A Day To Be Thankful

As everyone knows, tomorrow is turkey day here in the US. Thanksgiving commemorates a special time in early US history when Pilgrims were down on their luck the Wampanoag Indians came to their aide and taught them the ways of the land. It was 1620 and almost half of the colonists of Plymouth, Massachusetts had died that winter the Wampanoag came. It was a tough time for all made better by the presence of friends and family.

During the early years, many states had a day of thanksgiving but few were on the same day and all were declared by the state governor. Three weeks after Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln finally consolidated all those days down to the last Thursday in November. In the mid-19th century, Sarah Josepha Hale, writer of Mary Had A Little Lamb, went on a campaign to make Thanksgiving a national holiday. Her wish was granted when in 1941, Congress made our day of thanks, a national holiday for all to enjoy.

This year, I have a lot to be thankful for in my life. I have a great local writers group, a wonderful critique group, fantastic readers who tell me I’m great. I have a fantastic family and this year I’ll be traveling to California to spend time with my husband’s family for a traditional holiday with tons of his family I haven't seen for almost a year. I also found out about five months ago that this time next year I’ll be a grandmother of twin boys. I have a lot to be thankful for and believe me, I am.

But as I’m offering thanks for what I have, I will be expressing my sorrow over so many unfortunate families where someone has lost a job, a home and the things that matter most. I know that if my in-laws go to feed the homeless, I will go with them this year. My wish is that next year it will be better for the millions who are down and out. And I'll be helping out at home as well with some of the programs in my hometown this year.

I am also thankful for RWA, MWA and SFWA who so diligently looked after their authors in the recent Harlequin debacle. As of this writing, RWA had officially kicked Harlequin out of their acceptable publishers ranks and while I may not agree with how it was done, I certainly agree that it HAD to be done. RWA had no other course of action and while that sucks for many of our well loved authors the rules apply to everyone. Nora Roberts, the best known romance author ever, threw her towel in with RWA and the romance world cheered her on. As a romance writer I’ll have to see just how this all is going to pan out before I decide if I’m ever going to submit to them.

Yes, I am very thankful for many things.

Now for the fun things...this week the winner of my new book, The Haunting of Maggie Grey...is Tracy D (booklover0226). Email me at lynncrain@cox.net to get your prize. Next week, I’ll be giving away The Thing About Elves.

Have a great week and a great Thanksgiving!

Lynn

When Things Go Awry

Earlier in the week I lamented the fact that I was having a horrible few days.

The current book I’m working on will be my fourth release in as many months. This I do not mind but since I have been selling on spec, it can make for a hard couple of months as far as writing goes. Then I found out that I hadn’t finaled in a contest I really had hope for. Sigh. Rejected again.

What is it about contests that make or break an author’s day? Don’t get me wrong. I know how lucky I am. I know I write well but sometimes you want complete strangers telling you the same thing and when they don’t, your emotions can go awry. Then when things weren’t going right on my latest book and my publisher accidentally forgot me in a promotion, I let the moment get the best of me.

Maybe I was in the wrong profession, maybe I should be doing something else. It was enough that I finally pulled out A.J. Llwellyn’s blog from last week to get the name of her guest speaker who had a wonderful article on how we cause our own self-doubts. Rhona Berens had some wonderful suggestions on what to do and what not to do. I read it with pleasure as I realized, it was just a moment in time and one bad day did not make a whole career.

Then yesterday, I get the newsletter of one of my favorite authors and I could put it all in perspective. She talked about the horrible review she had just received regarding her Wolf Tales 9. When you read it, it will make you cringe. Very little positive in that article regarding her ongoing stor. She goes on to say while she’s disappointed with the review, she thinks it’s her best Wolf Tales ever. How’s that for positive reinforcement?  First, believe in yourself!

Even the great ones have bad days and I realize I’m not alone in this boat. Venting to other writers and critique partners always helps. And I have to thank from the bottom of my heart C.R., Diane, Elizabeth, Erin, Ginger, Johanna,both Rebeccas and Sherry. You all mean the world to me and I know I am very blessed to be working with each and every one of you.

Now for some wonderful and interesting news. I hope all of you have heard about Carina Press (http://www.carinapress.com/)  by now. This is Harlequin’s foray into the ePublishing world. And today I found about their leap into the self-publishing world as well with their Harlequin Horizons (http://www.harlequinhorizons.com/). This is definitely interesting times.

And now for this week’s winner of an eBook...Tamsyn...come on down! You’ve won a copy of The View From Santa’s Sleigh! Next week, I’ll give away a copy of my new book, The Haunting of Maggie Grey...great cover...huh?

Thanks everyone for participating! See you all next week!


Lynn

This and That

Here I sit at my desk. It’s 7:05 am in the morning and I find myself wondering just what I’m going to write today. I almost never get up this early but knew I needed to do so today since it was my blogging day. It didn’t help that I went to bed last night with this very issue on my mind. What surprised me the most, is I don’t really have much to say this week. And for the woman who always has something to say about most things, this is pretty new.

It maybe because I have a book coming out in just eleven days, count them, and I’m still putting on the final touches. The eBook world is amazing in this because there are such fast turnaround times. But this one is a small book and will be very, very clean when it gets there. I’m not only going to go over it with a fine tooth comb, I’m going to have my critique group trounce on it as well. It will be so squeaky clean once it gets to the editor, there won’t be much left to fix.

Now back to my lack of subjects. It maybe that I’m also in NaNoWriMo which is National Novel Writing Month. It’s where you write a book in a month. The book I’ve chosen is my Christmas book, An Elf’s Love which zooms in on Merna Locklin and her would be kidnapper, Trevor Haines. What better way to spur me on except to get a chance for winning lots of prizes for doing something I had to do anyway. The word count we have to aspire to is a mere 50k which breaks down to a mere 1700 per day. A drop in the bucket when I look at the scheme of things.

I could talk about just how depressing the economics is as I have just had another friend impacted by another unexpected layoff. My heart clutches everyday for people I know and my own son who works for the construction industry in the worst place in the world to work right now. And with twins on the way, my oldest and I have discussed what he would do and how I could help if it happened. For those of you in this situation, things have to get better. They just have to and I know I’m trying to do my share by being a good consumer when I can.

I could talk about how my youngest gets up, watches TV for at least a half an hour before hopping into the shower. After about twenty minutes in, I go tell him because he’s almost made himself late for school. Then he gets out, takes his time to get dressed, putzs around a little more and asks me to write him a note for being late. I get a wicked glee when I look at him and ask him whose fault it is for him being late. He stomps out the front door cussing and yelling because I’m being so unfair. He knows I’ll only write him a note when he has a diabetic episode. Everything else, he has to deal with and he has only himself to blame as he wanted to be treated more like an adult. Welcome to the real world, kid! LOL!

I could talk about how my new puppy has forced me to be more active and by being more active, I’m beginning to lose weight. I even started to keep a diet diary because that’s the only thing which keeps me honest during the whole process. Or I could tell you about how when I popped out the batteries of my scale, I sent one of them flying behind my stove. It had been years since I had actually moved the stove, and I had to because I didn’t know what the battery size really was. The dust bunnies back there nearly killed me. But I got the battery, evil little flat thing that it was. LOL!

I could talk about just how beautiful it is today out my front window. For those of you who don’t know, my office is in the front of my house and I have one of three picture windows. It has a lovely bamboo shade over it which allows me to watch the world in the day without anyone seeing me. Now, night is a different thing as everyone sees me which is one of the reasons that I don’t write in this room very much after dark. I have my little travel computer for that. Today so far, I’ve watched the kids walk to school, seen people walking their dogs, the humming birds drink from the hollyhocks and the sparrows take up residence on my front lawn for whatever reason. The wind is calm, the sky is blue and the temperature is perfect.

Naaa....I don’t have anything at all to talk about today!

The winner of this week’s FREE eBook giveaway of Subtle Invasion is booklover0226, Tracy D! Next week, I’ll be giving away a copy of The View From Santa’s Sleigh as we gear up for the Christmas holiday bash! See you all then...

Lynn