I Can't Put It Down!

Had a phone call from a woman I used to work with. I gifted her the three collected Christmas story volumes last week or so. Today she called me and said, "I can't put the book down! I love your stories!"

Apparently once I get my books into someone's hands they can't put them down. It's the putting the books into the right people's hands that has stymied so far.

I do not dumb down my books for quick and easy, mindless reads. I use language like an artist uses color, light and texture. I create characters you feel you know better than you know your own family members. I create characters who are far from perfect but they don't give up.

I'd love to have you contact me and tell me, "I can't put it down!", but first you have to pick it up.

Goodreads Giveaway #3- Your Input Needed

What title do you want to see as the first Goodreads Giveaway book for 2016? You can suggest a title on my facebook page, as a comment to my post on my Goodreads blog or as a comment to this post, or you can email me the title you'd like to see offered by sending me a message at sebuffum415@gmail.com.  Which ever title generates the most interest will be the next Goodreads Giveaway book offered.

It was 60 Today

Today is December 10th and in western Massachusetts it was sixty degrees. So far it has been pretty mild weather. The last hint of snow in the air was back in October when we were selecting pumpkins to be carved for Halloween! I hear it's supposed to be a mild winter. Earlier in the year they were saying it was supposed to cold and snowy. In New England it's always a crap shoot because thr weather is entirely unpredictable.

I kind of wish it would snow a little...but it's not even winter yet, so we'll see what we shall see, as they say.

Meanwhile, not in a very Christmas-y mood, I sat down and edited The Christmas Angel but I'm still not sure that this will be the Christmas story for 2015. It's okay, but not great. Maybe with a little more tinkering this coming weekend I'll get it to where it meets my personal standards.

I shipped copies of The Subtlety of Light and Shadow to the six winners of my second Goodreads giveaway. The line was not horrendous at the post office at twenty past one. No one else was shipping anything while I was there. Then I went to the pharmacy to pick up some prescriptions and gifted the two pharmacists there I deal with for my own medications as well as for those of many patients in the practice where I work as a secretary doing Prior Authorizations for medications with a set of the three collected Christmas books. Liz is on vacation next week so she's taking them with her to read. Mark wasn't in today, but she'll get the books to him.

For whatever reason, my rheumatoid arthritis has flared up big time. I am limping around and suffering with stiff, sore, achy joints from neck to toes. The weather is mild but the nights are cold. Maybe it's that combination of cold nights, warm days that's wreaking havoc on me? It's been coming on since last weekend...was so bad yesterday I did a rare thing and just sat in my chair and did nothing but hold the cat and watch a few westerns on TV with my husband. I really am not one to sit and watch TV- it doesn't interest me but my hands hurt too much to hold a book for long. I couldn't type. I just wanted to go to bed.

And that's where I'm going now. Have to work tomorrow- hopefully I'll be able to move! I have so much to do!

First Christmas Story Written

I'm not sure if this will be the one or not, but just finished the first Christmas story of 2015. It's three minutes past midnight. This one is The Christmas Angel. It's about a young man who fathered a child but the mother got primary custody of the girl while he only got partial custody because he had issues with alcohol. He had cleaned up his act as the mother has sunken into drug addiction and picking up men which has upset Somer. He has been taking the little girl, Lily, to the Starlight Diner when he's had her on weekends and for a week during the summer. There is a waitress there named Ginger who has caught his eye, but Ginger has some issues of her own, having been raised by a single mother who never made her feel wanted. Lily gets hurt by one of her mother's male friends and lands in the hospital. Somer is having trouble dealing with it and asks Lily to go with him to see her. Ginger is shocked by the abuse Lily has suffered. She encourages Somer to pursue sole custody of his daughter, and offers to help him as much as she can. He actually had a good home life but fell in with the wrong crowd and fathered this child by a girl he did not marry who had no real feelings for him. Now he is anxious about being a single dad so Ginger helps him to see that he will be a good father, that he had a good father as his role model. He tells her tat he has feelings for her and she gets frightened by that because of her low self esteem issues. But little Lily is the catalyst that helps them both decide the path they want to follow. Lily has one wish for Christmas- she wants a tree with a Christmas angel on top. Somer and Ginger can only find stars to top the tree with. A truck driver who frequents the diner where Ginger works as given Ginger money several times to buy things for Lily. It turns out that he lost his six year old daughter to cancer a number of years ago. On Christmas Eve a tragedy occurs at the diner where Ginger is working. The diner is robbed. Ginger is hurt and other patrons are shot, several killed and the rest wounded. The truck driver is among the dead, he had brought a small box with him and his last act while alive is to push the box over the counter to Ginger who is lying hurt on the floor behind the counter. The box travels with her to the ER, to her apartment and then to Somer's apartment where it is forgotten until the wee hours of Christmas morning. The last gift from the trucker for Lily is the Christmas angel that once graced the top of his own daughter's tree. It is a gift to a child who needs to believe in Santa and everything he stands for. It is a gift that helps all three of them begin to heal and to form stronger bonds toward becoming a family.

Connecticut Trolley Museum Winter Fest

Kelly worked Friday and Saturday evening/night at the Connecticut Trolley Museum in East Windsor, CT, operating the trolleys for the annual Winter Fest event. She went over after work on Friday night, then yesterday volunteered first in the trolley restoration barn, something she has been doing for almost four years now. I love to see her dressed up in her trolley operator's outfit- black slacks, crisp white shirt, black vest with pocket watch and fob, black jacket. She doesn't have her operator's kepi-style cap yet so she has been wearing a vintage black bowler. She put a red ribbon with white snowflakes band on her hat for Winter Fest. She is like an anachronism, especially last night with her plaid scarf wrapped around her neck! I like that she enjoys being part of this living history museum, and has the time and energy to volunteer so many hours there while working full time. People her own age (24.5yrs old) usually have no appreciation for the past, but Kelly has always loved steam trains and electric trolleys, coaches and carriages and horse drawn vehicles and automobiles up to just past the brass era. She collects antique fire grenades, the decorative glass bottles the Victorians kept in their home to throw at fires which were a common crisis in those days. She also collects antique inkwells, certain soda bottles (embossed), and ice picks. Her bedroom is like a museum Thank God she hasn't asked for a real trolley car for the back yard and is content to go to CT to restore and operate their trolley cars there!! You don't see too many young ladies with that kind of passion and enthusiasm these days!

Brainstorming for Christmas Story Ideas

Today, on the way to work, I loaded up the CD player with Christmas CDs to put myself in the mood for writing this years annual Christmas Story. On the way home tonight I was making myself all teary-eyed while kicking around  a few ideas while listening to Celtic Women sing carols.

Oh, tis the season for sentimentality and nostalgia...

NaNoWriMo Edits Completed

I finished the first edit of Life Skills last night. What a lot of story to edit and revise here and there but it's done. I put it into a 6X9 trade paperback format and came out with 383 pages! Tis is probably the longest novel I've written since the epic and still as yet unpublished Medina that would probably come in at twice that many pages if ever put into print!  When I was done I went on CreateSpace and created a book so I will have one print copy of this. Unsure if I will offer it for sale or not at this time. It probably still needs work, but Kelly, my chief editor and proofreader, will have a hardcopy to work her critical magic on. The hardest part was finding a cover that would work. I finally chose the linked hands because through all their trials and tribulations, Remy and Lissa forge a strong bond- they hold on tight to one another through life's wild ride.

Now I can move on to writing this year's annual Christmas story/ stories. I have no idea yet what I'll write but it'll come to me as it always does. All I need is a hint of snow int he air to put me in the mood!