfying. It has to come at the right time and make the reader nod and say, yes, that's what happened. And that's what I'm trying to do. What I've been trying to do for at least a week. Get to that perfect ending and nail it.

I think I've nailed a few endings in my stories in the past. I liked the way Summer of Joy ended with Wes and Jocie talking since their relationship had been such a fun part of all the Hollyhill books. The Outsider had a very dramatic ending. The Believer has an emotional ending that I hope will be satisfying to readers. And that's what I'm trying to find with this new book, The Seeker. The right ending. Tomorrow for sure. Even if I have to stay up all night. And then I'll have to do some fast editing. Gee, how did May and June zoom by so fast? Don't you think we need to put some speed limits on these summer days?

Hope all your days are speeding by with happiness in every mile. Talk to you Wednesday.

What to say? What to say?

I am giving a talk this Saturday to a bunch of delightful ladies at a tea. I haven't actually met but two or three of them, but I'm sure if they're coming to a tea they'll be delightful. It sounds like a fun thing to do. At least the tea part. I don't know about the listening to me part. Maybe the organizers won't tell them about that. Maybe they'll just advertise the tea cakes and cookies. You know how sometimes you have to get through something not all that great to get to the better part. I'm speaking first. So they have to listen to me, then enjoy the food. It's being held at one of the oldest churches in this area. A church even older than the one I go to and our church will be two hundred years old in three years. But Clear Creek Baptist Church in Woodford County has been around even longer.

So I'm looking forward to being there again. I've been in the church before with the guys (Patriot Qt) when they sang there. The church considers The Patriots practically a home group for them since they've sung there so often and the people support them with love and prayers. But they're not singing and don't worry. Neither am I. But I am talking, so I need to decide what I should talk about. I have twenty minutes. When I told somebody that (I've forgotten who which is good so I can't get mad at them), the smart alec said do you think you can just talk twenty minutes. As if they thought I'd talk all night. They won't have to worry about that. I'll want to get to the tea and cakes too.

But right now I just have to come up with what I'm talking about for twenty minutes. I want to say something inspiring and fun. I could give my "how I got to be a writer speech." Most people are interested in hearing about a writer's path to publication, but would that be inspiring? I think the lady in charge wanted inspiring. I could give my "Where in the story of Jonah are you?" speech, but I don't think this is the right place for that. Guess I'm at the beginning of the story of Jonah and saying I don't think I want to go to Ninevah on that one. I did a talk once about hands and how the Lord wants us to use them to help others. That went over well, but again it doesn't feel right.

Maybe I'll do like the old Regular Baptist preachers used to do and may still if those type of churches are still around. They didn't prepare sermons. They just opened the Bible and went to preaching. They called it grabbing onto heaven and holding on with their fingernails. They thought it presumptuous to prepare and showed lack of faith in the Lord to give them the message He wanted preached. I won't be able to do that. I'm a preparer. But I hope I will be open to what the Lord wants me to prepare. I think He can inspire you before the talk the same as during the talk. Of course the Bible does say the Holy Spirit will give you words to say when you're telling people about the Lord.

I'll probably end up combining something I hope will be inspiring and talk about my writing too. I'll try to keep it moving and watch my watch and talk just my twenty minutes or less so there will be a few minutes for questions and answers. That's always my favorite part of any talk. Of course the best questions come from first and second graders who have been told by the teacher to come up with a question to ask. You get some good ones then. Adults are usually too well mannered to ask those sort of questions, but you never know. This bunch of tea drinking ladies might surprise me with some doozies.

What is the worst or best question you've ever been asked? I guess a lot of people might say "Will you marry me?" is the best question, but there may be some who also say it could be the worst. I'm going to have to think about that in regard to writing questions. Maybe the hardest to answer is "What is your favorite book?"

And since we're talking about favorite books, I did my drawing for Summer of Joy by yours truly and Age Before Beauty by Virginia Smith and Bobbi from Kentucky is the winner. Bobbi has some great blogs and one of them is about books. You can check it out at Bobbi's Booknook, http://bobbisbooknook.blogspot.com. She reviews all sorts of books and has been kind enough to review a couple of mine in the past.

Thanks to all who entered the book giveaway in May. I'll be posting a new giveaway next week after I finish my work in progress. I'm going to give away a couple of copies of my new book, The Believer in June, July and August so there will be lots of chances to win. I'll give you details in the newsletter I plan to send out next week.

Think about me Saturday and pray that I won't put everybody to sleep. Maybe we should have coffee first. I'll tell you how it goes Sunday.

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 Sunday of Gifts

How long has it been since you gave yourself a gift? I gave myself a gift today - a gift of time. Of course the day already was a gift since we had our "we paid it off" celebration at church today. That gift was for our whole church family. And we had a great old fashioned country church dinner after an old fashioned straight from the Bible sermon and to make the day even more unique, we had an old fashioned barbershop quartet, The Light Brigade, singing some specials for us. They have a great sound that you can check out at their website, http://www.lightbrigade.com/. The lead singer, Terry Gabhart, is Darrell's cousin. Darrell has musically talented relatives on both sides of his family so it's no wonder he ended up a singer. So anyway, you can guess that our church is sort of old fashioned. In good ways, we hope.

That started the day out as a gift although I was running late this morning and then the quartet got lost. They were trying to use their GPS system and Terry kept saying "She's saying turn left" or whatever. I guess "she" hadn't ever been out on our backroads down around Goshen. If you don't know where you're going, you can lose your way down in that part of our county in a country road minute. I know. I've been lost down on those roads myself. Anyway he says, "We're lost." And I must have asked the stupid question of the year. I say, "Where are you?" Well, of course he doesn't know or he wouldn't be lost, would he? But on the other hand, how can I tell them how to get to the church if I don't know where they are? Finally he got back to the beginning turn off and I went out and led them in. We got there with a whole minute to spare, but the guys did a great job singing even without time to warm up and we were glad they persevered and kept looking for us.

So that was the first gift. But then I came home and gave myself another gift. A gift of time. I've been so busy this spring that I haven't been able to go check the wildflowers out over at Panther Rock. So the sun was shining. I've got my new dog, Oscar, and my old dog, Dub, to walk with me. Plus Roxie, the Saint Bernard from across the road, came along too. It was great. I saw shooting stars, jack-in-the-pulpits, pinks, wood poppy, buttercups, trilliums, May apples, rue anemone, wild hyacinths, and various others I'll have to look up in my flower book. A lot of the early flowers are already gone. It was nice down on the creek, but the ice storm was rough on the trees alongside it. Several large sycamores were broken and uprooted. Then at one place so many trees were over the creek, that it was a challenge for me and the dogs to make it through. Oscar and Roxie kept looking at me as if to say, "Are you sure we want to crawl through that?" Dub's used to the creek so he just kept trucking over all the obstacles. I certainly got my exercise for today.

I hope you give yourself a gift every once in while. Maybe go to a movie you've been wanting to see. Or sit down in a spot of sun or maybe in the shade if it was hot like it was here today and read that book you've been looking forward to reading. Or take your grandkid to the park or down a creek and let them play in the mud. (My grandkids did that here on Friday night. They got sooo muddy that I had to do laundry so their momma and daddy wouldn't see just how muddy. But they had fun.) You know sometimes we take life too seriously. So we have jobs and deadlines. We have chores and other obligations. But the Lord never expected us not to pause and enjoy. Else why would He have made our world so beautiful, our kids and grandkids so much fun, and our elders with so many great stories to tell about their lives. I hope you can take time to look and play and listen this week.

If you have a little extra time, http://www.dearreader.com/ is featuring my book, Summer of Joy, on their Good News bookclub this week. If you haven't read it and would like to sample the story, you can sign up for the bookclub by going to their site and following the directions. It's easy and it's free. Then every day they send you a portion of the book that might take about five minutes to read. That usually ends up being about two or three chapters. Enough to know whether you want to read the rest of the book. I'll also be responding to questions and comments on their forum during the week. I'd love for you to stop by and ask me a real stumper. If you do, I'll be sure to make something up. That's what I do, you know. Make stuff up.

Then I've also got a new book give-away on my website. I'm giving away an autographed copy of Summer of Joy to celebrate the book being on DearReader.com along with an autographed copy of Virginia Smith's Age Before Beauty. Ginny's book will make you smile as she takes you into the life of another of the sisters in her Sister-to-Sister series. Just send me an e-mail from my website or leave a comment here and you'll be entered in the drawing that I plan to do the end of May. If you've already got Summer of Joy, you can always give it as a gift.

Enjoy your week and remember to give yourself a gift.

A December Birthday

I'm writing a day early because one of my grandbabies will be three on Wednesday, and we're going to help her celebrate tomorrow. It's hard having a birthday in December when sometimes your special day seems to blend in with Christmas and get overlooked. Or so my daughter-in-law says. Not Katie's mom, but the other daughter-in-law. Carrie's birthday is New Year's Eve and she says she always hated it when the relatives said whatever they gave her for Christmas was for her birthday too. She wanted to have her own day. Katie, the almost three-year-old, is just now figuring out Christmas and birthdays so she's probably going to feel good about presents two weeks in a row. It's been a year of change for her anyway with the twins coming along to push her out of the baby spot, but she's adjusting well and loves her baby brothers.


I've always thought it would really be hard having a birthday on Christmas Eve or Christmas day. My birthday's in September, but I think if I had been born on Christmas, I would have wanted to celebrate my year and a half birthday in the middle of summer. What do you think? Any of you out there have a holiday birthday? Do you feel overlooked or do you enjoy the extra attention at holiday time?


I love birthdays. I might not like counting my own, but I do enjoy having them and count each one a blessing. And I enjoy helping others celebrate theirs - especially the kids. While I didn't do anything really fancy for my kids on their birthdays when they were growing up, we did always celebrate with a cake or dessert of their choice and a family get-together. They blew out candles and opened presents and got older until now they have families of their own. And I have a lot more birthdays to help celebrate, but sometimes it has to be long distance and not in person.


The days are zooming by toward Christmas and I'm shopping and wrapping and writing cards like everyone else. But I'm also working on the idea for my new Shaker book. The characters are coming to life in my head and beginning to talk to one another. So that's encouraging. Now if I can get my time line down on the history part I'll be ready to start the journey again. That's sort of what writing a book is like - going on a journey with your characters. Sometimes I'll see a destination out there ahead, but the path isn't always clear. I have to let my characters lead me along and show me what's happening in their lives even as the path winds and twists and sometimes veers completely off the route I had thought they were taking. But a new destination and often a better one usually appears.

The second Shaker book, The Believer, is already out there on the internet for readers to pre-order. It won't be out until next August, but some people have already been ordering their copies. That has astounded me, but it's great to know some of you are anxious to read my new book. One surprise - the cover has been redone. It has the same background and the same Ethan. (Thank goodness. He's a perfect Ethan.) But Elizabeth is different. I'll be posting the cover on my website after the first of the year, so you can check it out then. So far the first cover is still up on Amazon and other bookselling sites.

You've still got time to get in on my book give-away for an autographed copy of Virginia Smith's Stuck in the Middle and one of my books - your choice of The Scent of Lilacs, Orchard of Hope, Summer of Joy, The Outsider or Angels at the Crossroads. It's fun to win something and all you have to do is comment here or send me an e-mail from my website, http://www.annhgabhart.com/. If you entered before and didn't win, January might be your lucky month.

I know a lot of you will be going to Christmas pageants tomorrow or in the next week. I love shepherds in bathrobes with towels on their heads and wise men with presents wrapped in aluminum foil and angels with tinsel halos. I included a Christmas pageant in my book, Summer of Joy. My hope was that it would make readers smile and remember all the children's pageants they have seen or taken part in. Seeing the children act out the story of the birth of Jesus is one of my very favorite things at Christmas. I hope you enjoy many favorite things this Christmas.

Talk to you Wednesday when it will be one week and counting. Hope to have my Christmas cards sent by then.

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.

Colds, red noses and deadlines

Hey everybody.

Hope you have all escaped the cold bug, but alas, I did not. Our preacher came down with something the week before Christmas and managed to pass it along to everybody in our church. We have a small congregation (average around 40) so it wasn't exactly an epidemic, but there's been a lot of coughing going on while he preaches ever since. I thought I'd gotten over it a week ago but no such luck. It came back with vengeance. So I went to the doctor. Not something I do often. I think it had been over a year since I'd gone to a doctor because I was sick. I usually just tough whatever it is out. But this time I gave up and decided I needed medicine. Then I get home and read in the paper where antibiotics or no other medicines help sinus infections a bit. But at least I feel as if I'm doing something to help get better. I don't want to lose my voice. I'm supposed to give a speech Thursday. You think if I whisper, that will make everybody pay more attention? I've heard teachers say it works. And there's always makeup for red noses. That lasts until the first time you have to blow your nose again. Oh well. They're hometown folks so they'll be kind. I hope.

I'm still working on my galley corrections for The Outsider. I thought I was through and then I remembered the editor asking me to check out all the many, many times I used the word still. I still don't know how my mind could have gone on vacation and let me type still so often. Still, I do seem to like the word. It must have been my comfort word in this book. One other book it was the word just. So now I'm paying the price for my comfort zone and having to do some rewording. And I was sure I had it so perfect the first time. Well, actually not. I never think I have it perfect. I could probably rewrite till the cows came home and still (oops, there's that word again) find things to change.

I got my new book, Summer of Joy. That's exciting. Hope everybody else will be excited to read more about Jocie and family.

More next time.

Ann