Beth Andrews's Blog, page 5
May 31, 2012
Ellen Hartman’s Winners
The winners of copies of Ellen’s THE LONG SHOT are:
Laney4
Maureen
and our own Jeanne Adams!
Please contact Ellen at: ellen@ellenhartman.com and let her know if you’d like a paper or electronic copy of her wonderful story!
May 21, 2012
Ellen Hartman is in the lair!
I’m thrilled to have Superromance author Ellen Hartman with us today! Her latest release, The Long Shot, is garnering rave reviews and is out now 
(Pick up a copy. You won’t be disappointed!) Welcome, Ellen!
What I Learned Playing Softball in the 70s
In my May Superromance, The Long Shot, high school guidance counselor, Julia Bradley, bets that the girls’ basketball team she coaches will make the state tournament. The only problem is that Julia is a terrible coach.
I played softball in the 1970s, part of a generation of girls coached by moms who’d had limited exposure to organized sports.
Why did those particular women, most of whom didn’t have the faintest idea of how to coach, put their names down on the volunteer sheet? Did they dream about a league when they were kids, watching their brothers play? Did they want this athletic outlet for their daughters? How much of their decision was about baseball and how much was about wanting to fill a gap for the girls in their lives? I don’t know the answers to those questions, but I deeply I enjoyed thinking about them as I wrote Julia’s story.
My first baseball coach had a very pretty name, Mindy, and very pretty hands. She wore elastic waist shorts sized as-big-as-they-come. While she coached us, she chain-smoked, holding the cigarette daintily between painted nails, blowing smoke through tiny black teeth.
Mindy sent the shortest girls up to the plate with instructions not to swing. At anything. Those tiny girls, with a strike zone measured in inches, were more than likely going to draw a walk if they just stood at the plate long enough. Sure there was a bit of strategy involved, why waste a strike when a walk was guaranteed? But the underlying message was that some girls were too small or too delicate or too something to really play. Organized sports and ordinary girls were just starting to get to know each other.
One of the girls I played with “threw like a girl.” Her windup was the exact motion cartoon characters use to illustrate that insult: she’d fold her arm in half, elbow pointed at the ground, hand clutching the ball in front of her shoulder, and with a feminine little “oof,” she’d flip her wrist, sending the ball a whopping few feet. She started and ended her three-year baseball career unable to perform one of the basic tasks of baseball.
I was a skinny kid and not tall, but I loved playing catcher. The girls’ league didn’t have our own catcher’s equipment, so we used a set the boys had discarded. The chest protector hung down to my knees. The shin guards covered me from toes to hips. The helmet required two hands to drag off. I was barely mobile and never once caught a foul ball for an out. But at every opportunity I flung the helmet off and squinted at the sky, circling the plate, glove out hopefully, just in case.
My brother’ baseball uniform included a jersey with his team name printed on the back, a matching hat and socks, and long white baseball pants. Mine was a pair of polyester knit shorts, a polyester v-neck shirt, and a hat. I coveted my brother’s baseball pants, every week my hands itched to snatch them out of his laundry pile.
Our baseball league had two fields, one with a grass infield and groomed base paths, the other pure dirt and rocks. I remember standing at second base on the dirt field watching the boys’ game across the fence and wondering if ground balls would be easier to catch on smooth grass.
But I did love the game. My dad taught me to throw and hit and field grounders or fly balls. I learned the catcher’s art of psyching out the batter all on my own—I don’t think the term “trash talk” came into vogue until after I hung up my glove.
I don’t remember learning much baseball from the women who coached me, but I absorbed lessons they maybe didn’t even know they were teaching. I learned about fostering opportunities. I learned about following a dream even if it doesn’t look like other people’s dreams, or even much like a dream at all. (Surely no one dreams of playing ball on a dirt field in polyester shorts surrounded by people who haven’t a clue what to do if the ball comes their way.) I learned to keep my head up in the face of a loss, to make do, but to keep an eye out for a way to trade up. I learned that expertise isn’t everything. Sometimes what matters is being willing to show up.
In an early draft of The Long Shot, my editor penciled a question asking why Julia is the coach if she’s so terrible at the game. The book is set in a depressed town in upstate New York where the teachers at the high school are worn down. Julia coaches because no one else will. She cares.
Those women, the ones who showed up so our fledgling Little League softball teams could get off the ground, so the girls like me who wanted to play had a team, are the ones Julia Bradley is modeled on. She doesn’t know how to coach basketball, but she knows the team matters. She knows her girls matter and she’s doing what it takes to teach them to value themselves and their goals.
Being a sports hero isn’t always about winning. Sometimes the hero is the one who shows up.
What about you? Did you play sports? Coach? Have a favorite sports romance? I’d love to hear your stories.
Ellen’s giving away three copies of The Long Shot today!
And don’t forget to check out Ellen’s website at: http://www.ellenhartman.com/index.html
May 20, 2012
Small Town Favorites
Today my mom, son and I are spending the afternoon in my mother’s small hometown. It’s a trip I’ve made plenty of times before as we used to travel the forty miles from my small hometown (which is a bit bigger than her small hometown *g*) every Sunday to visit my grandparents on their dairy farm. Unfortunately, my grandparents are no longer with us but we all still like to head back to Mom’s old stomping grounds.
Our plans for the outing include having lunch at a local restaurant known for their Texas Hots as well as their fabulous Greek food (yes, I know, quite a combination *g*) then we’ll head to the local winery where I’m hoping to pick up a few bottles of inspiration. We’ll also stop by the local meat market where they make their own sausages, import various products from Sweden and where my Mom can get the rye flour for her awesome Swedish Rye Bread. On our way home, we’ll stop at the greenhouse and pick out some flowers for our gardens. I’m also hoping to pick up some basil and cilantro – two staples of my summer garden
So, pretty much the trip is all about food and alcohol and being with two of my favorite people *g* Can’t ask for a better day than that!
(btw, the picture is of City Hall in my town)
Do you still live in the town where you grew up? What are some of your favorite things to do in your hometown?
May 16, 2012
April 20, 2012
Three’s Company
Unfortunately, Melanie (Reece Witherspoon) isn’t meant to be with Andrew but with her never-officially-divorced husband Jake (the adorable Josh Lucas). What makes this such a strong story for me is that Mel is truly conflicted. She has a great life in New York and she and Jake both made so many mistakes in the past, she’s afraid to believe things between them could be different now. Plus, she has a very cute, very sweet and charming (and, yes, wealthy!) man who loves her and wants to marry her.I adore love triangles where all three characters are likable. It would be so easy to say Mel should choose Jake if Andrew was a selfish jerk, but then there wouldn’t be any tension and we’d all wonder what the heck she ever saw in Andrew in the first place!
I had a bit of a love triangle in A Marine For Christmas and am covering that ground again in The Truth about the Sullivans trilogy as part of a subplot I have running through all three books. I have to admit, writing that triangle was great fun!
Do you like love triangles? What are some of your favorite love triangles in books and movies?
March 20, 2012
Kitchen Gadgets
I’m not what you’d deem a techno-geek. I have no desire to own the latest, greatest electronic gadgets. I don’t have internet access on my phone, own an iPad or other tablet or an e-reader. We’re due to (finally) get DVR service for our TV tomorrow.
But there is one room that I have stocked with fun toys and gadgets. The kitchen!
I have a KitchenAid mixer (I love my mixer!) but don’t have all the accessories for it yet. I also have a pasta maker (a crank kind – works great), a food processor, an electronic citrus juicer, a blender, hand blender, a cotton candy maker (it works and it’s a great idea but it takes a lot of sugar and it takes forever to make even a small amount of ‘floss’), a snow cone maker (electronic, it shaves the ice for perfect snow cones) and, possibly my second favorite gadget after my mixer, an ice cream maker. My younger daughter makes the best homemade ice cream!
Now I want two more toys to add to my playground:
A juicer. Not sure why but I’ve been hankering to make my own juice drinks lately. Fruit ones. Veggie ones. Cleansing ones. Immunity boosting ones. You name it and I could possibly want to juice it
A bread machine. I always make my bread by hand so this one isn’t a necessity (okay, most of them aren’t necessities but they do make life easier *g*) but I think it would be neat to toss all my ingredients into the machine and let it do its thing!
Are you a gadget lover? Do you have all the latest and greatest toys technology has to offer? What’s your favorite kitchen gadget? Any on your wish list?
February 20, 2012
What’s For Breakfast?
Over the past year or so I’ve come to love breakfast with a passion that is sort of frightening. Every Sunday I spend half of the morning making scones or muffins or omelets or waffles for my family and I had my mother throw me a birthday brunch instead of birthday dinner party. My husband even took me out for breakfast for Valentine’s Day instead of doing the romantic dinner for two thing *g*
To celebrate my adoration for all things breakfast, I thought we’d do a quick Breakfast Q&A!
1. Coffee, tea or juice?
2. Pancakes, waffles or French toast?
3. Eggs – scrambled, fried or poached?
4. Bagel, English muffin or toast?
5. Bacon, sausage or ham?
6. Donut, danish or fresh fruit?
7. Muffin, scone or coffee cake?
8. Cereal – cold or hot?
9. Omelet or quiche?
10. Favorite Breakfast indulgence?
Can’t wait to read everyone’s answers…after I’ve eaten, of course 
January 20, 2012
Dear Miss Taylor
Last week, my mom came across a note from Miss Taylor, my first grade teacher, who was giving my parents an update on my progress. Here, in part, is what she said:
“She’s (Beth) doing quite well especially in Reading. She masters new words easily and has little problem with her spelling words. She enjoys the challenge of Reading activities.”
Seems I always liked reading. Surprising, huh?
I sent Miss Taylor (who is now married and still teaching first grade in town) a copy of the letter along with my last three books and a note thanking her for helping to encourage my love of reading. But Miss Taylor wasn’t the only teacher who made a difference in my life/education. Here’s a quick list:
Mrs. Melvin – third grade (my youngest daughter also had her for third grade) Who always drew smiley faces on good papers and encouraged imagination.
Mrs. Danielson – Freshman English who was truly passionate about teaching.
Mr. Shufran – high school Social Studies teacher who believed in me even more than I did *g*
Karen – my sister. Okay, she didn’t really influence my education but she does teach fourth grade, has always known she wanted to be a teacher from the time she was eight and had Mrs. Melvin for third grae. She loves her job and the kids she teaches and to me, those are the two most important things about being a teacher
Which of your teachers influenced you the most? Was there a special teacher who made a difference in your life?
