Barbara Samuel's Blog: A Writer Afoot, page 11

A writer wishing she was afoot

[image error]"I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in." John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir, 1938

Christopher Robin is in England this week, visiting his mother for Mothering Sunday. He sent me a little audio clip of walking up the road in an English village, with birds warbling and his feet crunching and I desperately wanted to be back in Hawkhurst, walking the public footpaths.  I want to be walking anywhere, truth be told, the yen is on me for a long, long, long walk, days and days of getting up and walking a long way and coming back to sleep and eat, then getting up to to it again the next morning.

Oh, I'm walking, of course. Jack and I walk every day, twice, usually for more than hour altogether, and I do love starting my writing day that way, getting my lungs filled up with clean, fresh air, getting my body moving, and my brain. It's while I'm walking that I unravel plot tangles and come up with ideas for essays and figure out why that character has been carrying around that thing all through the book.

But since walking all over England and down the Camino de Santiago (Best.Walk.Ever.) last summer, I haven't been on a single very long walk (more than five or six miles) anywhere. There was the little matter of a torn meniscus that had to be repaired and then the recovery, which was actually very fast–I was walking to the mailbox the second day, and to the park by a week later. It helped the knee to heal very quickly.  As walking does.  It's my cure-all. My daily constitutional and my way of meeting the world.

The long walks are my way of meeting myself. Having long conversations with Spirit and the vastness of everything.

This summer is devoted to my garden, which is also important to me, and I have a lot of writing to do, so I planned to stay home.  I still choose not to travel far this year, but Colorado is pretty stunning.  I'm sure I can find a multi-day walk or two around these parts.  :)

Now I leave you with the quiet of an English village evening. (You can really begin to hear the birds at about .30.  Turn up your volume.  Birds and Hawkhurst

 

Heart of a Knight #1

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For the past several days, Heart of a Knight has been bouncing in and out of the #1 spot historical romance spot at Amazon Kindle. Stephanie Laurens knocked me out for a day (curse her superstardom and brilliance  ;) ) but Dark Thomas bounced back up again to #1 tonight.

 

Again I have to give a shout-out to my cousin Sharon Schlicht, who designed the extraordinary cover (and, well, did everything else related to getting it up in ebook form).

 

 

5 Dos and a Do-over at Chick Lit is Not Dead

Join me over at Chick Lit is Not Dead for a special blog and a chance to win a free book.

1. Take a chance on something that seems impossible. Write a novel, maybe, or throw your heart into a crumbling old house and try to save it from the wrecking ball. When my boys were small and we were poor, I fell in love with an old house down the street. It was empty, maybe abandoned, and I could see into the light falling across the stairway, and upstairs was a big room with a bay window beneath the high pointed eaves. Every morning, I walked by and it whispered to me. Somehow, with no money whatsoever, we ended up buying it and spending years and years renovating one thing and then another. There was a ghost in the garden, who befriended my cats, and it was her ancient globe lilies and giant roses that grew out of the rock hard dirt in the backyard. (I am convinced she is the one who called me to save her house.) My children grew up with torn up floors and ancient bathrooms and sheetrock tape, the two of them crammed together in one bedroom so I could have the tiny office downstairs for work. It was a house of great love, and although it never became This Old House, all gleaming and perfectly restored, we saved it from the wrecking ball. READ THE REST….

LUCIEN'S FALL now available as an ebook

[image error] Cover art by Sharon Schlicht

Add another to the list…this is so exciting for me!  I loved writing these books and it's really wonderful to discover that I still love them.  LUCIEN'S FALL was a bit of a breakout book, my third historical romance.

It was becoming clear to me that medievals did not sell as well as other eras, but I couldn't see myself writing Regency, which is mannerly in the extreme and had too many VERY picky fans who would know if I got even a fork out of place.  While I'm quite serious about research (and in fact it is one of the best parts of the job), that didn't appeal.  So, one day on the old GEnie RomEx network, I was moaning about this problem…what era could I try that would be right for me? The delightful Jo Beverley, always such a genius in these things, said, "Why not Georgian? It would suit."

It turned out to be a very good fit. The book earned an entirely new group of readers. I ended up doing three books set in the era, and did enormous amounts of research to set up several more.  The first 2 books of the St. Ives series, The Black Angel and Night of Fire (which also have new covers…see right) are already up at Kindle, Nook, and Smashwords (for those of you who are buying the books outside the US and UK, especially).

Now I can add Lucien's Fall to the list.  It is the tale of a tortured rake with absolutely no moral boundaries who is tortured by a tragic secret.  He meets Madeline at a house party in the country and is determined to make her a notch in his belt, but she's been raised to understand the tricks of rakes, and besides, she has an ancestral estate to save.  You can read an excellent discussion of the book at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, one of the best discussions of any of my books ever, IMO.

Buy Lucien's Fall at: Kindle, Nook, or Smashwords.  Only 99 cents for a limited time.

*****Also, my friends, it's very helpful if readers post reviews or even just ratings at Amazon and B&N. All books, of course, but especially ebooks. You can do it anonymously and it helps other browsers to find the books they're interested in, so please feel free to tag, rate, or review any/all of the ebooks. I will be eternally grateful. I DO NOT CARE IF THE REVIEWS ARE GOOD OR BAD.  If I could think of a contest to encourage this, I definitely would.  (And if any of you think of a way for me to do it, let me know).  ********

 

Bid on Book-Club-in-a-Box for Writers for Red Cross

Writers for the Red Cross auctions are going on this month, and we can all see what an amazing job they are always doing, but even more so when something like an earthquake or tsunami wipes out cities.

Help raise funds and get a How to Bake a Perfect Life package for your book club. Go to http://www.writersfortheredcross.org/baking-a-perfect-life-in-a-box/#respond to make a bid on a package that includes: 5 signed copies of How to Bake a Perfect Life, a celebratory signed apron, a sourdough crock and starter yeast, a collection of colorful spatulas, and a handwritten collection of the author's favorite bread recipes.

First sprout

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Project: building light frames

[image error]Today begins the first major project of my urban farm. the growing season is so short (some years) that I must start seedlings indoors. I attended a class on starting seedlings indoors, and then found these plans for a light frame in Urban Farm magazine.

I've collected all of my materials and marked the PVC pipe. I'm not actually allowed to build it until I've done my pages for the day. A good incentive to get to work.

 

 

 

 

The first order of business was to get a better hacksaw, which cost all of $11 with extra blades.  This little guy couldn't do the job.

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The article in Urban Farm seemed to make this a very easy project, but I have to admit to some dismay when I was sawing away with my new hacksaw because it was very difficult to keep the cut straight, and I kept hearing my ex-husband's voice in my head, telling me that I wasn't doing it right.  (He wasn't a mean guy, just a construction guy who thought my use of tools was hilarious).

Turned out I couldn't saw them straight to save my life, but in the end, it didn't matter at all anyway, because you stick the ends of the pipes into elbows and joints and things.  I was quite pleased with myself at the result.

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The final stage was putting the shop lights together with one regular bulb and one grow light, then rigging a wire circlet around the pipes from which to hang the lights.

I also secured the pipes to the table in a very high-end way:

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Yes, lots and lots of postage tape.  The table was just big enough, and I didn't want to take a chance on kittens making a big mess of my hard work. I suspect this will be an interesting place for them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, I installed screwed the bulbs into the stoplights and hung them up.  The growlight bulb is a lot bigger in diameter than the other one, which freaked me out at first, but it doesn't seem to matter in the slightest.  What I also learned: the white bulb is seriously loud (or maybe it isn't quite installed right or needs to warm up? I don't know the answer to that yet).  I might have to opt for two more grow lights.

Anyway, mostly completed:

[image error]Now to the planting!

Have you undertaken a scary little task you didn't think you could do?  How did it turn out?

This morning I was scouring the internet for some new id...

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This morning I was scouring the internet for some new ideas for dishes to experiment with. There are a couple of events coming up and I'll bring a dish, so it would be fun to try some new things.  Saveur always offers something fantastic, and I spent easily an hour wandering through their catalogue of recipes.  I want to try the Herbed Tomato Tart, but perhaps not until I can buy tomatoes for less than $4 a pound.  Instead, pears are readily available and easy, so maybe this Pear and Walnut Tart for one event, and this Gnocchi with Brown Butter and Sage for the vegetarian dish.  I haven't tried gnocchi before, though I love to eat it. I wonder if it's hard.

At one time, that would have stopped me. I would have gone on to try something a little less daunting. These days, I've cooked enough bad dishes that if I don't successfully carry one off, it's not some overwhelming disaster, but an opportunity to learn something new.  Anyone have tips for cooking gnocchi?

Also: I love this photograph, which is taken by Todd Sullivan, for Saveur Magazine. (It's time for a new camera and the next step in lessons.  I have a lot of photos of gardens and foods coming up, and it would be fun to get a bit better at it.)  In this photo, the food looks easy and interesting and nourishing, but it's the light that catches me, the quiet spirit of what feels like it would be a hearty simple meal.  Just off screen, I imagine, is a decanter of some pleasant table wine and a crusty loaf of bread.  A window overlooking a wild kitchen garden, dormant at the moment, but fecund in summer. What do you see?

The fun side of ebooks

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This is what can be fun about the shift in the way books come to market. A Bed of Spices was my first historical. It's a dark, wildly romantic Romeo and Juliet tale, and I loved it madly. It was, however, set in an unusual location, and it did not sell all that well. Over time, readers discovered it and bought the used edition to a point that I saw copies for sale for really enormous amounts of money.

Today it's in the top 20 historical romances at Kindle. What makes that thrilling is that a book I adored and worked so very hard on can now find a new readership in a different market than the one in which it appeared.

It is the nature of the Kindle rankings that things move very fast, so likely it will not stay there long. You never know, though, do you? If you're so inclined, post a review. Let's see what happens.

An organic farm…in my backyard!

Just before Christmas, CR surprised me by bringing in a landscape architect to make our yard over into a beautiful urban farm. Perhaps he wants more fresh potatoes like the ones I grew in a black bag last summer. Or maybe he is tired of me complaining about the price of organic produce. Whatever it is, I am thrilled.

The trick is to use vegetables and fruit trees, along with ornamentals, to create a pleasing setting for a backyard barbecue, but also use the land and water productively.   (You may have heard me rant before about watering grass in Colorado, which is an exercise in waste.) The first draft is here, and I am SO excited. I thought you might want to follow along with me on this journey.   This is the draft.

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There are many challenges to growing a hearty garden in Colorado. For one thing, the season is short–Zone 4 where we are, thought some parts of the city are Zone 5.  For another, we sit at just over 7000 feet, which means a lot less oxygen and much harsher sunlight.  To maximize my success, I'm starting plants indoors, in waves.  Last week, I attended a class on starting seeds with grow lights, and have stocked up on materials.   I can begin March 1. (Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes!!)

What a Christmas present, huh?

Do you have a garden? What are the challenges where you are, and what crops to you most like to grow?