Ice is not nice. Except in a tall glass of tea or in the summer mixed with rock salt to make some creamy homemade banana ice cream. But in the middle of the winter on the trees is not nice. It’s been nasty here in Kentucky. Over 500,000 people without electricity including me for a while and my 88 year-old …
A Chocolate Eating Writer’s Muse
We’re still deep in winter here in Kentucky although we had a beautiful sunshiny day on Friday with the temps rising to near sixty. All of us started dreaming of spring to come. That’s the way it is here in this border state between north and south. Days and sometimes weeks of warmer weather can come to call, but then …
Bumpy Sledding and Writing
Hope all of you had a very good Wednesday. Halfway through the work week and on the downhill slide to Friday. I often wish I had an extra day especially when I’m getting started on a new book. Of course I took today off to spend a snow day with a couple of my grandkids. We haven’t had a lot …
A Story’s Beginning and Dog Adventures
We had a cold few days around this neck of the woods last week. Got down to 3 below, but actually didn’t feel all that bad because the wind didn’t blow much and the sun was shining brightly. The next day when it was 20 something degrees, I actually got colder when I went walking. No sun that day and …
The Hope Factor in Books
I seem to have a theme going this month about books, so it’s a good time to announce the winner of my latest website book give-away. Kim from right here in Kentucky won Virginia Smith’s autographed copy of Stuck in the Middle and the choice of one of my books. Congratulations, Kim! Thanks to the rest of you who entered …
Book Clubs by the Millions
Since January seems to be my month for book club talks, I decided maybe I should find out more about book clubs. So I googled book clubs and came up with more than 7,850,000 hits. Wow! Then I read a December 2008 article in the NY Times about book club troubles and it said there were perhaps four or five …
A Story of Words
I just talked to a bookclub in New York and one of the questions they asked was “Do you like to read?” That was an easy question. I not only like to read, I feel deprived when life keeps me too busy to read as much as I want. I’m one of those people whose eyes seek out words, on …
A Blank Book
Happy New Year, everybody! Hope 2009 is treating you fine so far and that it will be a year packed full of good things and great joy. We are four days into the year. Have you broken any of your New Year’s resolutions yet? I sent out my occasional newsletter yesterday. (If you’d like to be on my list to …
New Year Journal Entries through the Years
Since it’s New Year’s Eve, I decided to do something a little different for this blog entry. Ever since I first began journaling years ago as a young teen, I’ve written a review of the year past around January first. Then when I began seriously trying to market my writing a few years later at the age of twenty, I …
A Very Good Dog – Watson
It’s been a bad year for my kids’ dogs. First we lost Hank back in the summer. That was my son’s dog. Now Watson, my son-in-law’s big German Shepherd had to be put down on Saturday morning. Last blog, I mentioned he was having some problems and they were taking him to a vet as they came home. For a …