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“Beneath the Mimosa Tree” Now Available at Barnes & Noble.com
Just a quick update that “Beneath the Mimosa Tree” is now available for the Nook through Barnes & Noble. Click below if you’re interested!
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I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends
* * * This was a big week for me. For the first time in my life, I can say I’m an author. I’ve written a book. I’ve endured the anxieties that come along with self-publishing, and miraculously, I’m still standing. It’s been a week where sleep has meant very little, but my friends have meant a lot. Launching one’s own piece of writing is a test. It’s truly a test of one’s own nerves. I’ve asked myself if I have the gumption to subject myself to criticism and opinion when the writing and plot of my book are dissected. I’ve got to have thick skin; it’s true. If I…
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PUBLISHED! “Beneath the Mimosa Tree” is FINALLY for Sale.
Dear Friends, Well, I’ve finally done it. I’ve finally self-published a piece of work that began over twenty years ago as a short story. I can check this off my bucket list and move on to another novel that’s been brewing in my head. Besides the fact that my stomach has been in knots for the last 72 hours and my hands continue to shake, I’m doing just fine. It’s only Day One. As T. S. Eliot once said, “Anxiety is the hand maiden of creativity.” So true. I can’t even begin to recount the hours of love and energy I put into the novel (but I’m sure my husband…
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The Latest (and final) Update on My Novel: Part III
Dear Supporters and Friends, I’d like to announce today that the journey of self-publishing is all over, but there are a few more steps before it’s “official.” However, this is the last update I hope to offer you on the status of the book. Within days, I expect to actually announce that something is finally for sale. I spent the entirety of my spring break last week putting all the finishing touches on my novel, proofing it fifty-million times, and reworking the cover to use an existing template because I was too nervous to try attempt fitting my own designs to the Create Space needs. I formatted the interior of…
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The Best Thing About Pottery Barn Stores
I’m a big fan of Pottery Barn, and it’s not just because its merchandise is so appealing. It’s because of another reason that’s unrelated to the merchandise in the store. It actually has absolutely nothing to do with the merchandise at all. It’s because Pottery Barn plays good in-store music. When I can shop and hear the likes of Ella Fitzgerald or Louis Armstrong, Etta James or Nat King Cole, I’m relaxed. It makes my shopping experience that much better. All stores have gimmicks to get you to go inside: large signs, sales signs, awesome window displays, balloons, or buy-one-get one ½ off posters set outside the doors. However, I…
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The Problem with Love Songs
*** Last week in my magazine writing class, we were discussing how to write a memoir. One of the suggestions for effectively constructing one is to write very descriptive prose so the audience can use its senses to stay with your writing. The ability to heighten the sense of sight, smell, sound, taste, or touch can captivate readers as we take them on a ride. Apparently, the most powerful of the senses is smell—a scent can remind you of something immediately, can bring you back in time, and can arouse your sense of nostalgia. In fact, one writing exercise I tackled was to write a scene where a smell enters…
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What’s in a Nickname?
*** Do you have the right nickname? I know this is probably a question that keeps you up at night and leaves you restless. Surely, you jest, you are thinking. Who cares about a nickname? Well, I, for one, do care, but it’s only because I’ve recently acquired a nickname from my esteemed colleagues, Chip and Leeanne, that I actually quite enjoy. We had all read the book and seen the film “The Help.” During the conversation about the movie and if it actually did live up to the book, the two of them started calling me (well, Chip instigated it) “Skeeter” based on Miss Skeeter, a wanna-be novelist main…
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Kissing My Characters Goodbye: One Last Hurrah
*** Yesterday afternoon, I took some time to connect one last time with my novel. By the end of the day today, it should be ready to ship off to the woman who will format it for the Kindle. I’m ready to let go of it, but I needed to have one last moment with these characters who have been a steady part of my life for two years now. While I won’t get into all the steps that have been necessary to get the novel to its completed state, I will tell you that it feels a little bit like birth and death simultaneously. These characters have been an…
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Retail Therapy: Good for the Soul
Today was my first “official day” of spring break. Our university is on holiday, and as much as I absolutely LOVE being a professor, I needed some time to catch up on reading and to prepare lectures, as well as time to prep my forthcoming novel for distribution. Things take time, but today, I took a much needed break. My mother came to the rescue. We went shopping and had lunch at a restaurant on the water. It was just what the doctor ordered. We decided to venture to the Queenstown Outlets because the weather was absolutely gorgeous here…sunny and about 70 degrees, a bit of a blessing for those…
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Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, I Don’t Look Like That At All!!!
I’m trying to figure out which photograph I want to use on the back of my paperback book cover. It’s one of those last minute decisions I neglected to make earlier in the process of being an independent author. Nevertheless, I asked my daughter to take a few shots with my new Nikon. We were testing backgrounds. When I saw the photo of myself, I stared. Do I really look like that? I must have a trick mirror at home, because when I look at myself in it, I still see a 30-year-old, not the more mature me that I’ve become. I’m already dreading my upcoming birthday, though we won’t…
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The Way I See Baseball: Waiting to Hear the Crack of the Bat
*** Mother Nature has blessed us with an incredible day. It’s sunny and warm, and now it’s official: I yearn to hear the crack of the baseball bat. I’m ready for Orioles baseball and for Opening Day at Camden Yards in Baltimore. It’s still in my blood. For thirteen years of my life, I bled black and orange. As a front office employee for the Baltimore Orioles many moons ago, I looked forward to the season starting. It was a sign of spring and rebirth. Baseball is America’s pastime. Some say baseball is slow moving, that it can be equated with watching the grass grow. As for me, I can’t…
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What Can You Learn from a Fairy Tale?
*** I’ve become somewhat obsessed with “Once Upon A Time.” I don’t watch much television at all, actually, but I have a few favorites. “Once Upon A Time,” “American Idol,” “Downton Abbey,” and the new Ricky Gervais sitcom on HBO called “Life’s Too Short” top my list. I watch them all for different reasons. Each has its own entertainment factor, for sure. However, “Once Upon A Time’s” cleverness works. It intertwines the fairy tale and present time, and offers many poignant moments each week that make you wonder and reflect on your own life. Some of the dialogue can be downright magical. Two examples of those lines came from last…