It was warm and sunny in South Carolina Thursday, Friday and Saturday. And then we came home to Kentucky and found winter taking up residence here. It is chilly outside. I had to fill up the car with gas a while ago and all of us at the gas tanks were complaining about the chill. Not the prices. Wow! It was under two dollars a gallon. I never thought I’d see gas prices like that again. So since we didn’t have the prices to complain about, we fussed about the cold wind that had us wishing for glove and coats. And one lady was wishing she could pack up and move south.
It was nice in South Carolina. Of course, it was nice here the first of the week. That’s the thing about Kentucky weather. It can change in a New York minute. Especially this time of the year. So the heat is on and it’s feeling more like it’s supposed to feel when Thanksgiving is only a couple of weeks away. The trees were pretty in SC too, and they don’t always have colorful fall trees down there. My daughter was enjoying that. I think everybody who moves south misses the fall colors.
The booksignings at both the Barnes and Noble on Heywood Road in Greenville and the one in Spartanburg went well. I enjoyed talking to some new readers and some aspiring writers. My best advice to them was to keep reading and keep writing. I did a book give-away at both places. Laura won my book The Scent of Lilacs in Greenville and Lynette was the winner in Spartanburg. I’ll mail out their books next week. The winner of my book at the Heaven Help Us Bookstore in Indiana was Carla. Ginny and I also did a give-away when we were at JosephBeth Booksellers in Lexington last month. Marion won Ginny’s book, and Anne won my book, The Scent of Lilacs. I appreciate everybody who signed up for the give-away and while everybody couldn’t win, some of you did. I used to say I never won anything. But then I won a neat afghan at a library raffle. It was made out of all the leftover yarn this woman had and I think I like the hodgepodge of colors better than I would have liked a solid colored or more coordinated colored one.
That’s what we all are. A hodgepodge of characteristics and looks. You might get your nose from your granny, your ears from your great grandpa, your mouth from your mom, your singing talent from your father, your stubborness from your grandpa and on and on. Darrell alway said our kids got their stubborness from me, but I told him that couldn’t be true. I still had all of mine.
Actually stubborness is a very important part of the make-up of a writer. There can be some pretty disappointing moments in a writer’s life. Times when rejects seem to be more numerous by far than acceptances. Times when the critics tear your work apart. Worse times when your work isn’t out there for the critics to tear apart because nobody agreed with you that it was worthy of publication. At least not yet. That’s where the stubborness comes in handy. If you don’t give up, then someday something you write is going to make it. And then maybe the critics will like it and even better maybe the readers will love it and tell all their friends. That’s what I’m hoping. That those who read my books will think the stories are good enough to pass the name of the book along to their reading friends.
I like talking about books with other readers, don’t you? My sisters and I are always sharing the titles of the books we read or an author’s name to try. So if you’re saying to your friends, “Have you read any books yet by that woman who wrote that book about those Shakers? What was her name? I think it started with a G. Geppar. No, Gabhart. That was it.” Or something along those lines, then I’m happy. Of course all of you know my name. And I thank you for coming out here into blog land to read my journal.
And thanks to all who talked about their favorite trees this week or had a mental image of a special tree from when you were a kid. This week you can think about the hodgepodge of charactistics that make you the special person, the one unique, never to be copied person you are. That’s the kind of character I’m trying to come up with for my new book. Perhaps a hodgepodge of different people I’ve met in my lifetime in person or on the pages of a book or that I have conjured up out of my imagination. Someone unique. Someone interesting enough to have a story to tell. Because it’s time to have my characters up and running again.
Wednesday I may do a list about being too busy. If I’m not too busy. 😉