Curtiss Ann Matlock's Blog, page 37

New Book! Mary In Color, now available on Kindle

Two weeks since I’ve been here, and I have been busy. As I wrote in my previous post, I decided to put aside my latest book project and focus on a few other projects that have been languishing in the works.

Available this week for 99 cents!

Ta-da! I finished one of those projects last week. I’m happy to report that Mary In Color is now available on Kindle!

Mary In Color is the story of Mary Lunsford and the disturbance and hilarity that ensues when she, a woman approaching middle age, long widow...

Water for Writing — My 5 Writing Practices

I was asked, once again, if I had any tips for beginning writers. In thinking of this, I realized that no matter how long we have been writing, each of us is a beginner at some point in our writer’s journey. We are always learning and relearning, as long as we are alive.

Just now I am beginning with a new transition in my journey. Forced into. I have never been very good at transitions, either in writing or in life. I tend to freeze, my mind refuses to go forward, and I end up rewriting previo...

Our Gluten-Free Chicken Adventure at One Year

We come to the first year anniversary of our adventure in raising chickens and feeding gluten-free. The line from Monty Python’s Holy Grail movie springs to mind: “We’re not dead yet.”

Could they really have been so tiny? Oh, how I worried, would even get up in the night to check on them.

Last year at this time we were preparing for our first ever chicks, and discovered with sizable dismay and discouragement that all commercial chicken feed contains wheat. I have celiac disease, an auto-immune...

Write only what you love, and love what you write. ~ Ray Bradbury

I asked my writing friend if she had read Ray Bradbury.

“Ray Bradbury? I read something by him years ago…but I don’t much like science fiction.”

That was exactly what I thought for years, and I almost missed out on a delicious banquet!

I read Bradbury’s book on writing, Zen and the Art of Writing, years ago. Last year, in my search for where I am, where I want to go at this point in my life, I was drawn to pull it off the shelf again, and was blessed. In my first reading of the book, I had not h...

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day

A young stud eating Blush Pink Nandina

I don’t have horses anymore. So why are there three horses in my front yard? Oh, I recognize those horses. They belong next door in the pasture. Yippee! They’ve come for a visit. Who says I don’t have horses anymore?

But what to do with them? Don’t want anyone, or the horses, to get hurt. We did not know their owner’s phone number or even name, could not find where the horses had gotten through the fence, and even if we’d had halters and ropes, they were f...

Time Management, and other hopeful joys

We are one week today into 2013 (just in case you didn’t know). So far so good on this end. I’m still excited about the new year. Everything I desire still seems possible. I am imprinting this mindset in order to get back to it weeks from now when the world has spun me around and set me loose.

This morning I sat at my desk with the intent of organizing myself on my planner. I still buy one of those paper ones, and I like a plain thin one from Dollar General, on which I can write with my blue i...

Just Now at Year’s End, Year’s Beginning

Another year comes to a close, stating the obvious. Writing the title of this post, I suddenly see: whenever there is an ending, there is a new beginning. Endings and beginnings go together. We may not care for the ending, sometimes an ending is horrible in that moment, other times it is a great relief to be done with something, but always there is some sort of new birth, and always the new birth comes out of what ended.

Sweetie-pie and I took a walk around to see the yard. These photos are fr...

Memories that Keep on Giving

From our house to yours ~ Wishing you a very Merry Christmas!

My parents– especially my mother, for I know it was her innate ability to go deep in denial and enjoy the fantasies out of books and movies–loved to give us kids a magical Christmas. I think of what trouble my parents went to–deeper in debt, for one thing. They drank and felt badly, so they bought us more stuff, but you know, I always knew it was that they wanted us to be happy. To this end my mother would wrap every tiny present, k...

Broken Snow Globe

My small grandson, Sweetie-Pie, brought home secret presents from his school’s Christmas shop. He was so excited: “You are gonna love it, Nana!” I sat in the living room reading, while Sweetie-Pie and Papa worked to wrap the presents. Papa’s was already wrapped in tissue paper from school, so it was okay for him to see the bundle.

Then I heard a crash, followed by a heartbroken, “Oh, Papa! I broke your present…”

I went instantly to the kitchen. What can you say to heartbreak? I held Sweetie-Pie...

Book Giveaway — Miracle On I-40, a Christmas romance

Miracle On I-40, hardback edition

I’m giving away a copy of my Christmas book, Miracle On I-40. Simply fill out the form below and you’ll be entered in the drawing for the hardback edition. Ends Saturday night, 12/1/2012 midnight.

I have to admit that I still have not been able to happily make the move to reading ebooks. I’ll have to wear a t-shirt: “The entire world reads ebooks, but me.” Which is not to say I don’t read ebook at all, but I only get those books I cannot get in paper. Antique a...