Summer Adventures

June was a very busy month for me. Maybe I'm making excuses for not posting last month, maybe I just want to pass along some of the enjoyment my family and I had. 

My husband, Dan, and I went to the Oklahoma Salt Plains to dig for crystals in June with our daughter and her family. It was a bit cool, but that worked out fine. It was a bit wet and Dan found one of the deep dig holes. He had to go through a bucket of sand in the car to find his crystals because the wind was a bit cold with wet clothes! We were all dirty, but that was all right, too. We have lots of little crystals to show for our effort. 

Salt Plains- Selenite crystals

Later in the month, our son and his family drove down to visit with us. Five days just weren't enough, but we packed all we could get into those five days. Most of the time the kids wanted to swim, so we did Pelican Bay and the rest of the time they swam at the hotel pool. 

Pelican Bay (Edmond)

They wanted to see a movie together so we did that. (Spiderman Multiverse) I'm still trying to understand that one. We also went to Eichen's and Kingfisher, but that was the farthest we went out of OKC. We enjoyed both. How can you go wrong with fried chicken and fried okra, then putting the grandkids into an old-fashioned jail? 

Eischen's (Okarche)

In Jail (Kingfisher)

There was Pop's, an arcade, and fun and games at our daughter's house. As I said, the five days went by too fast. 

Enjoying a soda at Pop's

Fun at the arcade

I haven't had another book published. I have to get on the stick if my new novel, Voyage of the Sea Dragon; Into the Dream World, is to be published this fall.   

Anyway, that's my excuse for having fun this summer and I'm sticking to it!

Billy Bob Flybottom

Fun's the Thing!

 I will probably overuse the word- AMAZING! What am I referring to? I am talking about my recent weekend and the two days I spent at the OWFI conference. (For the uninitiated...) This is a writers' conference held annually in Oklahoma City for writers throughout the state (there are even writers from out of state.) 

Even though I was also running a book selling table and despite volunteering to help out with registration (it was wonderful working with Shelley Pagach.) I had more time to go to sessions this year. First, the time of the sessions was shortened just a little so that gave attendees time to visit the book store, check out the donated baskets, and just visit with other authors. The sessions themselves were wonderful. I only wish they could have been video'd so I could revisit, or see some coinciding with equally valuable sessions. 

Since I do have a little violence in some of my science fiction books as well as my adventure/historical books, I attended Tao Wong's discussion of martials arts in writing. Sword fights are hard to write, as is most fighting, and this session helped me to determine some rules about this kind of action. There was a great session about SEO's (Search Engine Optimization) and how they work by Marisa Mohi. Rob Roensch talked about flash memoirs--creating a moment and then building on it. Social Media Marketing by J Hall really added a new spin on putting your books out there, or rather creating a relationship with our fans and followers. 

I must say, I had never heard a speaker who made so many mistakes come out in such good shape. Grady Hendrix was so enjoyable as he let each of us know just what boners could be made in the writing journey. It was good to laugh at the mistakes mirroring my own, and good to know others have gone through the same thing. I attended his session the next day. 

There were sessions about book covers from Sylvia Frost, small presses from Casie Dodd, character motivation using something called Enneagram with Claire Taylor, and creating a calendar for my work

process that helps me do a better job in my writing with Marisa Mohi. I have already been doing that, but this helped to pinpoint improvements I needed. There were so many fun sessions that I could have gone to if I could have cloned myself. 

I had checked out the baskets donated for Basket Wars and bid on a couple. I won a basket! It had some great stuff in it. Can't wait to try the Oklahoma barbecue sauce, the beans, and the corn bread. Yum! 

Even the OWFI board meeting was interesting and Nick Lyon kept it short. Finally, came the Awards Banquet. It was a nice dinner, but the real prize was hearing the winners of the writing contest. So many great stories and novels that earned awards. I felt blessed to be among those.  

 

Shelley White getting her award for her 1st place script.

Needless to say, I'll be going next year! It was an amazing weekend!

March is Spring; Trying a New Thing!

 Here in Oklahoma March has no clue if it's winter, spring, summer, or fall. Earlier this week, it got up to almost 80 degrees, (early summer), then it dropped to below freezing, (winter). West Oklahoma got a layer (briefly) of snow! Today it reached the fifties in the morning and then it rained, while a cold front blew in and it's going to get down to the twenties tonight. 

Even the cedar pollen doesn't know what to do. And this is spring break for most of the kids around here. Oh, well. 

Since the weather has decided to do different things, I decided to try different things, too. I have been working on a science fiction novel set in the ocean. I decided I was going to try my hand at self-publication of this one and post teasers ahead of time. That meant I needed a cover, a blurb, and whatever one does to promote a new book. I tried several things with my cover creator from Book Brush, using pictures from Pixabay and a friend with Photoshop. (I didn't want the fisherman with the whales. Wouldn't work!) The friend took out the fisherman, I took out the background on the whale and duplicated it with Book Brush, and then played around. For Photoshop people, we're talking about at least four layers. 

I bounced it off of several people, making changes and bouncing again. Let me know what you think. 

Me? Consistent? Whoops!

I noticed last year that I had consistently written a blog post every month until October. I did a September post and then a December one. And this will be my first blog of 2023. 

Okay, a one sentence excuse. It's hard to think about doing blogs when at least one person in the family is sick.  

Anyway, it's a new year. Time to be optimistic. And I am going to be optimistic. I am still writing. I submitted things to several contests after fixing mistakes from previous contests. You see, if we're progressing, no matter how slow, we are doing better. I pulled out several kid's short stories I wrote a long time ago, and as I was making edits and corrections, I realized they would be perfect as children's books. Wow! One started life as a magazine submission that sat on the shelf for almost twenty years. Another started as a flash fiction based on a critique group prompt. (I actually have several of those.) There was another magazine submission with a history of rejections. (It won a prize last fall.) Memories of my childhood, a memory of my college days. I doubt those would be kid's books, but who knows? It was so nice to get them out and dust them off and let others read them, critique them, and help me make them better. 

And lest I forget, my first book also got a dusting off. My Zorro publisher republished My House of Dreams with a new cover, a new back cover blurb, and new formatting after I gave it some fresh editing. It's amazing what a facelift can do! I'm grateful. 

What are you optimistic about or grateful for? Let me know....

 

Happy Holidays and Keep Reading....

 

When one says something like Happy Holidays during the late fall/early winter months, they aren’t just talking about Christmas, which undoubtedly is the biggest winter holiday. Still, according to webholidays.com, there are a good many others.  

 St. Nicholas (Ukrainian stamp)

I love finding out new things so I continued reading. Did you know Santa Claus has his own day? Well, actually St. Nicholas does (Sinterklaas). Now while the modern day Santa Claus derived from St. Nicholas, the celebration on December 5^th and 6^th celebrates the saint, or the Bishop who gave gifts to the poor way back in the third century. Even his sometimes companion, Krampus, (who gives naughty children the reward for their poor choices) has his own holiday!

 Siddhartha Gautama Buddha

December 8^th is Bodhi Day in Japan. The holiday celebrates the enlightenment of Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha). His enlightenment came after giving away his wealth and meditating—a lot of it. Part of the celebration includes meditating and doing kind acts for others.

I didn’t know that Christmas is celebrated in some parts of the world on January 7th. In Ethiopia, Christians follow the old (Julian) calendar which puts Christmas two weeks later than the December 25th celebration. Christmas, or Ganna, is a more solemn event, where the people wear white clothes, attend mass, and then play a hockey-like game. Kids might receive a small gift.

 Knud Lavard

The Scandinavians end the Christmas season with a holiday called St. Knut’s Day. On this festive day, the Christmas tree is “plundered” of all its decorations, including the cookies (which can be eaten, if one is brave enough after all that time), and then the tree is removed from the house. There are festivities with friends and family.

Amazing what one can discover by reading. Nowadays, it’s easy to find information on the internet (and yes, most wiki’s do have correct info), but I still find a great deal of information by reading books and magazines. I could even tell you about the time I entered a story into a contest and got flak about the outlandishness of the subject matter. The information came from a National Geographic.

Even fiction books have taught me  as I follow the protagonists through their adventures. In other words, reading has enlarged my world. How about this year making a resolution to do more reading.

So, happy holidays and keep on reading!

The Little Oak Tree that Could

 Last year I wrote about a beautiful pine tree that my husband and I bought and with Dani and Chris's help planted in the backyard. (That after having the folks that check for gas lines and underground cables come by and paint different colored lines around our yard.) Well, when my husband had his knee surgery, the poor pine tree was neglected and by the time I realized my error, it was dead. By late fall I finally pulled it up and took it back to Lowe's. No questions asked, I got a refund. I didn't like the look of any of the trees that were left, so the spot was bare for a couple of weeks. 

In the meantime, I had found a volunteer twig growing under one of the grow boxes. When I pulled it up, I found an acorn at the bottom of the plant. Where the nut had come from was beyond me, but I put it in a pot and and watered it. Then after the pine died I decided to plant it in the vacant spot. Almost immediately, it shed its leaves. Poor little twig. We continued to pamper the bare 'nekkid' tree all winter. 

About halfway through spring when I thought the oak was dead, too, and I was ready to dig it up, I saw tiny little leaves popping out on the twig. They grew large and the little sapling was holding its own. I suspect it will shed its leaves this year, too, but I won't worry about it like I did the previous year. 

Will we live long enough to enjoy its shade? I doubt it, but someone will and that's what's important.