Families - Real and Imagined

- You remember last summer when I kept you up to date on these two guys' impending arrival. Well, here's Matt (left) and John at about 11 months old. Aren't they cute?

- I'm so excited about finally figuring out how to post pictures that I'm wanting to share. I've already been sharing over on Facebook. How many of you are social networking there? It's a nice way to keep up with far flung family members and check in on old schoolmates.

- When we start counting our blessings, family and friends are generally right there at the top. I have a great family including some sisters that I count as friends. I think sisters can make the best friends because they know you and they love you anyway. At least most of the time. I dedicated my new book, The Believer, to my sisters both by birth and by marriage. Since I was writing about a society, the Shakers, who valued that sisterly tie, I decided to celebrate my own sisterly ties. Thank goodness we don't have to wear bonnets or caps. I've always hated wearing scarves and hats.

- Family is important to my fictional characters too. When you think about a lot of the conflict in stories - and a story has to have conflict - it centers around the relationships between family members. So it's important that I know about my characters' families. Were they loved as children? Did their parents love one another? Did they have sisters and brothers? Were they the youngest, oldest, or one of the ones in the middle? There are so many questions to ask about your characters to make them real enough in your mind so you can tell their story. I'm going to start rounding up my new characters before long and deciding when they were born, how they lived. And then to really help my main character come to life, I'll probably let her tell me about herself in a journal.

- Next week I'm giving away a couple of books for my birthday. As I said on Facebook, a kind of reverse birthday present. But you readers are a gift to me, so this is sort of like a boomerang gift back to you. Leave a comment here or on Facebook. I have a fan page now. Not sure I know what I'm doing, but if you keep hitting buttons, something happens. Sometimes something not so good. Darrell's e-mail is down on his computer now. I hit one wrong button somewhere. Now I've got to beg somebody for technical help. I'll start with my son and work up to those guys on the phone in India or wherever. Wish me luck.

- I hope all the buttons you punch this week will be right buttons.

The Outsider is Launched

Hey, everybody. Here it is Sunday again. Another week passed by and the calendar turned over to August. Has anybody told you how many days it is till Christmas? Well, don't expect me to talk about Christmas shopping in August! I do well to Christmas shop in December, although the way my family is growing, I should think about Christmas shopping in July.

No, the twins aren't here yet. The target birthdate is August 12th. By then we figure the babies will both weigh in at seven pounds. All you mothers groan a little for my daughter-in-law. She had that measuring and so forth done again last week and they're guessing one twin weighs six pounds and the other one six pounds and three ounces now. When she heard that, she just started crying. I mean she's glad the babies are healthy and growing. She just couldn't get her mind around carrying that much weight around for eleven more days. Not that many days now. I know she's counting off the days. So that's the twin update.

The work update is I'm trying to rush through to the end of the first draft of my current work in progress, The Believer. I keep telling myself it's time to ride off into the sunset or whatever, but so far I haven't gotten the sun to go down on the story. But the end is coming. I just have to figure out how a couple of things are going to happen. Or let my characters figure it out. Maybe if they do, they'll tell me what I need to write down.

I had my book launch for The Outsider at Corinth Christian Bookstore in Frankfort last Friday night. Thanks so much to everybody who came. It turned into a Shaker info session. I'm no expert, but I have read books by a lot of Shaker researchers. So I knew a few answers, but certainly not all the answers. I may have to study up on the Shakers some more before I have another question and answer session. But we had a fun time talking and sharing thoughts about the book. One person there had already read the story, so she was ready with her questions. I've gotten a few e-mails from others who've read it, and so far everybody's comments have been favorable.

Then I did the "Gathering of Authors" at Paul Sawyier Library on Saturday. Not many book buyers showed up, but all of us authors had a good time chatting and comparing notes. And of course, I had to buy one or two of their books. They all looked so interesting! I wanted to buy a dozen or so. I appreciate Rose and Alice stopping by to show their support. Alice even brought me some raspberry tea. Smuggled it in the library in her purse. I guess she didn't really have to smuggle it in since the great folks at the library had water and juice and all kinds of goodies for us to snack on. They'll be cleaning up doughnut and bagel crumbs for weeks. But it was sweet of Alice to think of me. I appreciated her thoughtfulness.

I do plan to have another local - as in Lawrenceburg - book event for The Outsider at the Anderson Public Library, but I haven't arranged a date as yet. I keep waiting for the twins to make their appearance. So it will probably be September even though both September and October are looking majorly busy. The Quartet Convention is in September along with my family reunion and then our church has Homecoming in October and so does the Patriot Quartet. My daughter is coming home for a visit in October and I'm scheduled to go to the book festival in West Virginia the next weekend in October. Plus there are a couple of grandkids birthdays in there to celebrate. And so on and so on. I was looking at my calendar to see when I might do some bookstore visits or signings, and I think I found an open spot about midnight on the second Tuesday after the first Monday. (LOL) And oh yeah, I didn't mention that deadline looming along in there somewhere. But I like being busy, don't you? Still I try to remember that quote I used to keep on my desk, but it's gotten lost now. It says something like it's not enough to just be busy. It's important what you're busy about. I want to busy about the right things, but I know that sometimes I just get busy.

Hope you are all busy about the right things and have a great week. We're supposed to have a scorcher here in Kentucky. It was nice today for August. 85 degrees and not too much humidity. But the rest of the week is supposed to be more like the weather I had in my book The Scent of Lilacs. Hot, hot, hot! I like using weather in my books. I haven't done that as much in this new book. We did have one snow that plays a part in the story, but that's all. The seasons, that is the time of the year, play more a part in this one.

Talk to you next week. Maybe I'll think up something funny for Wednesday.