A Look Back Over 2022; A Christmas Letter

If you already received this letter inside a Christmas card, just disregard this, it's the same (except for the pictures):

Twenty-twenty-two has definitely been a better year than the two that came before, at least for us. Our first great-grandbaby was born on October 10: Rey Marie. She was a big girl at over 8 pounds, and was born to Brooke, Wayne’s granddaughter, and her husband Colt. They’re the pair who live in St. Croix, so we have not seen this new baby whom Wayne has already named Sugarpie to compliment his nickname for her mom, Honeypie. They are coming to Texas in January so we will finally get to lay eyes on this precious addition to the family. 

Also in October, the 30^th Anniversary Edition of LILY came out in trade paperback. Hard for me to believe it has been thirty years already since it debuted, but time does march on, as they say. It has a lovely new cover and I’m pleased that it was printed in big bold type so more people can read it and enjoy it again. Maybe it will find new readers, who knows. 

In August, in celebration of Wayne’s 75^th birthday, we returned to our beloved Florence, Oregon for a week of seafood and beautiful views. The VRBO we rented overlooks the Siuslaw River (pronounced Sigh-You-Slaw) a mile upstream from where it empties into the blue, blue Pacific. We spent a lot of our time just sitting out on the balcony watching the harbor seals and shore birds, as the tide came and went. We especially enjoyed watching cormorants dive for food. The water is so clear there you can see them underwater as they dart after the little sunfish they seem to relish. They’re terrific fishermen but it also turns out they’re gluttons. I stopped counting at 14 minnows one bird caught in 45 minute. 

We would love to find a way to move to Florence permanently, but the disparity in housing costs will probably keep us here. We have put our little bay house on the market, but we needed to do that anyway. Insurance on that place cost three times what our house in Yoakum costs, and I have tired of holding my breath all the way through hurricane season every year. We’ve had it eight years and I will miss it as my writing retreat.

Our flight from Eugene Oregon back to Austin went fine until right before we landed, when our flight was suddenly diverted to Houston Hobby. There were supposedly supercell thunderstorms in the area, although we later learned there were also some mechanical issues with the plane. They put us on a new plane in Houston and we got back to Austin at 2:30 in the morning instead of 10:30 as scheduled, and still facing a two-hour drive home. Several other planes had been diverted and it became a free-for-all in baggage claim. I was wearing a mask but Wayne was not. And of course, two days after we got home, after being completely vaxed and double-boosted, we both came down with Covid. It was, thankfully, a light case for both of us. Our doctor prescribed Paxlovid (a miracle drug) and within a few days we were well and testing negative. 

April was another big time for us. Mid-month we left on an 8-day cruise up the Rhine River. Stuart and Mark met us at the Amsterdam airport and we all shuttled to the boat. This was our second Viking cruise and we really love the excursions, the slower pace, the fewer passengers at only 225 people, the delicious gourmet food. These river cruises are a relaxing, easy-going way to travel. We loved the Rhine but think we loved the Danube in 2019 just a teensy bit more. We have now traveled to 13 countries and figure we need to add one more to get to a luckier number.

Also in April, my book FOR LOVE AND GLORY came out. It has been a long time coming and I was thrilled to finally see this novel I worked on, intermittently, for nearly 20 years come to fruition. I loved my editor, my designer, but have learned how hard it is to get a book noticed now, and into bookstores and review magazine. The publishing industry has undergone a dramatic change since my last book came out, but as I tell all my friends “I’M BACK, BABY.” I have been surprised at how many of my old fans have sent me texts and messages with well-wishes. 

In April, our cat Sam turned eight. It’s so hard for us both to believe he could possibly be that old already. He brings us loads of joy, and is still the same silly, lively play-kitty he was when we got him. In fact, I don’t think he realizes he’s not still a kitten. 

So here’s to another great year! I hope everyone flourishes and finds new joy in their lives!

ONWARD....🍷🍷

Maybe You Can Judge a Book By Its Cover

 My first novel LILY will be reprinted later this year, 30 years after the first edition came out in 1992. It's going to be great to have the book back in print. Electronic versions have been available but the book went out of print around 2001 and since then, only used copies could be found on various bookselling sites. I almost never see copies of the mass market paperback out there. I suppose those aren't worth anything anymore. But at any rate, LILY will be out this time in trade paperback and with an all new cover. 

I like the new cover. It's always hard to get used to something new, but I think the cover is pretty and does invoke the story -- a thing a cover is supposed to do to my mind. I've had some book covers I wasn't wild about. I was actually never wild about the original LILY hardcover art. It's reminiscent of Marc Chagall, but for me it always made the book look cartoonish, and since it has a 15-year-old protagonist, the inclination of reviewers was to categorize it as a YA novel, which it most definitely is not. There's too much sex, for one thing, enough in fact to get it banned from some school libraries. But that's a story for another blog post. The point being, the writer doesn't always, or often, have much say with traditional publishers about the cover art of their book. I did manage to get them to take the sequaro cactus the artist had originally drawn into the background out to be replaced by the hillock and trees. The artist was from Spain, and I guess had watched too many Sergio Leoni spaghetti westerns. The part of Texas, Bastrop County, where LILY takes place is rolling hills and lots of pine trees, so the second try came out better, although those trees look suspiciously like cypress trees to me. Ah well...

When foreign rights started coming in on LILY, it was interesting to see that the Spanish version opted to use the same cover but changed to the title to La Inocencia de Lily, a charming change, I thought. I never had a chance to see the cover art for the German version, but British LILY was moody blue and more adult, sort of mysterious. I liked it well enough. They published in both hardcover and soft simultaneously, something that didn't take hold in the USA until recently. And of course, this was way before the eBook revolution. But on all these cover, Lily herself was all wrong. She was never a blonde as in the Chagall-like version, and British LILY is far too mature-looking, although I did like that the British cover seemed to take the book more seriously as literature.

The mass-market version was done in a lovely way, with a stepback cover and a vellum overlay that lets a smoky image of the stepback seep through. And it was cool how they highlighted my name at the top with a banner beneath. And they got Lily's hair color correct.

Anyway the point is the cover art, what to expect, the initial reactions when you finally see it, all of those are part of the anticipation and excitement of having a book come out. I'm getting used to the latest cover art, and liking it more and more. I hope it will bring a new generation of readers to LILY.

Onward....

  

Stepback cover

Going Into eBook Once Again

THE PASSION OF DELLIE O'BARR became available on Nook today. Odd that it came out on Nook before Kindle, but Kindle should be out before the week's up. I like having my books available again, even if it is an electronic version. I got 1099s from both Barnes and Noble and Amazon for sales of LILY last year. Surprised me. I knew I'd been getting little deposits from them, but it adds up.

Re-reading THE PASSION OF DELLIE O'BARR to catch mistakes made in the conversion process is what got me interested in working on the old screenplay again. I have been doing more of that over the last few days. My son and his partner will be here mid-week next week, and shortly afterwards, we are making our three-month trip to Texas, so the screenplay is something I can take along more easily. But once we get back from Texas, I am going to set it aside and get back to the endless novel. I'm really chomping at the bit to dig back into it.

It is fun to work on this screenplay, although I'm sure I'm going to have to cut easily half of it before I'm finished. I like learning a new way of writing, delving into the mechanics of it, and just finding methods to get the story done through dialogue and action. That just has to be good practice for novel-writing, too. In prose it's often too easy to cop-out with a lot of narrative and internal monologues. Not possible with a screenplay, or anyway, not AS possible. I am seeing more and more movies with voice-overs than I ever used to see, and for the most part, it's in movies where the script has been adapted from a novel. But I'm not quite good enough at this yet to do that effectively.

Anyway, I think I'm really looking at this screenplay as more of an exercise. I do understand that it's even harder to have a screenplay produced than it is to have a novel published. And I'm not sure I would be willing to put in all the necessary work that would go into that process. I've had some dealings with movie people -- producers, directors, writers, etc -- and they live in a totally different universe than I do. Truth is, I don't want to live in theirs, so there you are.

On another note, I've felt the need to fill my loose time with some money-making endeavors. I've started selling again. Ladies fashion blouses this time. It's a new line of merchandise for me but not a new concept. Selling is basically selling, no matter what the product. Hopefully it will turn out to be lucrative. Otherwise, I'll quit.

Onward ....

Trying the Amazon Thing

I signed up with Amazon to be an Associate. Actually, I did it because I would like to sell all these hardcover LILY books I have in my storage closet. See, I bought out the 3rd printing of that book, thinking I would rather store them than have them appear on a remainder table, but now I have them and they're getting old, so I thought signing up to sell them as an Amazon Associate would be a way to get them to readers. Anyway, with the Associate program comes a way to link to your blog, so I'm seeing how the whole thing works. I think it would be kind of cool to mention a book I happen to be reading, and then having a link to that book on Amazon. The way I think it will work is that a hotlink will appear on the title, and then with one click, the blog reader will be taken to a way to buy that book from Amazon. I'm not absolutely certain that's the way it goes, but I'll give it a try.

There's so much to learn with all this new technology. Sometimes I get overwhelmed by it and just give up. But I would like to have my books out there a little more, or again, whatever. And when I read a book I really love, I like to share that information, as well. I've reviewed some books for Amazon, so I thought, why not. I guess if I get this down, maybe I'll look into getting some of my books on Kindle.

At any rate, here goes with that. It's worth a try.

Onward ....