Cheryl Reavis's Blog, page 3

(The) WRITING LIFE--THE MARINE and I Won...

I've just been notified that THE MARINE has won EPIC's 2018 eBook Award for Contemporary Fiction.

(The) Writing Life--Book On Sale

Let me introduce you to "Daisy and Eric," probably the two most important characters in my book, PROMISE ME A RAINBOW. They were the all important catalyst every writer hopes for. 
"Daisy and Eric" are Tom Clark gnomes. If you're not familiar with his work, his gnome sculptures will always evoke some kind of emotion. In my case, it was curiosity. What would a woman who had been told she could never have a child of her own think when she saw them? And how would they effect a little girl who had lost her mother? 
There was no way of knowing, of course, unless you write the book that will answer these questions--which I did. 
At the moment, PROMISE ME A RAINBOW, in all eBook formats, is on sale for $1.99 until March 31.
And as a reminder, you don't have to have a Kindle to read it. You can download the free Kindle app and read it on your desktop, phone or tablet.
This is the link to Amazon.

WRITING (About) LIFE...

Again with the rain this morning. I wish I could hear it. This house has deep eaves and a tall attic space, so I rarely hear “rain on the roof” like I did when I was a little kid and still at home. Always loved that sound. Rain, and if there was enough wind, the pines soughing. Those pines weren’t the tall, tall spindly pine kind. They were more like an oak tree with large trunks I couldn’t reach all the way around. Our house was surrounded by them. When it snowed, the branches would all but touch the ground and it was like being in a huge, green, wonderful-smelling cave. One tree in particular was great for climbing. My neighborhood BFF and I had our self-assigned limbs. We would climb and sit exactly where we were supposed to. It was great—except for the pine sap (“rawsin”) I got all over me. Ever tried to get pine sap off your skin? And there was the thing about little girls getting themselves all “sappy.” LIttle boys, no problem. Little girls, eek, no. My climbing worried my mom. A lot. We climbed anyway when she wasn’t looking. I’m happy to say neither the BFF or I ever fell off our limbs. Never even had a close call. She came to my mom’s funeral even though she could barely walk. Both our climbing days are done. All those big pine trees are done, too. At my mom’s house and all through the South. Killed by some kind of murderous pine tree weevil. I wonder if children now will remember their video games the way I remember those pines?

(The) WRITING LIFE--News

I'm very happy about this. Carl, my pre-owned former Navy-Marine feline, now a #writercat, will be, too--just as soon as he wakes up. No, really. He will.

Writing (About) Life (When It's Hard)

Just a short post to tell you that my 97-year-old mother, who suffered from Alzheimer's, had a second heart attack the day before Thanksgiving and passed away the day after. I am so many things right now. It is possible to feel sorrow and relief at the the same time. And exhaustion. And yet, somehow, feel numb, too. Alzheimer's is a terrible disease, and it is a comfort to know that she is at peace at last.

(The) Writing Life (A Commercial)

"What is that old proverb--a journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step? No. It begins with a phone call from a stranger in the middle of the night." 

You will want to accompany Sloan Baron on her journey to rescue her brother's child, and without warning, to find love.

An award-winning romance. 

http://tinyurl.com/y9pnork7

(THE) WRITING LIFE: NOW ON SALE...

ON SALE All ebook formats of BAND OF BROTHERSNOVEMBER 1-15
DUTY. HONOR. COUNTRY.WIFE. CHILD. SWEETHEART.AND A DOG NAMED "Killer George."

WRITING (ABOUT) LIFE--I Have Something To Say...

My dad was a World War II vet. The Battle of the Bulge. The push to Germany.
He had a photo album of pictures he'd taken during the war. I never saw him look at them, but I looked at them often, trying to understand this part of my dad's life because he was only twenty at the time and because he still had nightmares. I understood what was happening in all of the photographs except one. It was a photo of men with shovels digging into a mound of soft earth. One man in the foreground had such a look of detachment, as if in his mind, he was somewhere else and whatever it was had nothing to do with him.

One day, when I was fourteen or so and looking through the album, I asked. "What are they doing?" And I instantly regretted it because of the look on my dad's face. He took the album from my hands. I thought he would close it and put it away, but he didn't.

"We made them dig them up," he said. "And bury them right."

I didn't say anything.

"Little girls," he said after a long time. "They were all wearing white dresses."

Another long pause.

"We knew the Nazis were going to execute them--some men from the Resistance told us. Punishment for the people in the village. We tried to get there in time."

He sat staring at the photograph, until finally he closed the album and handed it back to me.

"We didn't make it."

When I look at photographs of the Charlottesville violence like the one above, I'm glad that my dad isn't alive to see it. And I think of little girls in white dresses.

(The) WRITING LIFE--THE FIRST BOY I LOVED

A poignant love story and my nod to the young men of my generation who fought in Vietnam.


ON SALE
$1.99
JULY 1 - 15


Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/y7ccfrbb
B&N: http://tinyurl.com/y9mfhuke
Kobo: http://tinyurl.com/y9nv9cbw 

Available in All eBook Formats, including iBooks and Google Play 

(The) Writing Life...ON SALE!!!

ON SALE

eBook Format
$1.99
May 1-May 15

THE MARINE

Amazon:  http://tinyurl.com/hau2weu
                     Kobo:   http://tinyurl.com/knozhru                      B&N:    http://tinyurl.com/mo5ugl9
                     Goggle:  http://tinyurl.com/n4r6g4f
And the Apple iBooks Store.