Favorite Literary Accounts on Instagram

I'm more frequently on Instagram than I am on Twitter and even Facebook, so when it comes to keeping up with authors and those in the literary world, I rely heavily on those with Instagram accounts. Which are my favorites? Oh, let me give you some of the best:

The Strand Book Store:

Thanks to everyone who came to see us today for #IndieBookstoreDay! 💕 We're feeling pretty lucky that while we can't always read on the job, we're surrounded by 18 miles of books. #BookBlessed | 📷: @ursula_uriarte

A photo posted by Strand Book Store, NYC (@strandbookstore) on Apr 30, 2016 at 6:00pm PDT

Official account of the famous bookstore in New York City, @strandbookstore is a fun account to continuously whet your appetite for reading and exploring new books with their snaps of customers, new displays, celebrity bookworm sightings, and more.

Pictures of Text

It is Valentine's Day.

A photo posted by B.J. Novak (@picturesoftext) on Feb 14, 2016 at 9:55am PST

Actor/Writer/Screenwriter BJ Novak (The Book With No Pictures is a personal favorite) has the best eye for humorous, idiosyncratic, and just plain weird things written...everywhere! This account literally is what it says: pictures of text.

Atticus

Imperfect @atticuspoetry #atticuspoetry

A photo posted by a t t i cu s (@atticuspoetry) on Apr 29, 2016 at 10:00pm PDT

Before finding this poet on Instagram, I had often run across quotes of his via Pinterest. Though the sap-level can sometimes run high here, his turns of phrase are often thoughtful enough to cause me to pause, reflect, and remember. I highly recommend following him if you're looking for (very short) bits of poetry/prose to add to your daily life.

Austin Kleon

Everything between the ears #newspaperblackout

A photo posted by Austin Kleon (@austinkleon) on Apr 29, 2016 at 12:33pm PDT

You have to love the sarcastic, hilarious, cut-bait author of Steal Like An Artist. And if you don't already love him, just contact me or Elisabeth Foley and we'll get you on the road to recovery.

The Washington Post

"When I was nine-years-old I accomplished something that my dad thought merited a reward. He took me to the ZCMI department store and told me I could pick out one item...when I showed him the copy of Anne of Green Gables he furrowed his brow and asked if I was sure that's what I wanted. With all my heart I assured him indeed it was...after a few minutes and my pleading face, he knew that book was what I wanted more than anything in the world. He bought it for me and as you might imagine that #firstreads was a catalyst to many other literary adventures," writes @bookbloom. 📚What was your favorite book as a child? What books do you pass on to your children now? Take a photo & tag it with @washingtonpost and #firstreads!📚 Be sure to check our Instagram to see if your photo was featured! We're gearing up to celebrate Beverly Cleary’s 100th birthday on April 12! Her iconic characters, among them sisters Ramona and Beezus, inspired generations of children to turn to books for connection and inspiration. Your photo may appear on our site or on our other social media channels too! (Photo courtesy of @bookbloom) #books #favoritebook #nostalgia #reading

A photo posted by Washington Post (@washingtonpost) on Apr 7, 2016 at 4:53pm PDT

Can't go wrong following an account that posts about pop culture, politics (both global and American), books, and art. The Post is my favorite to fill this spot.

Do you have any favorite literary accounts I should be following? Share them on Twitter (@Rachelswhimsy) or Instagram (@lipstickandgelato) so I can follow along. :)

The Extrovert As Writer

When it comes to “ease of peeling away from real life to write,” the extroverted writer is at a distinct disadvantage. To begin with, we defy the traditional stereotype of writers being quiet, reserved individuals who observe life at a distance and go home to discover rich depths in their souls and write about it. Because stereotypes are often based, in the main, off truth, this means that the majority of our fellow writers won't empathize with our wiring. They won't understand how hard it is to cut the chatter and buckle down to a writing session. To the extroverted writer, peeling away from social life and other humans' presence is quite an effort before we've even opened a Word document to begin pouring more energy into our WIP. To leave the presence of other humans means to cut ourselves off from our “charger” so, unlike the introverted writer, being alone is not rejuvenation, it is slow (and sometimes rapid) depletion.

As an extrovert, the way we experience life is very different from the majority of other writers. Rather than writing out of careful observation and analysis of the world without, the extroverted writer builds his work out of a plethora of personal experiences. In the words of Anais Nin, we “write to taste life twice.” And in order to taste it twice, we jump at the chance to taste it at all. Any bottle, any flavor, any way. We want to live. Later, we'll write, but for now to live is the thing. It is easy to become wrapped up in tasting once. It is easy to choose to continue tasting, rather than to savor the flavors and mellow them into a literary vintage because, I don't know, we might miss the most savory experience yet if we've pulled away and stopped tasting for a time!

I can see many of your faces bent in puzzlement and I freely admit that the extroverted writer is somewhat of a unicorn. At the time of writing this article, of the seventeen writers who responded to the question on Facebook twelve were self-identified introverts and three were ambiverts. Only two of the self-proclaimed writers define themselves as thoroughly extroverted. I don't pretend to be apt with numbers and statistics, but it is fairly easy to see that only two out of seventeen in the surveyed writing population would identify as extroverts. When I look at it from the logical angle, it makes total sense: what sort of person has the most to say? He who has hitherto said the least. And who speaks in social situations less than your average, observing introvert? Introverts crave quiet, if not solitude, and such conditions are naturally more welcoming to the Muses who don't feel pushed out by the Life of the Party already abiding in the house. Introvert writers, are, in my opinion, the real MVPs.

Great, my fellow extroverts are thinking, is there any hope for me? I am here to tell you that, yes, thankfully there is hope – quite a lot of it. Here is a list of things the extroverted writer is very, very good at:

Writing authentic dialog – extroverts are experts at conversation. It only makes sense that we'd be able to translate this capacity into writing. In this respect, your chat 'em up is a lovely, pre-forged tool for hacking through the forest of traditional filler dialogue. You know where you're going with this.

Including vibrant details – one advantage of living on the go and tasting lots of life, is that you have much to give back. You walk into a new place and take everything in, scanning the environment for every possible conversation, adventure, and interaction and then systematically sampling them all. An introvert will go into the new place, pick a chair, sit down, and observe everything within that corner of the room. Use your “birds eye view” to pick out details the stationery observer misses and include them in your fiction.

Writing from personal stories and experiences – the more people you meet, the more places you go, the more first-hand reconnaissance you'll have as lumber for building your stories. When you pair your affability with question-asking, you'll often be rewarded with the gift of hearing peoples' stories...and I can affirm the fact that truth is often stranger than fiction. In addition to getting accounts from those you meet, you'll also be far more likely to meet with your own adventures than you would be at home on your Macbook, googling the effects of the Black Plague and what they mean for modernity.

Writing believable characters – though the extroverted writer might have to work harder to plumb the depths of human experience (after all, we tend to not think as sensitively as an introvert might), when we harness our considerable energy and brainpower, we are able to understand as thoroughly as any classic deep-thinker. In fact, our understanding of a person or character will often be very complex because the knowledge is paired with deep and often intuitive care for the person or character. Writing them, therefore, is a chance to interact a second time with someone of whom we are very fond and which extrovert will not absolutely pour out her soul for that?

Lending prose new paint – because extroverts are usually possessed of excellent people skills, we are good at gauging how our words will affect our readership and tailoring them to exact a particular reaction. We're accustomed to using this skill in daily life as we interact with people and it is therefore easy for the extroverted writer to foresee readers' reactions and curate a certain tone to court the projected reaction. I love nothing better than writing a piece in a particular voice for a particular reaction and hearing feedback from readers that affirms my ability to achieve the goal I had in mind. This ability is especially helpful in journalism, blogging, and non-fiction, as it can be hard for some personality types to state the facts from any angle but straight-on. Not so for the blendable, bendable eight-armed extrovert! Octipi, unite!

I hope that my fellow extroverted writers (if such there be) will find themselves refreshed and inspired by this list. We may not be as naturally equipped as the amazing introverts for the writers' life, but we also have a few super-powers of our own. When paired with determination and a daily hour sector'd off strictly for no-contact writing, the extrovert can overcome his native sociability and become the writer he has always wished to be. Then, when the word-count goal is met, it's back to hobnobbing with us. We have people to meet and places to see.

C'est la LIFE

Writing-Wise

My MERCY, life flies by. It's July and I have the most baffing feeling that I've been some sort of hideous fake this whole spring, calling myself a writer. The truth is, what I've written this spring wouldn't fill a wide-ruled, spiral-bound notebook. I have not logged into my publishing account in four months. My Twitter is a ghost-house. I'm doing horribly with self-promotion. I'm not sure I should even be telling you this, but PR has never been my strong suit. Actually, scratch-that. Public Relations are where I am GOOD. Selling books is where I don't give a horse-fly, even when I ought, which is why I still work as a nanny rather than a full-time writer. Life has been giving me a workout and in a fist-fight between my family and my books, family wins out. That is not to say I haven't wished to write and even written a (very) little. I've started a secret thing that I can't whisper about yet because I don't want to announce my lipstick-taser before firing. I've worked a (very) little bit on Scotch'd the Snakes. I've worked on a few pieces of worthless flash fiction to keep my mind limber, and have plans to write a very quick piece of humorous fiction in honor of something I misheard a couple of weeks ago while in church. Cottleston Pie is marinating. I am not sure what to do with it yet, but murmurings of a rewrite are in the nearest corners of my mind when I stop to think about it. Historically, just about forty or fifty percent of the reading populace, after reading one of my novels, suggest I write a children's book. I have never quite decided how I feel about this reaction. Did they not enjoy my novel, but find my tone amusing and therefore feel I should tackle something of less import? Or did they like my story and/or tone so much they want it in short-order form? Or do they think I am entirely on the wrong tack and ought to pin my sails and try for something that will harm no one if it flops miserably? I cannot tell. But I love Cottleston Pie and I think I'm on the right track with it and when I take it out, it is always so much a better project that I remember it being. This is my update on personal writing. I was vicariously thrilled with my friends, like Mirriam Neal, who managed to do JuNoWriMo. Brava!

Reading-Wise

I've had a little more success. Suzannah Rowntree's Pendragon's Heir is marvelously well-written but a little too brocade for summer wear. I find it slow but pleasant going. I picked up Schindler's List by Thomas Keneally after going on a blitzkreig-speed tour through DC's Holocaust Museum. I want to go back and spend more than fifteen minutes on each floor, but what I saw was enough to convict, impress, and sober me. So far, Keneally's book is thoughtfully researched and reads much more like an interesting history than a novel, which is rather the point. Lurking behind-hand in the book-wings are a book about the children of the Holocaust (also a Museum purchase), The Nine Tailors by Dorothy Sayers, two cookbooks, and a book about the history of maps. No, it's not The Island of Lost Maps which I read earlier this year...I just have a strange fascination with cartography since the day I first watched National Treasure. The influx of reading material happened when I made the trip to our dinky library which is hardly ever open to renew my card which had expired at least a year ago. What do you know? They have books at libraries. And I'm terrible at resisting a book.

Listening-Wise

I don't listen to music while writing, generally, but I do have a list of songs that have been in my heart and head recently and here is as good a place as any to share them! :)

1. "Geronimo" - The Sheppherds
2. "Bright" - Echosmith
3. "You Belong With Me" - Taylor Swift (Come on, it isn't summer till you've had some T-Swizzle)
4. "Almost Like Being In Love" - Nat King Cole
5. "Out of an Orange-Colored Sky" - Nat King Cole
6. "Shut Up And Dance With Me" - Walk The Moon (unashamed)
7. "Budapest" - George Ezra (heard the most beautiful female-vocals version of this done by two sisters I know.)
8. "Take Your Time" - Sam Hunt
9. "Lay Me Down" - Chris Tomlin
10. "I'm a Believer" - The Monkees
11. "Christ Be All Around Me" - Leeland (my prayer, always)

My taste is eclectic, as you can see and ranges up and down the scale from standard pop to country, to big-band, to Christian contemporary. I love having varied tastes. Keeps things interesting.

Eating-Wise

Lavender Soda. It's a beautiful thing. Like drinking a vase of flowers steeped in Sprite...only less perfume-y. Also, anything boysenberry. After three years, our patch is doing prolifically well and my hands and lips are stained with the sun-soaked gems. York Peppermint Patties. I bought a bag to share around my wing at a camp...and ended up taking the whole thing home. Now I really, really want to try making s'mores with York instead of normal chocolate. Parmesan from the block. MmmHMMMM. You heard that right. Cheese is bae. If I talked that way. And I don't. Moving onnnnnn. Cherries. Dark, sweet cherries. Divinity right there. And whenever I eat cherries I am reminded of an anecdote about Oswald Chambers which you probably don't have time to hear, so I will refrain from sharing it.

I'm off to bury my nose in one of my neglected writing projects. Ciao, darlings!

Inkpen Belle 2015

If I've been MIA on the blog this week, there is sort of a reason why. And it has to do with Valentine's Day. Now for heaven's sake, don't be ridiculous. I did not get engaged or anything of the sort. I did, however, get to spend what turned out to be Friday through Monday morning with Meghan Gorecki, author of sweet historical-romance, God's Will! Meghan, who many of you will know as my "Watson," flew down from the lovely city of Pittsburgh to spend Valentine's Day weekend with me. I dragged her to Williamsburg a'course, and showed her round my favorite small towns, dragged her to my dream farm which I discovered on Wednesday, hosted a no-couples Valentine's Day party, ate obscene amounts of cheesecake, chocolate, and wonderfulness, went to see Mockingjay (again) and braved the beastly cold. Virginia is never this cold. Virginia has seen wind-chill temps below zero over the weekend. Though we never got to sit down at that coffee shop and write (I blame too much other fun), we had delightful time friends-wise. I am blessed to have gotten to meet with several bloggings friends over the years, and this "reunion" of the Inkpen Authoress and the Northern Belle was just as sweet as I had hoped. Meghan is delightful, and I'm going to be a brat now and tell you to off and buy a copy of God's Will to oblige me. All kidding aside, if you ever get a chance to meet a blogging friend in real life, please do. It is a precious thing to be able to attach real life experiences to someone who was only a profile picture. <3

4 Ways to Boost Your Reading

As a person whose sole job in the world is not "reading books," my reading habits are sporadic at best. I empathize with people who say they've "just had to let reading drop" while real life happens. I understand that person. Sometimes I am that person. But though I forget it sometimes, reading is truly one of life's greatest pleasures. I don't know how I manage to forget it because reading used to be my sole passion in life. I cannot tell you how often as a child I read and read and read until I was pulled out of the book by the call to chores or a meal or bed. I can still get back that intoxicated, bleary-eyed bliss if I let myself sit without a bit of technology in a quiet place with a good story for an hour. Just an hour. Just an hour and I can find my Paradise lost of childhood reading. It's a beautiful feeling and I can be drawn in by the champagne tones of a light old favorite, the wine-heavy tongue of a Dickens, the brandy-flavored wording of Mark Twain, or the gin-and-tonic Wodehouse. It's easy for me to admit that I'm a "book drunkard," as Lucy Maud Montgomery had it. Now that I've waxed poetic and probably showed my ignorance of all forms of alcohol (interesting fact: the only times I've had it were accidental doses of Communion wine), I'll get on with the body of this post. Ways to Improve Your Reading Times. Because we all know that it's much harder to read than it is to talk about reading. I even find it ironic that I'm sitting here blogging with an ignored copy of Chesterton's The Innocence of Father Brown at my elbow and Captain America: The Winter Soldier playing on the TV across the living room from where I sit. I ought to be reading my book instead of blogging or watching a (very good) action flick. Maybe later I will. Just bear with my hypocrisy one moment longer. Below, I've compiled a list of tactics that help me fit in consistent reading even when life gets shockingly busy.

1.) Use a bookmark: if I can't find my spot in a book, I am much less likely to go back to that book if I have only a few moments. It takes too long to figure out where I left off and get back into the story. On the other hand, if I have my place clearly marked, it isn't hard to pick up the book and read a paragraph or two. Which leads me to my next tip...
2.) Don't wait for a free hour to start reading: I feel as if I've mentioned this before, but I recall reading about some Englishman who ended up making his way through a massive collection of law volumes in his lifetime by picking them up every time he used the bathroom. Don't judge me. Bathroom time is essentially the perfect time to sneak in a paragraph or two of a book. It's quiet. It's private. No one will bother you and no one will shame you for taking a while. There are other good moments to sneak in reading time...waiting to pick up a sibling from dance practice? Take a book along. Have a half-hour at the coffee shop? Read a book instead of browsing Facebook on your phone. Now for Tip Three...
3.) Be not so attached to technology: Sometimes the best way to free up time you thought you didn't have is to leave your phone, tablet, or iPad in a different room. I blush to think of how many hours I would have to devote to reading if I decided to disconnect from the WiFi and devote my attention to my book rather than my messages. I have this obsession with clearing notifications. If I see a notification pop up on my phone, I have to type in my password, open the app, check the notification, and clear it off the list. I hate seeing un-looked-at push-button notifications. Come to think of it, I ought to turn that setting off and see how it helped me.
4.) Read a book with a friend: I'm not saying you have to start up a book club. I'm not even sure what you're supposed to do at a book-club. But when I know a friend is depending on me to text quotes back and forth with her from a book we are both reading, I'm much more likely to keep at it. I will now give an embarrassed shrug to my friend Joanna who is waiting on me for a Pride & Prejudice re-read. Author Clara Thompson and I are all set to begin reading Ivanhoe together whenever she manages to get a copy. It's double the fun of reading alone: you get to read a book, and you get to share your experience of that book with a friends. It's like live-time Goodreads.

This is just the beginning of many ways (some cleverer than mine!) that there are to improve the consistancy of your reading schedule. Leave your favorite method for frequent reading in a comment below and share with the rest of us your method to a happy reading life.

An Ideal Picnic

Colonial Williamsburg.My heart-town.There are places in life that you have lived, and places your heart has lived. My heart has lived (so far) in the Lake District, in Romania, in London, in Scotland, in Prince Edward Island, and in Williamsburg. When I hear of other people traveling to these places, my heart does a little disagreeable flip-floppy thing that feels an awful lot like jealousy. I have yet to make it any of my heart-homes except Romania and Williamsburg, so when I make it to one of these places, and I feel doubly at peace. And I like nothing better than to tour a friend around the vicinity and make them love it as achingly as I do. This weekend, after throwing a fabulous party ("Company, company, where would we be without company?"), I betook myself and Charity Klicka to the ferry, and across to Williamsburg.

 

Since we had connected first over a mutual love for ships and The Wind in The Willows, I was overjoyed to hear that not only did Charity want to interview me for her blog in person, she also hadn't been to Williamsburg in too long. The two things combined admirably into the proposal of a picnic on the grounds of a quiet corner of Williamsburg. I purchased a pomegranate and two colors of pears near home, and packed up my little picnic basket. It is a very well-appointed basket.

Once in Williamsburg, we headed for the Fat Canary and purchased the ideal "long, crusty loaf" and some cheese. I am not certain where the term "long, crusty loaf" came from. I had thought it was from the picnic scene in Willows, but I could never find it, so I'm not sure? Oh, here it is, or the idea of it.

“There he got out the luncheon-basket and packed a simple meal, in which, remembering the stranger's origin and preferences, he took care to include a yard of long French bread, a sausage out of which the garlic sang, some cheese which lay down and cried, and a long-necked straw-covered flask wherein lay bottled sunshine shed and garnered on far Southern slopes.

About the stranger, not Moly. There we go. At the Fat Canary, I bought a bit of Gouda, a bit of Fontina, a bit of Cotswold Double Gloucester, not to mention a sausage called Landjaeger, which was divine. Isn't "Cotswold Double Gloucester" just a perfect name. And then, because the day was hot and the bottles refreshing looking, we went back round and purchased two bottles of ginger-ale. We then lugged our picnic basket around Williamsburg and looked at absolutely everything of interest to two people who didn't much care whither they went, so long as it was leisurely and historic. Two things I learned from lugging picnics about:
1.) Man-servants are helpful for such things. We lacked one
2.) No one brings legitimate picnic baskets anywhere these days. The looks I received.
One of my favorite "emancipated" things to do as a Williamsburg-familiar is to enter any yard and garden where the gates are not locked and make myself at home. Do you realize that one is permitted to wander at at will if the gate is free? I think many people do not know and that is what makes it so pleasant. Charity and I found a place with a stream, and as running water makes everything better, we determined to swing round again and picnic there when we had got hot and dusty and thirsty enough. Having reached this point after probably another half hour of rummaging about, we wandered back and found that our proposed spot had got a lot of little kids playing with bats and rakes in it. I suppose they lived there--people do live in the houses, you know--so we fastened on another yard quite nearby that possessed neat walkways, a bit of grass, and a stream-bank. This turned out to be an even finer spot, being cozier and more Willows-esque.We had a picket fence to our backs, oaks above, a stream to the left, and the road uphill ahead.

This arrangement insured that passersby could observe us at will--and they did. We laughed to see the expressions of the bold starers. I think there were two principle reactions: confusion and jealousy. There were truly jealous expressions bent upon us, and one nice old man who commented on the perfection of the day for the picnic, and the perfection of the spot we had chosen. I rather like that old man. Charity is an over-worked college student and I am an over-wedding'd nanny and writer, so we both thoroughly enjoyed ripping a loaf of bread with our hands, eating pears and cheeses and sausage, drinking ginger-ale (a bug got in mine and I made quite a nice fountain for a moment as I expectorated it), and lazing about in an ideal day. The temperature was perfect, the shade delightful, the grass soft, the stream purling, the afternoon sleepy. We could have napped, only we didn't want to sleep and lose sight of how wonderful it all was. Have you ever had moments of nearly perfect happiness? This was such a one. I couldn't have written a finer occasion, and that is saying something.

Too soon, we were full as full could be, had finished our ginger-ale, and were ready to proceed to the Scottish store, which is a must for anyone who loves Scotland. Charity is learning Scottish-Gaelic, you know. We had been joking at how perfectly our picnic was like that in The Wind in The Willows, but beyond the menu, I was truly not trying to imitate it. That would have been tacky. But does anyone remember the quote about Mole packing back up the picnic and finding he'd left things out every time? I had just got the basket closed to my satisfaction when Charity began to laugh and pointed out that it was all very well but I'd forgot to pack away the table cloth. Le sigh. Round two of basket-packing was successful, and we made a jolly party of it back to the car to deposit our stuffs. On the way back, we stopped at the garden area and I bought a big old narcissus bulb to plant somewhere--I'm a sucker for the beauties, and for anything that can grow in my world that once grew in Williamsburg. We took a detour to a forgotten grave--the Maupin graves--that Charity's ancestors are buried in. It was quite interesting and exciting to look for a grave everyone else had forgotten and know to whom it belonged.We found the graves, bought some lavender (it smells like dusty sunshine) and pursued our course up Duke of Gloucester street. On the way home we missed the ferry so Charity interviewed me as we sat on the pier sticking out into the James River. It was quite a lot of fun, you know.

Charity is such a lovely person. I didn't know her well before this trip, and I know there's a lot more to learn about and from her, but adventures have a way of making kindred spirits out of strangers. After all, Ratty and Mole weren't even friends before Mole got into Ratty's boat and ended up picnicking with him and moving to the River Bank. Never despise picnics and places. It's a grand old life, this friendship thing. I will long cherish the memory of that golden Sunday and the quiet little picnic in a perfect little place. Go out, eat bread and cheese and fruit, and take people up on their offers to give you an adventure. They can be marvelous.

“In silence they landed, and pushed through the blossom and scented herbage and undergrowth that led up to the level ground, till they stood on a little lawn of a marvellous green, set round with Nature's own orchard-trees—crab-apple, wild cherry, and sloe.”

-Kenneth Grahame The Wind in The Willows

Anon, Sir, Anon and Williamsburg!

Hullo-ullo-ullo!
I trust you are all still alive, still kicking, still waiting for Plenilune to come out in paperback form. I was feeling quite anxious for that event till I realized it couldn't hurt matters to wait till next paycheck, so that's my goal. I get paid weekly. Hopefully by the time I get this week's check deposited, I'll be able to trot straight 'round to Amazon and get my copy. Did you see that Jenny got her proof copy of Plenilune? Looks like I'm going to have to move more books around on the shelf to fit it in. That baby is nearly two inches thick. Such a looker.

After finding a great number of extra spaces around ellipses (for heaven's sake, people, NEVER MAKE THAT MISTAKE) and panicking to St. Rachel, all formats of Anon, Sir, Anon are fixed, edited, and approved by Createspace. Just to be sure, I've ordered a second tangible proof-copy and am going to be receiving that before terribly long. Tonight I am sending out the guest posts, interviews, and announcement information for the release. And guys, The Giveaway is called "Cozy Quagmire Party Pack." I will leave you to guess what it contains, but I will say that it is pretty wonderful and I wish I could win it myself.

Have you ever had the opportunity to do something terribly bookish in real life? I have had a few experiences with that sort of thing, the most recent being my "Box Hill" expedition to Williamsburg two summers ago. Well. After hosting a couples' shower for my brother and his fiancee this weekend, I am heading to Williamsburg again, this time with the inimitable Charity Klicka. I don't know Charity terribly well--we've been more like ships passing each other in the night when we've met in person--but love of ships, The Wind in The Willows, love of quotes, and general kindred-spiritness has given us a budding friendship. I could not be happier at the prospect of escorting her to my heart-town on her very first trip there. We have lots of plummy larks planned. Pray for good weather. <3 I will take pictures and be sure to post them when we've finished. I cannot wait.

Well, cheers and all that, darlings! I'm off to catch The Voice and eat ice-cream. I know. Terribly authorish.

Mad-Hatters, Ebola, and Indie Publishing

Hello, Lords of the Earth, their luxury and ease.
(Name the references and I'll love you forever and a day.)

I am generally hectically, marvelously, horrendously, good-griefishly busy with putting together the Anon, Sir, Anon release party. Thank heavens I only have three interviews and four guest posts left to write. I am in a rush solely because wedding preparations are buffetting the family and I need all publicity work for the Fifth of November utterly finished by next week....including finishing up editing my proof and applying the edits and uploading the new file and... indie-pubbing isn't for the faint of heart. But it's a load of fun, too. It's like self-inflicted torture that you really don't mind, deep deep down.
In my spare moments, I have been taking a creative break in Inktober. Essentially, you draw something with an ink pen in every day in the month of October. I joined late but I've been enjoying it. Technically, you are allowed to draw in pencil first and trace over it in ink, but I have sworn all the way and go with it if it isn't horribly muddled. Thus, the outcome isn't my finest work...but it's less than shabby. I think it is a wonderful creative exercise to have to fly with something--no editing allowed. In the spare moments leftover from the spare moments, I have dabbled a bit with Scotch'd the Snakes and managed to finish reading Have His Carcase. Now let's see if I can finish The Book Thief, which should be retitled: The Book That Never Ends Part Two (Les Miserables being the first volume.) It's not that it isn't good--it's fabulously well-written if a little rich, but it's just so stinkin' long. My fault, I believe, is that I watched the movie first so I feel rather like a balloon whose air was let go. Rather flabby and let-down. There is no suspense in it for me.

And in the spare ends of the spare ends of moments, I sometimes panic about pandemics.

"I'm not saying you have Ebola, but one of us has Ebola and it's not me."

Germ-X, plez. And I'm afraid I'm not terribly compassionate because you know what I feel like doing with the continent of Africa right now? Locking it in a room and going all Mad Hatter on it:

Yeah. Apparently stress, busy schedules, and book releases reduce me to this. So sorry. Looks like I'm not exactly going to win a Nobel Peace Prize anytime soon.

Cheers, darlings!
    May the germless winds always be in your favor.

The Nameless New Lair

By ten-thirty yesterday morning, I was fairly certain I'd never feel organized, tidy, or able to think again. My Lair was no more, my bedroom looked like the aftermath of Armegeddon, and Sarah and I had both inhaled so much dust that she, at least, had begun to crack puns. And we both hate puns. We were getting loopy. There's a fair amount of brain power involved in combining two stuffed bookcases into one, toting out a heavy hopechest stuffed with letters, favorite books, and things from my childhood, moving another hopechest into that spot, finding where on earth my art supplies was to go, and carting in a desk and all my trappings. We did it, though, and fled downstairs to find there was nothing to eat but salad. After having nothing to eat all day but yogurt. That sent us packing to Starbucks where I bought an Izze and buried myself in Stephen Lawhead's Tuck between three different groups of our friends descending on us by chance. (This is what happens when there is only one coffee shop in town, apparently.) An Izze and friends do minister to a mind diseased (unlike plum puffs) and I returned home in a far better mood than I left. Soon after my return, the UPS man came with two boxes stuffed full of copies of Fly Away Home which I then promptly autographed and packaged up. Mama is sending them this morning after Sarah tests for her license. So those of you who ordered copies, SO sorry for the wait; you will receive them soon and I hope your enjoyment won't be lessened by the unfortunate wait.

Today, after waking up properly, I decorated this new writing space with the old things (small wall-space meant things like the illustrations for Cottleston Pie had to go into the hope-chest) and stood my sign from Wyatt Fairlead above the door. That is always the final measure in designating a new writing space: does my Author's Study sign adorn the lintel? If so, I really have moved in.

The longer I spend in this corner, the more I think it will serve well. I think I will be comfortable here. I haven't found the perfect name for it yet, but it is a pleasant, more public writing space that I think I will grow to enjoy quite a lot. Public? In your bedroom? Darlings, if you knew how much mine and Sarah's room stands as a family hang-out, you'd laugh. Levi is now playing matchbox cars on the floor, and Leah and Anna are traveling back and forth from the hall, through my bedroom, through the bathroom door, into their bedroom through the bathroom. They've decided to go with a travel-theme as soon as Abby moves out. The little girls painted my Lair an astonishing shade of pink. They love it, but I had to laugh because it literally makes the room glow. Hopefully as soon as they have furniture in it, the color will tame. Currently it is quite...energetic. Anyway, I thought you'd probably like to see pictures of the new scene of all crimes. Let me know if you have any brilliant ideas for a name!

I decided to display our antique books in the tea-cup cabinet near my desk.

There you have it! Do you have any idea what it ought to be christened? I suppose that will come with time. For now, I'm just blessed that Sarah is in support of letting me commandeer a whole corner for my work. :)

The Women Behind The Mask

Hello everyone! Today is the very last day of the Fly Away Home debut party. Tomorrow, the Rafflecopter will choose one winner for the two signed copies of the book, so if you haven't entered or know someone who wants to enter, tell them they have till midnight! Anna will also be drawing a winner for the Fire & Ice lipstick so there is still time to enter for that if you want it.

Yesterday, I gave you a treasure-hunt list of "backstage" things you can find in Fly Away Home. Today, I thought it might amuse you to hear what some of your fellow writers do in their day-to-day life when not writing. We aren't all Augustus Fawnhopes here (thank God) and we do have lives. So what do those lives look like? It might amuse you to know that several other writers (besides me) have blogs dedicated to the daily grind and having nothing to do with writing. What does Rachel look like without her pen? What does Jenny do besides read and write? Here, I've tried to answer those questions...

Jenny is a fashionista in her spare-time. I bet many of you didn't know she's a past-master in the art of making a messy bun, wearing high-heels, and flaunting huge pink tote bags while grocery shopping. She spills all these secrets and more at Adonis Ephemeral. (plus, wouldja take at a look at that ring? It's enormous and gorgeous.)

Katie of ye old Whisperings of the Pen is actually a gorgeous collegiate headed to Ireland (!!!!!) and blogs about the sweetest things in life, her experiences in theatre, how to do flawless makeup, her family, and much more at Gingham Girl  .

And me. What do I do in my spare time? Oh gee. I put on spontaneous Broadway revivals with my sisters, blog at A Butcher, A Baker, A Candlestick Maker,  (my personal blog) and at Two's Company (the blog I share with Sarah) and work part time as a landscaper, besides juggling the normal things required of a Large Family. It's a crazy life, but a fun one. On BBCM, I've been on a fashion blogging kick as well as period dramas. Funny combo, but there it is. If you care to stop by for a visit, we have jolly good times, we writers-turned-modistas.

But now returning to the business of the Fly Away Home debut party: Today I'm chatting about why on earth I chose indie publishing with Bree Holloway, and later on will be at Whisperings of the Pen with a guest post! See you there and don't forget to enter the giveaway so you don't miss your chance. :)

10 ideas for getting the creative juices flowing

First of all, hello to Amber, Anna, Plutonian Llama, Candice W., Anna Astolat, Morgan, Nicole and so many other new faces to this blog! Lately I have gotten out of the habit of publicly thanking my followers, but I am grateful for you and do notice when you come over to the inky-side.

I am told that authors, if we ever wish to hit to spotlight, must follow trends and it seems to me that its trendy to title your writing blog posts "(insert numeral here) ways to (insert your topic of choice"; hence my title. Thank heaven, though, I have a bit of an imagination and my content isn't going to be dull. In fact, it's rather a mockery of a title. Do you see the cliche?

What is a creative juice?

Terrifying thought.

"Inspector, when I found the body of this poor author there was a...a puddle near his head."

(Inspector looking quite interested) "Was it blood?"

(Witness falters) "N...no. It was...green. Like Mountain Dew."

"Ah," says the Inspector, twirling an imaginary mustache, "His creative juices. Nasty business, seeing them spilled. Starting them flowing...now that's another matter entirely."

//pinterest//

No no. We want no creative juices here. Sometimes, however, you'll get stuck or feel dry or in some way feel not much like writing. And darlings, as writers we can't really afford that. You know there are such things as deadlines; one can't be a baby about it. So here, my people, is a list of ten things to do to start feeling creative again:

1.) Hang over the edge of the couch and have a friend or family member lie on the floor, looking up at you. Pretend their chin and mouth are the nose and mouth of a face and talk to each other. Talk, that is, if you've any space between laughing. This is a childish game, but then, children are renowned for their creativity. 

2.) Finger paint. Again with the kiddos, but I swear this works. Finger paint is just solid good fun. I made something that looked like I could sell it in a gallery for millions out of my two-year-old brother's Crayola paints.

3.) Do something irrational. Not like "believe in monsters" or "talk yourself into wearing your coat inside-out." I mean something like walking through frosty grass barefoot, or through an icy puddle bare-foot. Or having sock-skating competitions in the kitchen. 

4.) Make a bowl of cookie dough and share it with your family. Don't bother baking it. Who wants a cooked cookie when you can have...this? (The FDA is giving me the hairy eye-ball. I shall pretend ignorance and lick a spoon in their direction.)

5.) Find something you like driving through and drive through it always. Please use common sense. I am assuming you aren't fond of crashing through buildings or crowds of people or areas plainly labeled "WET CEMENT".  For me, I get a thrill out of driving fast through the massive puddles on our dirt driveway every time I leave the house. Even better if they're frozen over and I get to make mini ice-floes.

6.) People-watch. Yeah, it's a given. Watching people will always end with inspiration and amusement on your part. Unless you're a terribly invasive sort of watcher and end up getting slapped. For instructions and a diatribe on the sport, go here. 

8.) Make hot buttered toast and cut it in triangles. 'Nuff said. 

9.) Watch a Disney movie. Just you try watching Tangled and coming away with nothing. 

10.) Clean a room. I don't believe in or practice Feng Shui for many reasons, not the least of which is because it's basically Common Sense-ical House-Keeping With a Cool Asian Name, but I'm serious when I say that cleaning your office, your kitchen, your entire house (if need be) will aid and abet your creativity. Sometimes you put writing in front of responsibilities and your neater side (presuming you have one) will not let you concentrate while things are in an uproar. Also, I swear that sitting on your botto for too long presses some "Kill Inspiration" button. The manual says you can reboot to factory settings by doing something vigorous, whether housework or a walk.

As I look at the list above I noticed that most of the items could be labeled under "Relaxation" and "Having Fun." Guys, the king of your fictional kingdom might have his head on a chopping block but (hopefully) yours is quite intact. Leave your little people in peril for fifteen minutes and clean a bathtub, drive through a puddle, or paint with your two-year-old. Your mental and physical health will thank you and perhaps buy a copy of that novel when it finally comes out.

What do you do to reboot the creativity?

My Life is Prose

I suppose you could date this post back to Abigail's post all about college and the day-to-day happenings of her life. I was thinking about the movie-reels I make in my mind of the lives of my online friends out of the snapshot happenings they give me, and wondered just how correct my picture of their everydayness could be with so little to go on? I figured that some of you might have a wrong perception of my life in return, so I figured it might amuse you to read about a real day in the life of Rachel Heffington, Authoress.

~   ***   ~

   My alarm with the theme music from Captain America goes off around 6:30. I roll over, silence it, and go back to sleep till Dad comes in at 7:00.
   "Rise and shine, girls. I've let you sleep in; time to get up." His words are invariable. This is how I've been awakened every morning for as long as he's been waking us up.
   I don't mind being awakened since I like the morning. Sarah's another matter; I let her sleep while I take a shower, then I get dressed and rouse her again.: "Dad says it's time to get up so you might wanna wake up."
   She mumbles assent, grabs her iPod, and flops out of bed. I head downstairs with my Samsung Galaxy tab in hand and check emails as I make breakfast and button clothes for the little ones.  Jimsie (Levi) toddles in looking for a snack so I kiss him and sit him on the counter where he looks at the matches and talks about "a boxful of little fires." I've always got my tablet or my current book at this hour; you waste precious time cooking eggs and bacon with two hands.
  Mama and Dad finish their prayer-time together and we gather at the table. I'm sent to howl for the girls from the bottom of the stairwell, or I send one of the younger kids to oust them from their sweet sleep. Anna and Leah stumble downstairs last and grab the milking pails, heading out to take care of our frighteningly productive herd of goats.
   Dad stops them; they know we're supposed to eat breakfast as a family so they'll have to wait till after the meal to milk the goats. Anna grumbles and slings herself into her chair, the short pieces of hair around her face aiding in her disgruntled appearance; Leah fixes a cup of coffee, loudly complains that all we have for cream is goat's milk which she has formed a round campaign against,  and plops in the chair across from me. Little Gracie blesses the food (not leaving out the dead dog, the dead neighbor, and our older brother's good night's sleep) and we eat while discussing everything from why you can sometimes see the moon in the day, to who has been concocting plans for the weekend without consulting the family schedule, to how they make Pringle's chips and which lines in The Sound of Music we used to misquote.
   At some point in the melee, Dad declares a state of silence and brings out his iPhone to read the day's chapter from Oswald Chambers's My Utmost for His Highest; we're quiet. Most of the time I listen but sometimes without my consent, my mind takes a walk with a new story idea and I snap back to a frightened attention as Dad reads the last sentence of the devotional. I pray he won't quiz me on what we just read, but I know he'd laugh if he called on me and I confessed ignorance; my writing-induced ditziness amuses him.

   After the final prayer, the silence explodes like a dam bursting and the house will not be quiet again till school-time. We're always singing: sometimes the same song in harmony, sometimes six different songs at once. I'll hum Colbie Callait, while Anna warbles "Nella Fantasia", Grace and Abby sing "On my Own," and Sarah and Leah come in swinging the milk-pail and bellowing "Haven't Met You Yet". None of us stops and joins the others; we just keep on our merry way, each belting out her own tune. This is how we discover so many brilliant mash-ups, I'm convinced.
  Dad summons those of us whose turn it is to work in the landscape business for the day. If it's my turn, I grab a book or three, head out, and never get home till 9:30. These days I don't have time for writing, but I do manage to get in a concentrated hour of reading while we make the trek into town. He usually takes two or three of us, and we seldom know till breakfast who will be home and who will be working.

    If I'm not working, I finish the chores and Mama starts school with the kids. I head upstairs to pretty myself up and put on makeup, clean my room, put away laundry, and what-not. When that is finished, I go my Lair: the place which never ceases to soothe the soul. Now is my time to plan lessons, get in my writing quota, respond to emails, write blog-posts, and read other writers' blogs. I click into my iTunes account and turn on Kate Rusby with the volume down low, and start plunking. Generally I can get over a thousand words in one hour, leaving time for my other pursuits. If I have an especially inspired day, I'll work in two different stories and give adequate attention to each. (but not very often.) During the spring and summer, however, I seldom have the leisure of this slot of time at all; we spend all morning working in the gardens. If I do have the slot, however, I am generally Laired till lunchtime when I descend from my eyrie to scrape up something for lunch.
  There is no family meal-table for lunch: we sit here, there, and everywhere, and often I'll take my plate and a book out to the porch, enjoying the view for ten minutes before it gets any later in the afternoon and the sun is too harsh in one's eyes to read. When we built the house, the decision to face the front toward the West was intentional--we have a gorgeous and unimpaired view of the sunset; but toward 3:00 we must draw the blinds or else blink like moles upturned from their furrows of earth till the blaze lessens in fury. After the lunch-break it's back to washing dishes, sweeping, running laundry, etc.

    Afternoon is the time when (if I'm not at work or watching the kids or doing something for Dad) I have time to take an Agatha Christie or The Mind of the Maker or whatever pet-book of which I am in the process of reading, and stow myself away somewhere. I can't read sitting upright--it's just not my thing, so I sprawl on a couch or sit on the porch with my feet propped on the railing, or lay on the floor of my Lair; sometimes I'll read aloud if it's a difficult piece of work and I understand it so much the better. If the sunlight is gentle enough to bear sitting on the porch, I choose that and Cricket comes to curl in my lap and sit on my book and generally make a feline nuisance of herself till I ease my novel out from under her and pet her absentmindedly with one hand. Generally speaking, though, I don't have much leisure in the afternoons: this is the chunk of time when I teach the classes I prepare for, or watch the kids while Mama does the grocery shopping (or do the shopping myself), and when 4:30 comes around I begin the lengthy and involved process of making dinner for a family of ten.
   A curious trait of my character is that I must have a recipe to get me started (i.e. a goal set before my eyes of what I intend to make) but I never stick to the recipe once I've read it; philosophers would have a heyday with that one, I'm certain. Often I will search online for half an hour for a recipe that sounds good, then look at the ingredients list, realize I have none of the ingredients or could make it so much more creative, and ditch the instructions. By default, I end up making dinner pretty much every night. (except, of course, when I'm working.) I actually enjoy the different sort of creativity which cooking for a large and often impecunious family requires--substituting anything for everything is rather good practice, you know. Plus, as I said about breakfast, I can cook with one hand and read with the other; you don't actually have to watch the food, I've discovered. A quick glance now and then to be sure you aren't holding your book too close to the flame or that the roux isn't burning is quite good enough. In between batches of pots and pans on the stove, I step outside onto the porch to watch the sunset with Jimsie who, by this point, is usually getting fractious and needs the distraction as much as I.
    "Look at that sunset," I say to him as we sit on the sun-baked bricks of the front steps. This is our familiar catechism, and I watch to see if he'll catch my unspoken question.
    His blue eyes flick up to the sky and the dimples show in his baby-face. "God made it."
     "Yeahhh," I say, rewarding him with a kiss. "God made that sunset for you."

 As pleasant as it is to sit with an adorable toddler on the porch in a wash of sunset, the second half of evening-work still calls; the girls milk again and I wash up the dishes and call the little girls from folding laundry to setting the table. Then we eat, sometimes with Dad and the work crew, sometimes not, and the third (or fourth) round of chores commences. Jimsie gets his bath now, or else it's straight to bed with him. Depending on the day of the week there is a different sister whose job it is to tuck the little ones in; when it's my turn we brush his teeth, change him, have a tickling session, and settle down in Mama's rocker where he requires at least two stories: one about birds and another about cows. I fluff his pillow and he nestles down in his crib with a content sigh. I rub his back and pray with him, then sit in the dim light coming from the crack in the bathroom door and read or check emails on my tablet while Jimsie (and Grace) falls to sleep.
   By the time he is asleep and Abby has been tucked in, it is generally 8:30. The evening is fair game now; if I have not had time to write, I'll slip into my Lair and wearily plunk out as many words as are left in my bones. On the days of happier schedules, I will have already accomplished this and can watch a movie with the girls.
   Dad is the warden of our sleep and, to his credit, begins to sound the closing bells around 10:00 so that if we went to bed when he first suggested it we should not have any trouble waking at 6:30 when our alarms go off. But Mama has taught us to be night-owls and we never do listen; Dad goes round like the Town Crier two or three times more till 11:00 has come and gone and finally our movie or discussion is finished and we're ready to call it a wrap. I stand at the front door and call Cricket who never listens either. After a few summonses, she is relegated to a night outside and I lock the front door and head upstairs.
   Sarah and I change and get ready for bed, and squeeze in a little bit of reading before one of us decides to turn out the light. We have our sparring and debates at this hour if one of us is in a philosophic mood, but more often than not we're simply very tired and drift off to sleep with a quiet "Good-night" that is echoed by the wider-awake one of us.

 ~   ***   ~

This is my life in prose. It has never been a normal life, as the schedule is forever cut apart by being summoned to landscaping duties or handyman-ing or grocery shopping or baseball practice. Some days I don't get a single word written, and it can be frustrating. But if you could make a mosaic "normal day" out of these shards, there it is. I hope I haven't bored you with this recitation of ordinary things, and that you'll be better able to understand why my word-count is occasionally so low or why I am not the young-lady-writer who has the ability to do nothing but write all day. Literary pursuits do encounter real life and I've found it is possible to submit the one to the other and still realize both. If you are determined, though you may have a prosaic and disjointed life like mine, you'll come to realize that one doesn't need a clear schedule or gobs of solitude if one is to be a writer. One must only have a plan and learn to ease dreams into the cracks of life and sooner or later you'll find that the dreams are so woven into reality that they've become reality...and they're all the stronger for it.

Introducing Affery's Dose!

Don't ask.

Sometimes we all need to take ourselves a little less seriously and admit that a writer's life can be amusing rather than constantly involving the hypochondria we press upon ourselves. Why is it that we seldom read amusing posts, instead reading ones about Writer's Block and all the Wretched Ways of Editors & Agents & Co.? Probably because no one has ever done what I'm about to do here. This feature was inspired partly by the pilot-story I will soon relate, and partly by Jenny Freitag's frequent Facebook posts about the interesting things that happen in her day-to-day life as a writer. The feature of which I speak is...

....(rolling of drums...beating of hooves...clashing of thunder...whispering of awkward audience...)....

Affery's Dose

"Affery's Dose" will be a somewhat familiar term to those of you who are Dickens fans and have read his Little Dorrit. To those who have not, I am sorry and will explain: Essentially, "Affery" is the wife of a wretched old man named Flintwinch, and when he decides he would like to beat her, he tells her he'll "give (her) such a dose!" so I thought to myself, if laughter doeth like medicine, and medicine is administered in "doses" and we all need that sort of physic often in life, why not make it a frequent feature here on The Inkpen Authoress? If you are still confused on this point, I will make it clearer in a step-by-step diagram:
1.) Live life as a writer and have funny/awkward/interesting things happen to you relating to that
2.) Remember those things
3.) Write them down and send them to me at theinkpenauthoress(at)gmail(dot)com with the subject line "Affery's Dose"
4.) Wait and see if your story is featured here!
5.) Spread the news

Now if you still don't understand, I think your hope is caseless. Or your case is hopeless as it may be. You probably don't belong reading this blog, at any rate. The long and short of it is: I want your stories. Funny stories. Awkward stories. Stories you chuckle over think, "Gosh. A writer's life..." Those kinds. The hodge-podge of amusing occurrences. They don't have to be long or agonized over. Just tell the story as you'd describe it to a friend, and click "send". And I need lots of them so if you would like to mention Affery's Dose on your blogs and encourage your writer-readers to contribute, that would be bombdiggitty.  As an example to spur you onward, I shall now relate the Only Case in Which Milne Embarrassed Me:

     On my way to Colorado to work with a group of students for a week at government camp, I was herded onto a tiny plane. Seats were assigned and at first my prospects were not too shabby: I got a window seat on the side of the plane that had pairs of seats. Leg room!, I hoped. Then a young gentleman of about thirty came ambling along the aisle. I stiffened, hoping he would notice the seat next to me. He did. We spent the next two hours pressed arm-to-arm and he would not sit still. At first I took out a hand-scrawled copy of Ephesians 1 which I had been trying to memorize, but my mind would not focus.     Instead, I pulled The House at Pooh Corner from my purse and wished for the first time in my life that the cover was not spangled with bumble-bees on a pale green ground. My mood improved upon reading the book from cover-to-cover, and I was somewhat emboldened by the thought that the young man had probably not bothered to notice what the plump girl hermetically sealed to his arm had brought for reading material.
    Then it happened.    I dropped The House at Pooh Corner. On the gentleman's feet. He could not have just let it sit there bumble-bee-ing on his toes till I rummaged myself into a position on the miniscule plane to retrieve it. Oh no. He put his iPhone aside, folded himself like a card table and went spelunking for my book, resurfacing with a grin and a slightly puzzled glance at the cover.
     "Oh, thanks," I mumbled, and stuffed Milne back into the purse so he could disgrace me no longer with his silly bumble-bees and Poohs and antics of throwing himself onto a complete stranger's sandals.

*bows and walks off the stage*

That is the sort of story I'd love to receive. I know you have misadventures, and that's what Affery's Dose is all about. So come one, come all, and do share your wild and wooly stories! I will be posting them periodically on this blog for as long as they last, and I'd love to grow the circulation of these tales till everyone knew about Affery's Dose and was lying in wait for stories to happen to them to send in. So do spread the word and be decent chaps! Publicity is awaiting your return!

the business bits we like to overlook ;)

I have not had much time for writing recently--life has caught me up in its talons and while it's all glorious and beautiful and hot and sticky and summer-y, it's left precious little time for actually thinking about plot and characters, phrasing and grammar. That is my little excuse, and I beg you to take it.
Otherwise I will have to do something terribly drastic like...like...like...never mind. I couldn't think of anything drastic enough. ;)

Among the many project ideas and actually-accomplished-projects has been the all-consuming business of reorganizing and going through our bookshelves. I took plenty of pictures of my book collection (before, after, and favorite bits. :) so that you may see. It will have to be in another post though because I don't have the pictures uploaded to this computer yet. Be patient, y'all. ;) I was in raptures because I got to visit with all my beloved old friends, and literally throw out (or Goodwill) the chunks of paper that don't have a spot in my memory because they weren't worth it. ;) I felt powerful. Yes, I'm a bit of literary snob.

Though I haven't written any more of Fly Away Home since resigning from the Crusade, I have been working on a pin-board that may give you a bit of an idea of parts of the rest of the story. :) Yes, yes I know that's not a legitimate form of research... ahem...

Yes, I know I haven't been writing and really haven't felt that much like writing, but I've been indulging in reading. It had been a slightly forbidden pleasure for so long--I would forgo the pleasure of reading in order to get in my word-count--that I am quite giddy with the sensation of gobbling book after book. :)

Oh! In other news, who wants to help name some of my newest characters? I won't promise I'll use all of your ideas, but I need some names for the crew of The Scuppernong. Most specifically:

2nd mate
ship's cook
ship's doctor
boatswain
a half dozen particular sailors who will figure in the plot
second cabin-boy

Oh! And besides a few minor adjustments (like putting back a few of the "about me and my writing" pages) the new blog design is done! Vote on how you like it at the poll on the sidebar. And thank for any suggestions you might have for sailing-folk names. :)

Au Revoir, Inky Ones! Have a loverly evening. :)

The Crusade Fades

I wanted to say that I have resigned from the June Crusade. I knew from the start that it would probably happen, but I thought I'd just give myself a break and officially resign. I am still writing, but part of the whole problem is that I want to work on Scuppernong Days and Fly Away Home simultaneously, and I don't have time (or brain-power) enough to try to speed-write one and still give quality time to the other. Sorry, Anne-girl, that I am not valiant enough to join in your crusade. I enjoyed my time participating immensely, but Life's limitations had written another story for me. :) I look forward to posting an update on Scuppernong Days soon! :)

"What do those girls do over there all day?"

I suppose you, like I, assume that fellow authoresses must spend all day tucked away in a lovely little writing corner. You believe I am an authoress who has the leisure to scribble all day long. There would be a canary or two in a little gilt cage hanging near the half-open window of my eyrie. I would have a geranium potted in a delft pitcher--its homey scarlet and white banners fluttering in the fresh spring breeze. I would write with a pen and ink. My ink-pot would be blue glass, catching sparkles of sunlight and holding them in its deep cobalt depths.
I have reams of paper in your imagination--computers never figure there. All these blog posts are written to you, my friends, on cream colored stationary scented of lavender. I would have bits and pieces of clever drawings that inspire. I would have quotes scrawled on tattered bits of antique paper. My book friends would hold honored court with my "Genius Burns" sign, and my characters would find a quiet, brilliant corner of brain to mellow in while I worked on their brethren.
Plot bunnies would never disturb me--I have a leather-bound notebook where they reside. My chair would be of the Windsor style and painted Wedgewood blue. Outdoors it would always be invariably sunshine--the only variety being when a merry rain came to patter amongst the red roses growing below the window.

Yes...that would be ideal, would it not? But yours truly doesn't live such a life. I would even beg leave to say such a life would not be conducive to brilliancy. One cannot sit down to write if one hasn't stood up to live, you know. So what does an average day look like for Rachel Heffington, authoress? I shall endeavor to tell you.

It began with a younger sister getting ill during the night. Oy vay. I am not a Clara Barton. I woke up around 8:00 this morning---enjoying a brief respite from my routine of waking at 6:30 to write. It soon became apparent that I would get no writing done this morning. After breakfast I trotted around with bleach and a rag cleaning everything that would bear a wet face decently. That's the way to eradicate sickness, believe me! I am a great hand at doing it. :P
Then it was time for the authoress to go grubbing up in the room over the garage, gathering potato sets into a bushel basket on her hands and knees. She let her mind wander over the unfairness of the publishing world, Jan Karon, and other topics. She asked herself why she always wrote about British people and why she always wrote about boys--both things that are somewhat foreign to her nature.
She then went out to the garden where she poked holes and poked peas into the holes and poked more holes and poked more peas and stamped down a path to vary the routine before beginning again. She is very efficient in the garden.
Then, musing over a very intriguing dream she had had, yours truly wondered how to phrase it to catch the exact color and gleam of the thing...it seemed somehow rather Important. But, seeing that now was her only time for writing a blog post, (while eating lunch and feeding a baby beans and applesauce. :) this authoress, Rachel, decided she had better begin.
That is the way I usually live. :) Much of my writing is completed in my imagination--at least major workings out. And you know what? I'm more useful without the geraniums and inkpots and Windsor chairs. I can garden and cook and clean and diaper, all the while being the picture of Efficiency. It's a good life, albeit a prosaic one. :)