Grandma's General Store: The Ark, by Dorothy Carter

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The book is highly recommended as an enlightening and refreshing read set in the Depression Era of the South.

Grandma owns a small colored general store that serves as a gathering place for hard working coloreds. When her son loses his job as foreman at the sawmill, he and his wife decide to head North to look for a better life. They must leave their children in Grandma 's care. The story unfolds as a heart rending story portraying the importance of family bonds and hard work.

This is a wonderful eye opener depicting the hardships that bring us closer together in life or break us apart.

Reviewed by a staff member, First Regional Library

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Something's Gotta Give

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If you know me at all you know I'm obsessed with time. Wasting it. Using it. Saving it. Savoring it.  Time. Time. Time. It keeps clicking by.

Tell me you're waiting for the day to be over or the week, the month or the year and I'll get irritated, because time is the most precious commodity in my life and I don't believe it should be wished away.

We all have the same amount of time in our day. Think about it.

  60 minutes in an hour.           
  24 hours in a day.             
  1440 minutes in a day.

Thirteen years ago I had a life changing event occur. I lost my husband. This isn't the topic of discussion, but I'm hoping you'll digest this information and indulge me the bold  and potentially offensive comments I'm about to make now that I've given you some insight into my background and understand that I'm speaking from my heart.

Psalm 39:4-5

“O Lord, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am! Behold, you have made my days a few hand breadths, and my lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath!"

 When you lose someone close to you, you are given a unique a pair of glasses that few others are privileged to wear. These glasses are like slow motion and 3-D sort of merged together. You look at the sky, the clouds, and the entire world around you differently. You realize how fleeting our time here on earth is and how very important it is to follow your dream today, because you might not have tomorrow. To everyone else this seems a trite acknowledgement, but to those wearing the glasses it becomes a burning heat inside of us.


Thus, one of the quotes that steers my day:




 My outlook on life has changed dramatically. I went from a type A personality to an A minus. Hey, for me, that was huge.

Dust bunnies were no longer able to hold me hostage.

I spent hours and hours savoring sunsets and sunrises and enjoying the splendor of what God has given me.

I spent time considering what I wanted my tombstone to say, and this wasn't it.



   "Her house was clean and her toilet bowls sparkled. She liked to write but unfortunately she never really had time." 

But this was...........


This is also why I preach the inverted pyramid method of time management.  I simply asked myself if I was doing what I really wanted to be doing?




The pyramid should be filled top to bottom with what's most important to the least important in life.

 So if writing was near the top of my list why had I inverted my pyramid- spending most of my time on things I claimed were least important?





Consider this:



 What was the worst that could possibly happen to me if I did this?

 Agent of my dreams would reject me? They all did except the agent who would fulfull my dreams.

Publisher of my dreams would reject me? They did. On several, wait, many occasions and then when my writing grew, I sold to them.

 Reviewer's might hate my books. Yes. They have bashed me with words. Torn me into little pieces and left me to bleed to death. In those moments I crawl to the computer and bring up all the sweet emails that tell me my books touched lives.





After years of juggling the balls, I  have finally come to the conclusion that balance in a writer's life is a myth.  I CAN'T HAVE IT ALL.   

I've done the homework, analyzed the charts, and run the numbers. I'm off the hook. 

Something's gotta give means I can leave the dishes in the sink while I edit that short story. I can turn off the television in the middle of Survivor and go revise. I can get off Twitter and read. And,  I can say no when invited to a home shopping party across the street because, I'm a writer and writer's spend their time writing.


And guess what fellow scribes? This applies to you too. It's true...
 YOU CAN'T HAVE IT ALL EITHER!



Okay, Seekervillian, ready for five tough questions?

•     Are you wasting time or savoring it, and exploiting it to the max?
•     What have you done today to make your dream come true?
•      Are dust bunnies holding you hostage? (What will your tombstone say?)
•     Are you living in an inverted pyramid life wasting time on the least important things?
•     What would you attempt  if you knew you could not fail?

Today's birthday present is a surprise See's Candies gift to one commenter. Winner announced tomorrow in the Weekend Edition, where we'll also announce our Week 1 prize winner.

Check out our birthday presents here.

Thank you Blogger for finally cooperating!

Embracing the Reader, Enticing the Editor, Let's Sell Those "Series"!

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REMINDER!!!!  SEEKERVILLE WELCOMES GUEST BLOGGER AND LOVE INSPIRED EDITOR ELIZABETH MAZER TOMORROW!!!! AMAZING GIVEAWAYS.... COOL CONTESTS... NO CONFERENCE COSTS, LOL!!!!  DO NOT FORGET TO STOP BY EARLY AND OFTEN!!! SEEKERS THRIVE ON YOUR SUCCESS STORIES!
Good morning, Seekerville! Ruthy here, ready to work! Okay, we're here to do Part "B" of the "series post", the post I wrote twice for September... as if boring you to tears once wasn't bad enough, ooops. SORRY!!!!  :)

And I had to delete all the fun stuff I had in here about pretending to MISS the conference-goers.... and we did, right??? We missed them while eating RED VELVET CAKE with CREAM CHEESE FROSTING, recipe HERE!!!

And... here is an amazingly great TRUE STORY that happened to  me in the past few weeks... Hit the link, travel to Ruthy's Place and then come back... You might need tissues. I'm just sayin'...

Back to series. When I knew the time was right for me to study this craft and try writing, I grabbed every Nora Roberts and Linda Howard book I could find from the library. Why them? Because they were the best-sellers, the people pleasers, the sought-afters. Learn from the best when at all possible...

'Member "Good Will Hunting"? Will's line about "...yeah but you dropped 150 grand on an education you coulda got for a buck-fifty in late charges at the public library."

I had no money so that library became my educational mecca!  And I realized I LOVED series.... Nora's "Stanislaskis"???? Loved 'em!!!!  The MacGregors, the whole stinkin' clan??? Over the top enamored!  Linda's MacKenzie series????  Who didn't fall in love with every one of those heroes?????

Jan Karon's "Mitford" series with Father Tim? Oh my stars, I love Father Tim and Cynthia. The antics of the town. The pacing, the laughter, the tears. Sara Donati's Into the Wilderness series, the Bonner family? Oh take me back a few centuries... Please!!!  :) And remember, Christian fiction hadn't started burgeoning as yet, and our library had nothing like that, so I went to the best-selling romance authors and fed my writer's brain.

And what about suspense series? Marta Perry has made an art form of developing successful suspense series. And Mary Connealy's romantic/comedy/suspense books are the rage all over the country because those series create a niche of family, setting, friends, neighbors. She captures that intrinsic "something" that makes a series sing.

But how does a pantser write a series? How would a plotter plan a series? Those are the first things you should ask yourself. Plotter? Pantser? Because your methods will vary and what works for one won't work for the other. (and for the life of me I haven't figured out what fun there is in writing for those plotter folks, but they say... sigh... they're having fun with all their trimmin's and trappin's, and glue boards or cork boards or notebook/notepad/ipad/ibook thingamajiggies.)

Series can be linked by many things and we chatted about some of this in September HERE...  And we talked about the over-reaching SERIES ARC that allows each book to form its own arc within.  Picture a bridge as the series arc.....



And the "pass-throughs" (supports) are the individual books.

Each support could stand on it's own. They're built strong and balanced and tough. But the bridge can't span the water with one support.... And that's how a series is. Stand-alone books co-existing in a solid framework.

Here are a few of those "links" that tie a series together.

1. Setting  (all books take place in a region or town or city or neighborhood) In this case the setting can actually become strong enough to become a "character" in the books. Karon's "Mitford" series is an excellent example of that. I used this framework for my Men of Allegany County series, interconnecting the men and their romances through a geographic region. A larger setting like that allows more room for expansion because counties are BIG. Setting usually allows the author more leeway with less chance of "sound alike" books, a bane to any author's existence.

2. Plot  (all books linked by similar plot lines/genre)  The Cat Who... series by Lilian Braun are genre linked books. Mystery series follow this formula and mystery readers LOVE THEM.  Some thrillers (think of how Dan Brown bought the book on Writing Thrillers for Morons or some such thing, and then WROTE HIS BOOKS based on that outline. There is a reason successful authors employ similar modes, because it resonates with a readership. Remember, throughout everything, a publisher wants your heart, he/she longs for you to bleed red on your manuscript, but mostly???  They want/need sales. Without sales, we go nowhere, and sales/selling/being paid is not a dirty word. It's part of the balance.

3.  Siblings (Julie Lessman's series are a perfect example here, where Julie has taken each unique sibling and created a story line for them) Dee Henderson did that with her "O'Malley" series, too. Connealy has employed that in the Sophie's Daughters series, and also in her current hot-selling Kincaid Brides group of books from Bethany House. It's a family saga type book broken into increments and very reader-friendly.

4.  Number  (Three sisters, three friends, Four brothers, etc. Many series are set on a number like that. Usually in a friend/sibling series, three is the suggested number, maybe four. There are exceptions to that. Sagas are prone to developing more books about each individual character)

5.  Crime/Genre/Suspense  J. D. Robb's "DEATH" series is indicative of this. Classic work using the same main characters through multiple books but delivering individualized crime stories as presented to these characters. These series can go on for a long time. Mysteries, crime, suspense are often seen with this twist. Think television series like "Castle", "NCIS", "Jag", etc.

6.  Time progression (these series may start in the 1800's with early settlers going west and then develop generationally. Mary Connealy has touched on this with her  Lassoed in Texas series  and Montana Marriages series which morphed into Sophie's Daughters series, three books that tied the previous series together in the next generation. Skillfully done this is a great tactic to bind the reader to the books and the author.


So that's our re-cap.... and now we're into Part "B":

1. Plan the series
2. Write the opening book
3. Plant seeds of upcoming books
4. Leave folks longing for more books, more closure.

We talked about double arcs, an overhanging series arc.... And individual book arcs.

I actually have to PLAN now. Or my bosses will laugh me out of the room when I ask for money, kind of like that Oliver kid, wanting more food, right???  "Please, sir? Might I have some more???"

As if, kid.

So once I figured that out, I played with pre-developing a series. My 2013/2014 "Kirkwood Lake" series is set between Chautauqua and Cattaraugus and Allegany counties in southwestern NY, the Enchanted Mountains region, along the Northern PA border.

BIG REGION. HUGE.


How much do you LOVE the sign tree????? It leads down the narrow road to the lakefront, a true riparian thing that you might also see atop a mountain... Translate: Access limited!!!

And how pretty is this view of the opposite shore? This is Rushford Lake, New York, in Allegany County.

That gives me space to grow and develop the stories. I knew I wanted varied law enforcement agencies involved to reflect reality. Current economic woes have towns and villages giving up all kinds of duplicate services... police and fire are among those. So what happens when a town drops its police service? The sheriffs and state police step in to pick up the slack.

Now we have automatic conflict. People are overworked. Job security in the bigger forces is heightened, but so are expectations. And what happens when law enforcement gets spread too thin?

Crime increases.

I noticed a HUGE DRUG BUST in this region that linked the Buffalo Police Department, the NYS police and local sheriffs to bring down a big drug ring. And they did it, too!

But it took a lot of quiet work, cooperation, and involvement to get the job done because there are lots of places to hide in the mountains and back roads of these rural, rolling counties.

Bad cops. The papers are full of them, reports of law enforcement abusing their badges in numerous ways. While that's the minority, it's real, so adding that in helps the layering process. Bad cop = BAD.

Good cop = HERO or HEROINE

Simple, right??? (big grin)

So we've got big geographic area, work-related stress for those who lost their jobs and those who have more expected of them....

And life, of course. Whose life doesn't smack them upside the head now and again???

Now we needed a town. "Kirkwood Lake" is our quaint town bordering the lake of the same name, and having the town on the shoreline of a fairly large lake makes it a gathering spot and a seasonal place. For June, July and August, Kirkwood Lake will be different than in the other nine months, because the summer folk go home.

BIG DIFFERENCE, MORE CONFLICT... money, space, empty places, vandalism....

And the small city of Clearwater lies just south of the lake... A setting similar to Jamestown, NY at the lower edge of Chautauqua Lake, which gives the stories another dose of latitude and realism.

So we've set up for ongoing stress surrounding these heroes and heroines in law enforcement...

Now we add LIFE:

Oy. Life. Smackdowns.

He stripped his father's dream away, and now must pay the price... Her dream was her father's nightmare, and now everyone is pushing her to give it up, sell out and she might, because hanging on might just cost her the hero. Which does she want more? Her centennial family farm or the hero's love?

He and his little boy had been abandoned already...and lame excuses hold scant appeal.  She abandoned her pretty babies to avoid going back to prison... to get them back, she might have to do just that.  

She'd lost her love, her life when her cop husband became a hero... He lost his heart when his wife left with another man's child, a boy he loved as his own. When she comes to town, pregnant and alone, he knows he can't face that again. Ever. No matter how much she needs him.

Once a prisoner, he makes a difference now, physically and emotionally. A cop, she does it right,  proving illicit activities don't run in the family. But his present plants her past into the line of fire, and she just can't forgive him for that.


I already have a glimmer of the fifth book.... A book that ties our two lost children who turn up in "The Lawman's Second Chance" (due out May, 2013)... and gives these lost babies a chance at the normal life they've been denied. That's a seed planter, it helps instill in the reader a longing to find out what happens. I work hard to invest the reader in the people, the town, the children, the romance, and yes... the DOGS!!!

This is Derringer, he's the retired military hero's Red Coon Hound in "His Mistletoe Family" available HERE!!!!

ISN'T HE STINKIN' GORGEOUS?????

And here he is on the cover of this delightful Christmas tale, with our two orphaned boys, Tyler and Todd. I am continually blessed by the work of the art team at Harlequin. I want to jump into this picture and take care of these boys, these precious gifts of God! And they're just what our wounded hero needs to give him a new lease on life.  Oh.... that God!!!!  :)


I strove to give this new series mobility and space. It's set across a three-county mountainous region. I picked a riparian setting for the town (bordering a beautiful lake) because that gives me room for story development geographically and seasonally. And riparian land owners are sometimes WEIRD... If you don't believe me, try walking along a quiet, lake-dwelling road as a stranger... and see what happens.

I've developed SMOKIN' HOT HEROES!!!!  and the women they need to help them complete God's circle for their lives.

I've made fun of a few people in the process.  :)

But just a few!

Here's a pic of the fun basket you're vying for today if your name is picked:

This delightful basket holds Cuba Sharp Cheddar from Cuba, NY, Webb's Candy bars from Mayville, New York, a couple of RUTHY BOOKS!!!! and a delightful surprise book by a Carol-award finalist who shall go un-named at present... Lindt truffles... A COOL Seekerville jar opener, the famous Seekerville Pink Pen to sign your contracts with, a copy of the original "Simply Books" which has our first shout-out article about Seekerville from the nice folks at Harlequin, harvest colored M&M's (my favorite to have at Thanksgiving!!!) and anything else I don't scrape out of the cat dish!

Stop in. Let's talk story/series development and feel free to share your favorite series titles with us because studying... reading.... writing.... well they're the best way this author knows of getting it right.

Remembering always that the LIBRARY IS A FREE REFERENCE SITE FOR A REASON!!! Oh, how I love Ben Franklin!!!

:)

Coffee's on!

Don't forget to check out those presents!

The Dos and Don't of the Library World for Authors and the Kitchen Sink by Madame S

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After two years of being vigilant whenever I am in communication with Tina, I became distracted.  Anyway, I find I have agreed to write another blog posting for you Lovely People.  (Actually, I’m not sure I agreed but she assures me that I did.  I thought I was agreeing to pass the salt.)

This is “Everything you never wanted to know about authors, books and libraries.”

This all began with a discussion of authors and libraries.  Tina, who has some experience in libraries as an employee and patron, was saying that many authors are confused about the advantages of getting their works into libraries and how to go about it.  I, foolishly in retrospect, pointed out that RWA has a librarian day where they invite librarians but has it ever thought about having a session introducing authors to the library process.  Well.  That was all it took and suddenly I went from passing the salt to agreeing to write up Dos and Don’ts of the library world as they relate to authors.

Tina immediately gave me a list of points to cover, which makes me think this was not as spontaneous as she claims… 



Now, I know I should re-number these questions, but Tina made the below question number 8 and it just begs to be the first. 

8.  Do libraries matter to authors?

Darlings, Darlings, Darlings.  The answer can only be, “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

The American Library Association has finally started gathering information about library users and their purchasing of books.  What they found, which is not a surprise to most library users, is that heavy library users are also heavy purchasers of books for their private collections.  Many of the books that are purchased by these library patrons were discovered from reading the title or the author’s earlier works at the library.

I am not joking.  One of the best ways to get to the people who buy books is to get your books into the library.  Libraries are your friends.

Don’t be one of those dreary, whiny writers who view every checkout of their title as a sale that was lost.  It wasn’t.  You never had that sale.  You were lucky the library bought a copy.  Harsh words but true.

You are developing core readers when your books are in libraries.  It leads to people reading this book, deciding they love your book, and then looking for more of your books or authors like you.  These people, in turn, recommend your books to their friends.  As gift giving occasions arise, your books get requested and purchased in real life.  The more they love your books, the more they are willing to do without dining out and purchase your book instead.

I check out books at the library and I buy books.  In fact, back when I collected the hyper-modern mystery, I bought 1st printing, autographed copies of new titles but never read those copies.  I checked out the same title at the library.  If I really loved the title, I bought the paperback to have to read when it became available.  If I really, really loved it, I bought multiple paperbacks to give to friends and family who needed something to read on plane rides.  (I had to.  People would need things to read and we would go through my shelves of paperbacks, looking for something they would like and I would send it off with them.  Only to realize that I didn’t have a reading copy anymore…)

Laugh all you want at word of mouth but then think of the authors who built careers based on word of mouth.  A lot of the people who left my house with paperbacks bought more titles by whatever author wrote it.

Darlings, you want your books in libraries and you want libraries thinking happy thoughts about you.  The rest of these words of wisdom will help you on both counts.

1.  Who’s in charge at the library?

Such a simple question, such a difficult answer.

Generally the answer is “The Library Director.”  But this isn’t as simple as it sounds.

You need to know if you have walked into a branch library or the main library or if there is only one physical building for your public library.  Here’s what I mean.  Some towns have their own library and it is one building.  Generally the person in charge of that building is the library director.

But when you are in a city, you probably have a main library and several/lots of branch libraries.  (Chicago Public Library has a lot of branches.  Kansas City Public Library has fewer branches but still a lot.)  In cases where you have walked into a branch, the person in charge varies a lot.

Libraries can also belong to a Library District, which may be across municipalities or counties.  But there’s still a main library and a library director.

Library directors also have to report to Library Boards and/or County/City managers/mayors.

But the good news is that you really don’t need to care who’s in charge.  Library directors don’t tend to have anything to do with getting your book into a library.  (No, that’s not a joke.  Keep reading.)  As for library boards…they work best when they stay out of the day to day operations of libraries, such as material selection.

2.   Who are all of these people working in the library?

Hard to say.  It will vary from library to library.  Here’s why I say this:

The people working the area where you check out materials are generally not considered librarians.  They tend to be paraprofessionals who check out library materials and handle fines and maybe put the materials back on the shelves.

The people working the reference desk tend to be librarians.  Even that can mean different things.  Generally, librarians have master degrees in librarianship/library science.  They answer questions like, “Where is the bathroom?” (which is a classic reference question), “How much tonnage of wheat did Canada export in 2008?”  (I have no idea.)  “I like to read Tina Radcliffe.  Who else writes like her?”

Children’s librarians keep up with new children’s titles and authors and trends.  They’re also the people doing story time or homework time.

The person putting materials back on the shelf is generally a library page or shelver.

In some libraries, if there’s a backlog in shelving, everyone will shelve.  In other libraries, the job duties are specific and people are not allowed to move between these jobs.  So when you ask the person shelving the books where you can find a book on glutten free cooking and are told you need to go to the reference desk and ask there, s/he’s not trying to be a jerk.  S/he may not know or may know but not be willing to be written up for answering your question.  Also, the reference desk doesn’t generally have change so they may not be able to take your library fines and will send you to the circulation desk.  People are not trying to make your life difficult when they move you to another desk.  They may not be able to do what you need and are sending you to the group that can help.

There’s also an army of people that you don’t see who are involved with libraries.  We’ll get to them as we go along.

3.  Where do the books come from?

(Is it wrong of me to want to say, “When a mommy and daddy book love each other very much…?”  Oh, all right.)

You all have a good idea what it takes to get a book published.  And you have access to information on how physical books get sold/distributed.  (I know this because I wrote that blog and answered tons of questions.)

Libraries have a section in their budget generally known as Collection Development.  This is to buy new materials and replace old copies of things.  (“Green eggs and ham” needs to be replaced on a regular basis.)  Depending on the size of the library and library staff, there is either a backroom of people who research and order materials or it’s one of the duties on the person working the reference desk.  (Remember the reference desk from the last question?)  In either case, specific people are assigned to order either certain types of materials (DVDs, e-books, books on cd, database access) or topic ranges.  (Fiction, computer and technology, health and cookbooks, children’s materials, foreign language materials, etc.)

Most of the time, only the Fiction person can order Fiction.  If you have befriended the DVD ordering person (and who doesn’t want to befriend this person), this guy can’t get your book purchased by the library.  (We will address other ideas many of you have later as a way to circumvent this.  But let me give you a teaser and tell you to start letting those ideas go now and avoid the rush later.)

A lot of libraries will have online or paper forms to allow patron to make requests of titles to be added to the collection.  USE THESE.  (We’ll come back to it.)  But don’t assume that your request will get your book into the library.  Library budgets are tight right now.   (Many library districts/city libraries are cutting back hours the library is opened and closing branches.  What most people don’t realize is that before it gets to that point, the collection development budget has been gutted and only materials that the community really, really wants are being purchased.  So where a library district might have bought 75 copies of Nora Roberts latest hardback, they are now buying 30 copies.  Or 15.)

Also, most places are getting their materials completely or partially processed by the material distributor.  What this means is that the books are being sent with the plastic covers on them, the property stamps on the item added and may actually be ready to unpack and put on the shelves.  This tends to happen when libraries have fewer staff to perform these functions.  (The back room staff tend to get gutted first.)

4.  Okay, how can I get my book on the shelf?

That’s an excellent question.  I’m going to answer you and then list all the ways that your book won’t get on the shelf and tell you again why to do what I’m about to tell you.

Fill out a patron request form for your book.  Don’t do this until your title is within 4 weeks of release.  Many libraries can only order 30 days in advance.  If you fill out the form too early, it will “timeout” before your book is due to be released.

Get your friends who live in your library district to fill out the form requesting your book.  (Yes, this is playing the system.  So what?  Do you want your book on the shelf or not?)  If your friends don’t have library cards, arrange a van, go to the library, have them all get library cards and then have lunch.  Then let them go in one by one to request your book.  Make a day of it.

Encourage members of a Red Hat Society each to request your book.  Odds are they were going out to lunch anyway.  They can stop at the library on the way.

There will generally be a section “How did you learn about this book?”  on the form.  Either refer to a website that has reviewed an early copy or say, “Stumbled across it on Amazon.”  Don’t say, “I know the author.”  That gives people the idea that you’re trying to scam the system.  (Tight, tight library budgets, My Darlings.  Don’t be obvious about scamming the system.  Do it with finesse.)

Now, I’ll give you these variations:

4.a.   Find out how to volunteer to be a speaker at your library.  Libraries tend to be looking for people to speak at free programs.  If you are speaking about what it takes to get a book published, the library will generally try to make sure it has a copy of your book.  (If it doesn’t, don’t worry.  The parts of the group who heard you speak will fill out the patron request for your book.  So make sure you have a card listing the title, publisher, ISBN, price, etc. so they have that information easily and correctly at hand.  Make it easy for everyone.  It’s the polite thing to do.)

4.b.Volunteer at your local public library and try to see other ways to get your book into the library.

Here are things NOT TO DO:

DO NOT walk in the library building and ask to speak to the person who orders fiction.  For one thing, this person may not be at work.  (If your library is opened 72 hours a week, this person will be scheduled to be there for 40 hours.  And they may be leading the monthly Library Knitters program when you appear and can’t leave to talk to you.  Or they may be scheduled to work the reference desk.  Or just working on reports.)  If you really, really, really want to talk to this person, ask how to schedule a time to talk to this person, assuming anyone will tell you who it is.  Generally, just leave this person alone.  Otherwise, you’re going to peeve them unduly and they will remember your name as “Someone whose books we don’t order until they show up on the NYT bestseller’s list.”  Sometimes bad name recognition really is a problem.

Even if you make an appointment with this person, it is unlikely that the book can be purchased while you are there.  Most places have purchasing systems that require things like purchase orders and vendor numbers.  DO NOT expect to walk in and have the library buy your book from you.  It might have happened in the past, but those were still the exceptions and not the rule.  Remember, you’re looking for a long-term relationship with libraries.  As long as you have a book to be purchased, you want libraries trying to get a copy for their collections.

DO NOT send flowers/cookie bouquet/box of chocolates to the Collection Development department with a card including your name, title of the book, ISBN, release date, and price.  It’s not that people wouldn’t love that but most library districts/cities/counties have specific rules about staff not allowed to accept gratuities from people trying to influence purchases by the library district/city/county.  That includes your book.  I know you don’t mean any harm and it sounds like a lovely idea but it can cause a lot of problems. 


 JUST DON’T.  

There’s nothing more sad than a perfectly good cookie bouquet having to be thrown out uneaten.  Please don’t tell me that this would never happen.  I have seen this happen.  I have seen people get in trouble when they ignored the “City employees may not accept things from vendors while doing their job” rules.  Don’t try to get these people in trouble just because you don’t like the rules.  Again, that’s not the name recognition that you want.

• DO NOT decide that a flash mob would be a good idea in a library to promote your book.

• DO NOT put a copy of your book on the shelf.  That’s not helpful.  The title won’t be in the catalog and there won’t be a barcode to allow it to checkout.

• DO NOT put a copy of your book into the book drop.  That just means it has to go in the Lost Items box until someone realizes that no one has asked for this and then it will generally get thrown out.  It might end up in the library book sale but probably not.

• DO NOT start passing out copies of your book at the library.  Most libraries have restrictions about no solicitors.  (And I don’t mean the British type, for those of you living the “Downton Abbey” lifestyle.  Every so often, Tina believes she is British and I have to explain gently, lovingly, and firmly that she is not.) 

Just try what I listed at the beginning of this section.  That should get a copy on the shelf.  (Be happy with a copy.  We’ll go over how to keep the copy on the shelf later.)

 5. I donated books.  Why aren’t they on the shelf?

One hesitates to say, “There’s a special place in library hell for people who donate books and then want to track what happens to these books” but only because of breeding.    Here’s why.

Think of your donated books as a gift.  Once you give a gift, you don’t get a say in what happens to it.


Remember in #3 when I talked about tight library budgets and the collection development budget being slashed?  Well, the cataloging and processing department got slashed too.  These are the people who create the record that displays in the online catalog and puts the barcode and call number on the materials.  Getting materials processed by the vendors if often cheaper than hiring staff to do it.  Some libraries have completely eliminated this department and everything they order is cataloged and processed by the vendor.  They can’t add other materials.  Or the department is bare bones and only working on materials that have been purchased from vendors that can’t do cataloging/processing that they can’t handle donated materials.  They don’t have the covers/labels or barcodes to handle donated materials much less the staff time.

 


Under no circumstances are you to send a question or a comment saying, “But it’s a free book.”   I, Madame S, am emphatic on this topic.  But because one of you Little Dears will ask, let me just say, “NO!  IT IS NOT FREE.”  (And yes, I do mean all caps.)    See above.  You need staff to do the work, you need materials to process the book, and it will take physical space on the shelf.  “Free books” can be very expensive for a library.  That’s why many libraries have a policy that they do not allow donated materials to be added to collection. 

Darlings, it’s not personal.  Libraries have been cutting backroom staff through the ‘90s.  (And those were the boom times.)   Follow what I wrote in the first part of #4.  Do not deviate.


6.  What do the numbers on the book spine mean?

These are call numbers.  Here’s how it works.  (Or should work.)

In a back room, generally in the basement, lives a group of people who catalog materials.  We’ll use your book as an example.

Your book arrives and they create how your name will be searchable in the library catalog.  They will use what is on the title page of your book.  (I can tell you why the odds are that you won’t get a date even if you want one but let’s skip that right now.)

Then they add the title as it appears on the title page.  They add the publisher.  The number of pages, whether there are any illustrations, and the height of the book.  They will also add the series if it’s published as part of a series.  They might add a summary but that’s not a constant.  They probably will add some subject headings but again they may not.

They will add a call number.  (Remember call numbers?  That’s how this question got started.)  I’m going to stick to Fiction since most of you write fiction.  The call number will look something like this:

FICTION
LAST NAME

There may be some variations.  Sometimes the Genre is a part of the call number.

ROMANCE
FICTION
LAST NAME

Oklahoma reunion
Radcliffe, Tina.
ISBN:     9780373877027 (pbk.) : $5.75
ISBN:     0373877021 (pbk.) : $5.75
Local call number:    FICTION RADCLIFF
Personal Author: Radcliffe, Tina.
Title: Oklahoma reunion / Tina Radcliffe.
Publication info:    New York : Love Inspired, c2011.
Physical description:     216 p. ; 17 cm.
Series:     (Love Inspired inspirational romance)
Subject term:     Single mothers--Fiction.
Subject term:     Man-woman relationships--Fiction.
Subject term: Love stories.

Now, if there’s a number instead of FICTION, odds are it’s a Dewey Decimal call number.

Don’t try to memorize any of these numbers.  The meaning changes with every new edition of the Dewey Decimal System.  Granted, your favorite topics will be together and no one can beat a library shelver for knowing Dewey numbers.  The time to worry is not when you have to look up the number.   The time to worry is when you know what it means.

The spine label should match the call number in the catalog.  I say should because sometimes it doesn’t match.  There are a lot of reasons and I could do a blog on that if I ever agree to have brunch with Tina again and think I’m passing her the salt.

Some libraries don’t use the last name for the next line.  They use a letter number combo.  (This is known as “cuttering” because it uses a table created by Mr. Cutter.  I can write long about this as well but fewer and fewer public libraries are using this option.  (Although I believe the Free Library of Philadelphia is still using its original system from the time of the Library’s creation.  I’m not making that up but I am having a flashback...)

7.  How do I get an “in” with my library?

It depends on the library and the size of the system.

One of the best ways is to volunteer.  (Hmm…I may have mentioned that before…)

One way is to contact whomever schedules programs for the library/library district and offer to do a program.  (Hmm…I think I said this too…)

 If you are independently wealthy, you can donate a sizeable amount that the library will find it worth its while to buy your books new, but that’s not for the average, starting author.

You can join a Friends of the Library group and see if you can influence them to request your book.

9.  How do I keep a copy on the shelf of the library?

Actually, Tina didn’t ask but I promised I’d explain how to do this earlier.

Check out the book.  That’s it.  Check it out.

Libraries live and die by circulation statistics.  Every time your book is circulated/checked out in a year, libraries get very happy.  It shows the folks that fund libraries that patrons are checking out the materials that have been purchased.  Three times a year is good.  Five times is better.

The more your book checks out, the better the odds it will stay on the shelf.  This is due to decisions that have to be made about what items to get rid of so new books have a place on the library shelves.  (Yes, libraries get rid of books.  It’s also known as weeding and de-accessioning items.  They have to.  Physics takes over.  You have new materials coming into a place with a finite amount of shelf space.  Unused things/lesser used things have to go so the new things have a place to be.  And before everyone gets excited about libraries removing old materials, DON’T.  Everything that is old does not go.  You can still checkout Jane Austen and Charles Dickens and early Stephen King.  Things that circulate/that people want to read, stay.  Things that are outdated, such as “DOS for idiots” or the 1959 edition of “What Catholics believe” get removed from public libraries to make way for “iPhone 5 for idiots” and “Downton Abbey.”

Also the more your current book circulates, the more likely your new books will be added without having to use the patron request forms.  (Remember, Darlings, it’s a marathon, not a sprint.  We’re taking the long view of things.)




Now, I’ve been asked to write on libraries and e-books and publishers, oh my, but that’s going to have to wait.  Tina claims I’ve said too much.  (If she wants a shorter entry, she should ask someone else.)  I’ll be standing by for any questions you may have and will try to give correct and easily understandable answers to questions on this topic.








Madame S has worked in and around archives and libraries and library related businesses since 1985.  Well, she started volunteer work in public libraries in 1976 as a junior high student.  (She was recruited and told if she put the catalog cards from various packets into alphabetic order for filing into the library catalog, she could take and read the paperbacks that hadn't been cataloged yet.  So she began her professional life with an understanding of how the backroom works and who you need to make happy in order to get special benefits.  Plus, she got to see all the books that came in before the rest of the patrons.)

 Armed with this information, she misspent her first semi-decade working for library districts, state library networks, large city libraries, small city libraries, a library system software company and book distributor.  She was taken to the library when she was very young and realized she had found heaven on earth.  In 1968, she got her first library card with her name on it and has never looked back.  She continues to ensure any library or library branch she uses has higher circulation statistics than it did before she arrived in the area.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Today we have a special birthday giveaway in honor of this visit to Seekerville by Madame S. We'll be giving away a $15.00 Amazon gift card to one commenter. Winner announced tomorrow in the Weekend Edition.

Check out the Birthday Prizes!

Enter to win digital copies of Dan DeWitt's novels, Orpheus and Odinsons!

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Title: Orpheus
Author: Dan DeWitt
Genre: Horror (Zombies)

Synopsis: Cameron Holt is fortunate enough to survive the initial outbreak that turns his New England island community into a hive of the undead. So is his son, Ethan. Now, the only thing keeping Holt going is the determination to rescue his son from the undead...or remove him permanently from their ranks. Unfortunately, zombies aren't the only thing getting in his way.

Reviews

Orpheus received two five-star reviews from The Masquerade Crew.

• Sharon's Review
• Bec's Review

Also up for grabs in this giveaway are digital copies of Odinsons, another of Dan's novels. Click here to learn more about it.

An Interview With The Author—Dan DeWitt

What's your writing background?

Nothing too exciting. I have a Bachelor's degree in English, which means next to nothing when it comes to writing fiction. Still, I took a bunch of creative writing classes and really enjoyed them. Before that, I dabbled in short stories here and there, but wasn't ready to try and make a career out of it. I wrote one screenplay in 2001 that advanced to the second round at Austin (and I'm about ¼ of the way into its novelization). I've always been a voracious reader, and I got really serious after participating in NaNoWriMo in 2006. Since then, I've published a couple of short stories in e-zines and one non-fiction profile in a local magazine. But I'm really just a guy who loves to read fiction and tell a story from time to time.

To read more of this interview, click here.

Connect with the author:

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Grandma's General Store: The Ark, by Dorothy Carter

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The book is highly recommended as an enlightening and refreshing read set in the Depression Era of the South.

Grandma owns a small colored general store that serves as a gathering place for hard working coloreds. When her son loses his job as foreman at the sawmill, he and his wife decide to head North to look for a better life. They must leave their children in Grandma 's care. The story unfolds as a heart rending story portraying the importance of family bonds and hard work.

This is a wonderful eye opener depicting the hardships that bring us closer together in life or break us apart.

Reviewed by a staff member, First Regional Library

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Something's Gotta Give

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If you know me at all you know I'm obsessed with time. Wasting it. Using it. Saving it. Savoring it.  Time. Time. Time. It keeps clicking by.

Tell me you're waiting for the day to be over or the week, the month or the year and I'll get irritated, because time is the most precious commodity in my life and I don't believe it should be wished away.

We all have the same amount of time in our day. Think about it.

  60 minutes in an hour.           
  24 hours in a day.             
  1440 minutes in a day.

Thirteen years ago I had a life changing event occur. I lost my husband. This isn't the topic of discussion, but I'm hoping you'll digest this information and indulge me the bold  and potentially offensive comments I'm about to make now that I've given you some insight into my background and understand that I'm speaking from my heart.

Psalm 39:4-5

“O Lord, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am! Behold, you have made my days a few hand breadths, and my lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath!"

 When you lose someone close to you, you are given a unique a pair of glasses that few others are privileged to wear. These glasses are like slow motion and 3-D sort of merged together. You look at the sky, the clouds, and the entire world around you differently. You realize how fleeting our time here on earth is and how very important it is to follow your dream today, because you might not have tomorrow. To everyone else this seems a trite acknowledgement, but to those wearing the glasses it becomes a burning heat inside of us.


Thus, one of the quotes that steers my day:




 My outlook on life has changed dramatically. I went from a type A personality to an A minus. Hey, for me, that was huge.

Dust bunnies were no longer able to hold me hostage.

I spent hours and hours savoring sunsets and sunrises and enjoying the splendor of what God has given me.

I spent time considering what I wanted my tombstone to say, and this wasn't it.



   "Her house was clean and her toilet bowls sparkled. She liked to write but unfortunately she never really had time." 

But this was...........


This is also why I preach the inverted pyramid method of time management.  I simply asked myself if I was doing what I really wanted to be doing?




The pyramid should be filled top to bottom with what's most important to the least important in life.

 So if writing was near the top of my list why had I inverted my pyramid- spending most of my time on things I claimed were least important?





Consider this:



 What was the worst that could possibly happen to me if I did this?

 Agent of my dreams would reject me? They all did except the agent who would fulfull my dreams.

Publisher of my dreams would reject me? They did. On several, wait, many occasions and then when my writing grew, I sold to them.

 Reviewer's might hate my books. Yes. They have bashed me with words. Torn me into little pieces and left me to bleed to death. In those moments I crawl to the computer and bring up all the sweet emails that tell me my books touched lives.





After years of juggling the balls, I  have finally come to the conclusion that balance in a writer's life is a myth.  I CAN'T HAVE IT ALL.   

I've done the homework, analyzed the charts, and run the numbers. I'm off the hook. 

Something's gotta give means I can leave the dishes in the sink while I edit that short story. I can turn off the television in the middle of Survivor and go revise. I can get off Twitter and read. And,  I can say no when invited to a home shopping party across the street because, I'm a writer and writer's spend their time writing.


And guess what fellow scribes? This applies to you too. It's true...
 YOU CAN'T HAVE IT ALL EITHER!



Okay, Seekervillian, ready for five tough questions?

•     Are you wasting time or savoring it, and exploiting it to the max?
•     What have you done today to make your dream come true?
•      Are dust bunnies holding you hostage? (What will your tombstone say?)
•     Are you living in an inverted pyramid life wasting time on the least important things?
•     What would you attempt  if you knew you could not fail?

Today's birthday present is a surprise See's Candies gift to one commenter. Winner announced tomorrow in the Weekend Edition, where we'll also announce our Week 1 prize winner.

Check out our birthday presents here.

Thank you Blogger for finally cooperating!

Embracing the Reader, Enticing the Editor, Let's Sell Those "Series"!

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REMINDER!!!!  SEEKERVILLE WELCOMES GUEST BLOGGER AND LOVE INSPIRED EDITOR ELIZABETH MAZER TOMORROW!!!! AMAZING GIVEAWAYS.... COOL CONTESTS... NO CONFERENCE COSTS, LOL!!!!  DO NOT FORGET TO STOP BY EARLY AND OFTEN!!! SEEKERS THRIVE ON YOUR SUCCESS STORIES!
Good morning, Seekerville! Ruthy here, ready to work! Okay, we're here to do Part "B" of the "series post", the post I wrote twice for September... as if boring you to tears once wasn't bad enough, ooops. SORRY!!!!  :)

And I had to delete all the fun stuff I had in here about pretending to MISS the conference-goers.... and we did, right??? We missed them while eating RED VELVET CAKE with CREAM CHEESE FROSTING, recipe HERE!!!

And... here is an amazingly great TRUE STORY that happened to  me in the past few weeks... Hit the link, travel to Ruthy's Place and then come back... You might need tissues. I'm just sayin'...

Back to series. When I knew the time was right for me to study this craft and try writing, I grabbed every Nora Roberts and Linda Howard book I could find from the library. Why them? Because they were the best-sellers, the people pleasers, the sought-afters. Learn from the best when at all possible...

'Member "Good Will Hunting"? Will's line about "...yeah but you dropped 150 grand on an education you coulda got for a buck-fifty in late charges at the public library."

I had no money so that library became my educational mecca!  And I realized I LOVED series.... Nora's "Stanislaskis"???? Loved 'em!!!!  The MacGregors, the whole stinkin' clan??? Over the top enamored!  Linda's MacKenzie series????  Who didn't fall in love with every one of those heroes?????

Jan Karon's "Mitford" series with Father Tim? Oh my stars, I love Father Tim and Cynthia. The antics of the town. The pacing, the laughter, the tears. Sara Donati's Into the Wilderness series, the Bonner family? Oh take me back a few centuries... Please!!!  :) And remember, Christian fiction hadn't started burgeoning as yet, and our library had nothing like that, so I went to the best-selling romance authors and fed my writer's brain.

And what about suspense series? Marta Perry has made an art form of developing successful suspense series. And Mary Connealy's romantic/comedy/suspense books are the rage all over the country because those series create a niche of family, setting, friends, neighbors. She captures that intrinsic "something" that makes a series sing.

But how does a pantser write a series? How would a plotter plan a series? Those are the first things you should ask yourself. Plotter? Pantser? Because your methods will vary and what works for one won't work for the other. (and for the life of me I haven't figured out what fun there is in writing for those plotter folks, but they say... sigh... they're having fun with all their trimmin's and trappin's, and glue boards or cork boards or notebook/notepad/ipad/ibook thingamajiggies.)

Series can be linked by many things and we chatted about some of this in September HERE...  And we talked about the over-reaching SERIES ARC that allows each book to form its own arc within.  Picture a bridge as the series arc.....



And the "pass-throughs" (supports) are the individual books.

Each support could stand on it's own. They're built strong and balanced and tough. But the bridge can't span the water with one support.... And that's how a series is. Stand-alone books co-existing in a solid framework.

Here are a few of those "links" that tie a series together.

1. Setting  (all books take place in a region or town or city or neighborhood) In this case the setting can actually become strong enough to become a "character" in the books. Karon's "Mitford" series is an excellent example of that. I used this framework for my Men of Allegany County series, interconnecting the men and their romances through a geographic region. A larger setting like that allows more room for expansion because counties are BIG. Setting usually allows the author more leeway with less chance of "sound alike" books, a bane to any author's existence.

2. Plot  (all books linked by similar plot lines/genre)  The Cat Who... series by Lilian Braun are genre linked books. Mystery series follow this formula and mystery readers LOVE THEM.  Some thrillers (think of how Dan Brown bought the book on Writing Thrillers for Morons or some such thing, and then WROTE HIS BOOKS based on that outline. There is a reason successful authors employ similar modes, because it resonates with a readership. Remember, throughout everything, a publisher wants your heart, he/she longs for you to bleed red on your manuscript, but mostly???  They want/need sales. Without sales, we go nowhere, and sales/selling/being paid is not a dirty word. It's part of the balance.

3.  Siblings (Julie Lessman's series are a perfect example here, where Julie has taken each unique sibling and created a story line for them) Dee Henderson did that with her "O'Malley" series, too. Connealy has employed that in the Sophie's Daughters series, and also in her current hot-selling Kincaid Brides group of books from Bethany House. It's a family saga type book broken into increments and very reader-friendly.

4.  Number  (Three sisters, three friends, Four brothers, etc. Many series are set on a number like that. Usually in a friend/sibling series, three is the suggested number, maybe four. There are exceptions to that. Sagas are prone to developing more books about each individual character)

5.  Crime/Genre/Suspense  J. D. Robb's "DEATH" series is indicative of this. Classic work using the same main characters through multiple books but delivering individualized crime stories as presented to these characters. These series can go on for a long time. Mysteries, crime, suspense are often seen with this twist. Think television series like "Castle", "NCIS", "Jag", etc.

6.  Time progression (these series may start in the 1800's with early settlers going west and then develop generationally. Mary Connealy has touched on this with her  Lassoed in Texas series  and Montana Marriages series which morphed into Sophie's Daughters series, three books that tied the previous series together in the next generation. Skillfully done this is a great tactic to bind the reader to the books and the author.


So that's our re-cap.... and now we're into Part "B":

1. Plan the series
2. Write the opening book
3. Plant seeds of upcoming books
4. Leave folks longing for more books, more closure.

We talked about double arcs, an overhanging series arc.... And individual book arcs.

I actually have to PLAN now. Or my bosses will laugh me out of the room when I ask for money, kind of like that Oliver kid, wanting more food, right???  "Please, sir? Might I have some more???"

As if, kid.

So once I figured that out, I played with pre-developing a series. My 2013/2014 "Kirkwood Lake" series is set between Chautauqua and Cattaraugus and Allegany counties in southwestern NY, the Enchanted Mountains region, along the Northern PA border.

BIG REGION. HUGE.


How much do you LOVE the sign tree????? It leads down the narrow road to the lakefront, a true riparian thing that you might also see atop a mountain... Translate: Access limited!!!

And how pretty is this view of the opposite shore? This is Rushford Lake, New York, in Allegany County.

That gives me space to grow and develop the stories. I knew I wanted varied law enforcement agencies involved to reflect reality. Current economic woes have towns and villages giving up all kinds of duplicate services... police and fire are among those. So what happens when a town drops its police service? The sheriffs and state police step in to pick up the slack.

Now we have automatic conflict. People are overworked. Job security in the bigger forces is heightened, but so are expectations. And what happens when law enforcement gets spread too thin?

Crime increases.

I noticed a HUGE DRUG BUST in this region that linked the Buffalo Police Department, the NYS police and local sheriffs to bring down a big drug ring. And they did it, too!

But it took a lot of quiet work, cooperation, and involvement to get the job done because there are lots of places to hide in the mountains and back roads of these rural, rolling counties.

Bad cops. The papers are full of them, reports of law enforcement abusing their badges in numerous ways. While that's the minority, it's real, so adding that in helps the layering process. Bad cop = BAD.

Good cop = HERO or HEROINE

Simple, right??? (big grin)

So we've got big geographic area, work-related stress for those who lost their jobs and those who have more expected of them....

And life, of course. Whose life doesn't smack them upside the head now and again???

Now we needed a town. "Kirkwood Lake" is our quaint town bordering the lake of the same name, and having the town on the shoreline of a fairly large lake makes it a gathering spot and a seasonal place. For June, July and August, Kirkwood Lake will be different than in the other nine months, because the summer folk go home.

BIG DIFFERENCE, MORE CONFLICT... money, space, empty places, vandalism....

And the small city of Clearwater lies just south of the lake... A setting similar to Jamestown, NY at the lower edge of Chautauqua Lake, which gives the stories another dose of latitude and realism.

So we've set up for ongoing stress surrounding these heroes and heroines in law enforcement...

Now we add LIFE:

Oy. Life. Smackdowns.

He stripped his father's dream away, and now must pay the price... Her dream was her father's nightmare, and now everyone is pushing her to give it up, sell out and she might, because hanging on might just cost her the hero. Which does she want more? Her centennial family farm or the hero's love?

He and his little boy had been abandoned already...and lame excuses hold scant appeal.  She abandoned her pretty babies to avoid going back to prison... to get them back, she might have to do just that.  

She'd lost her love, her life when her cop husband became a hero... He lost his heart when his wife left with another man's child, a boy he loved as his own. When she comes to town, pregnant and alone, he knows he can't face that again. Ever. No matter how much she needs him.

Once a prisoner, he makes a difference now, physically and emotionally. A cop, she does it right,  proving illicit activities don't run in the family. But his present plants her past into the line of fire, and she just can't forgive him for that.


I already have a glimmer of the fifth book.... A book that ties our two lost children who turn up in "The Lawman's Second Chance" (due out May, 2013)... and gives these lost babies a chance at the normal life they've been denied. That's a seed planter, it helps instill in the reader a longing to find out what happens. I work hard to invest the reader in the people, the town, the children, the romance, and yes... the DOGS!!!

This is Derringer, he's the retired military hero's Red Coon Hound in "His Mistletoe Family" available HERE!!!!

ISN'T HE STINKIN' GORGEOUS?????

And here he is on the cover of this delightful Christmas tale, with our two orphaned boys, Tyler and Todd. I am continually blessed by the work of the art team at Harlequin. I want to jump into this picture and take care of these boys, these precious gifts of God! And they're just what our wounded hero needs to give him a new lease on life.  Oh.... that God!!!!  :)


I strove to give this new series mobility and space. It's set across a three-county mountainous region. I picked a riparian setting for the town (bordering a beautiful lake) because that gives me room for story development geographically and seasonally. And riparian land owners are sometimes WEIRD... If you don't believe me, try walking along a quiet, lake-dwelling road as a stranger... and see what happens.

I've developed SMOKIN' HOT HEROES!!!!  and the women they need to help them complete God's circle for their lives.

I've made fun of a few people in the process.  :)

But just a few!

Here's a pic of the fun basket you're vying for today if your name is picked:

This delightful basket holds Cuba Sharp Cheddar from Cuba, NY, Webb's Candy bars from Mayville, New York, a couple of RUTHY BOOKS!!!! and a delightful surprise book by a Carol-award finalist who shall go un-named at present... Lindt truffles... A COOL Seekerville jar opener, the famous Seekerville Pink Pen to sign your contracts with, a copy of the original "Simply Books" which has our first shout-out article about Seekerville from the nice folks at Harlequin, harvest colored M&M's (my favorite to have at Thanksgiving!!!) and anything else I don't scrape out of the cat dish!

Stop in. Let's talk story/series development and feel free to share your favorite series titles with us because studying... reading.... writing.... well they're the best way this author knows of getting it right.

Remembering always that the LIBRARY IS A FREE REFERENCE SITE FOR A REASON!!! Oh, how I love Ben Franklin!!!

:)

Coffee's on!

Don't forget to check out those presents!