Carlene Havel's Blog: Carlene, page 3
January 20, 2014
Moving Forward
What pushes me along to finish a book? Why, the burning idea for the next one, of course! Thinking about those new characters and situations gives me extra impetus to finish the work in progress. May sound strange, but it works for me!
What keeps you motivated? How about winning prizes? Click on the link below to get a chance at a Book Lovers Gift Pack from Prism Book Group! Includes a print copy of "Sarah: Mission of Love" by Gay N. Lewis, a print copy of "The Last Detail" by Lisa J Lickel, and three Prism eBook downloads of choice!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
You've never won anything? Well, maybe this is your lucky day. For sure, you never win a contest you don't enter! Happy reading.
-Carlene Havel
http://goo.gl/ugcII
What keeps you motivated? How about winning prizes? Click on the link below to get a chance at a Book Lovers Gift Pack from Prism Book Group! Includes a print copy of "Sarah: Mission of Love" by Gay N. Lewis, a print copy of "The Last Detail" by Lisa J Lickel, and three Prism eBook downloads of choice!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
You've never won anything? Well, maybe this is your lucky day. For sure, you never win a contest you don't enter! Happy reading.
-Carlene Havel
http://goo.gl/ugcII
January 14, 2014
I Before E
I before E, except after C. Everyone knows that, right? Sorry, it's barely worth a passing grade.
For top marks, you must know the rest of the rhyme: Or when sounded like A, as in neighbor and weigh.
All right, overachievers. For an A+ you must be able to recite the exceptions: either, neither, foreign, height, leisure, seize, and weird.
Happy spelling!
Carlene Havel
http://goo.gl/ugcII
For top marks, you must know the rest of the rhyme: Or when sounded like A, as in neighbor and weigh.
All right, overachievers. For an A+ you must be able to recite the exceptions: either, neither, foreign, height, leisure, seize, and weird.
Happy spelling!
Carlene Havel
http://goo.gl/ugcII
December 31, 2013
So long, 2013
I have always disliked goodbyes, even when the farewell is to the old year. Don't get me wrong--I look forward to 2014. Nevertheless, a sense of loss lingers with me on this last day of 2013.
As with every year, this one had some wonderful events along with its share of sadness. In the latter category, my uncle passed from this life. Leon always had time for his nieces and nephews, ready with a corny joke, a piece of candy, or a silly story. He was always in a good mood, one of those people for whom the term “young at heart” was coined. I’ll miss you, dear, sweet, nutty Leon. Now that you’re gone, no one calls me Tolly any more.
Our family saw another happy marriage, and a bitter divorce. I don’t understand why we have to age so much before we get relationships right, but that seems to be our practice. I can only hope the early mistakes prepare us for a mellow middle age.
On the literary front, I published two more books. Number five is under contract for release in 2014. I’m plodding along on number six, hoping to have it ready to submit in the spring.
Obviously, the Mayans had it wrong. Or maybe the error lies with the interpreters of their calendar. Funny how all the apocalyptic talk died down after the deadlines passed. Isn’t it odd how we can be skeptical of obvious truths yet fall for a foolish gimmick? Must be part of what my husband calls “life’s rich pageant.” And on it goes.
Carlene Havel
http://goo.gl/ugcII
As with every year, this one had some wonderful events along with its share of sadness. In the latter category, my uncle passed from this life. Leon always had time for his nieces and nephews, ready with a corny joke, a piece of candy, or a silly story. He was always in a good mood, one of those people for whom the term “young at heart” was coined. I’ll miss you, dear, sweet, nutty Leon. Now that you’re gone, no one calls me Tolly any more.
Our family saw another happy marriage, and a bitter divorce. I don’t understand why we have to age so much before we get relationships right, but that seems to be our practice. I can only hope the early mistakes prepare us for a mellow middle age.
On the literary front, I published two more books. Number five is under contract for release in 2014. I’m plodding along on number six, hoping to have it ready to submit in the spring.
Obviously, the Mayans had it wrong. Or maybe the error lies with the interpreters of their calendar. Funny how all the apocalyptic talk died down after the deadlines passed. Isn’t it odd how we can be skeptical of obvious truths yet fall for a foolish gimmick? Must be part of what my husband calls “life’s rich pageant.” And on it goes.
Carlene Havel
http://goo.gl/ugcII
December 20, 2013
The Scent of Fear
First came The Moses Conspiracy, now comes..... The Scent of Fear.
The Zimmermans enjoy the tenuous peace in the wake of their hair-raising year battling the New Patriots. Unexpected visitors once again throw them into turmoil.
Jim Kenneman, Director of National Security, masterminded the plan to break up a hate group ravaging the Christian community. Now, his enemies are out to eliminate him. Should he make a run for it or stick by his tried-and-true negotiating skills?
Monty Addison, a topnotch operative, carried out his assignment in Bird-in-Hand. A plot to destroy his boss sends him on a mission. Without agency sanction, it may cost him everything - his career, his family, and maybe his life.
Dr. Abby Weaver strives to save infants and toddlers in Holmes County, Ohio. When she meets two strangers, she can't get the tall, handsome one out of her mind. Will their paths intersect again or will dangerous times keep them apart?
The Scent of Fear is available at:
~~~Amazon~~~
~~~Barnes and Noble~~~
The Book Series
About the AuthorSusan J. Reinhardt's publishing credits include her debut novel, The Moses Conspiracy, as well as devotionals, short articles, and contributions to anthologies. She is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers.
A widow, daughter, stepmom, and active church member, Susan resides in Pennsylvania. When not writing, she enjoys spending time with family and friends, reading, couponing, gardening, and finding small treasures in antique shops.
You can connect with Susan at her Blog, on Twitter, and Facebook.
November 22, 2013
A Sharecropper Christmas
As a child, I loved to nestle in someone’s lap after dinner while one story teller after another spun yarns. Relatives of my parents’ generation spoke of D-Day, ration cards, and what Bastogne was like during the Battle of the Bulge.
My grandparents’ generation drew their inspiration from the Great Depression.
“I tell you now, Boats, back in 1933, times was hard,” signaled the telling—or retelling—of an adventure softened by subsequent years of prosperity. Great-uncle Boats got his nickname from the impressive size and shape of his shoes. Enormous feet are a family trait I had the misfortune to inherit, but that is another story for another day.
The novella "A Sharecropper Christmas is officially released today. It is my salute to the people who faced those difficult years of the Great Depression, working hard to survive and provide for their families. I admire their faith, courage, and perseverance.
Here's the link http://goo.gl/NMXMiW and the official "blurb" for A Sharecropper's Christmas: The Great Depression left the Shoemaker family hungry and homeless. Their
desperate prayers are finally answered when Herbert Shoemaker finds work as a
sharecropper. Alice makes the best of the hard times without complaint,
though she dreams of giving her little family a special Christmas
And in case you are wondering--yes, my grandmother’s name was Alice.
It's a quick read, a novella, and bargain priced at only 99 Cents. Happy reading!
-Carlene Havel
- http://goo.gl/ugcII
My grandparents’ generation drew their inspiration from the Great Depression.
“I tell you now, Boats, back in 1933, times was hard,” signaled the telling—or retelling—of an adventure softened by subsequent years of prosperity. Great-uncle Boats got his nickname from the impressive size and shape of his shoes. Enormous feet are a family trait I had the misfortune to inherit, but that is another story for another day.
The novella "A Sharecropper Christmas is officially released today. It is my salute to the people who faced those difficult years of the Great Depression, working hard to survive and provide for their families. I admire their faith, courage, and perseverance.
Here's the link http://goo.gl/NMXMiW and the official "blurb" for A Sharecropper's Christmas: The Great Depression left the Shoemaker family hungry and homeless. Their
desperate prayers are finally answered when Herbert Shoemaker finds work as a
sharecropper. Alice makes the best of the hard times without complaint,
though she dreams of giving her little family a special Christmas
And in case you are wondering--yes, my grandmother’s name was Alice.
It's a quick read, a novella, and bargain priced at only 99 Cents. Happy reading!
-Carlene Havel
- http://goo.gl/ugcII
November 19, 2013
New Book for Homeschooling
Essential co-op tools, tips, and options for today’s homeschool families.
Thinking about joining or starting a homeschool co-op? Not sure if a co-op is a good fit? Homeschool Co-ops 101 weighs the pros, cons, and creative options available for today’s homeschool family.
Section 1 includes essential, digestible info on co-op ingredients such as planning and organization, schedules, teaching, finances, and addressing conflict and burnout.
Section 2 shares a sampling of co-op games and activities, and
Section 3 contains five hands-on unit studies. These ready to use studies include lessons on Leonardo da Vinci, Birds of Prey, Public Speaking, Tall Tales, and Creative Writing, and are suitable for co-op or home use. This section also includes unit study guidelines that are easily customized to suit any topic.
Section 4 offers suggested books, curriculum, and other resources.
Karen Lange has gathered insight from years of co-oping and now shares her own and others’ experiences in this valuable and encouraging handbook.
Homeschool Co-ops 101 is available at:
~~~Amazon~~~
~~~Barnes and Noble~~~
~~~Kobo~~~
About the AuthorKaren Lange, her husband, and three children were active in co-ops during their sixteen-year homeschool journey. Her experience includes serving as a local homeschool support group coordinator and consultant for a state homeschool network in New Jersey. Karen’s children have since graduated, and she is now a freelance writer and online writing instructor for homeschooled teens.
You can connect with Karen at her Blog, on Twitter, and Facebook.
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The Giveaway
Open to US addresses only. One person will receive a $25 Amazon GC and a copy of Homeschool Co-ops 101. Please use the Rafflecopter below to be entered:
a Rafflecopter giveaway
The winner will be chosen from those entries and announced December 5, 2013. Good luck!
October 28, 2013
My Interview on Lillie Ammann's blog
If you have never visited Lillie Ammann's website, you're missing out! Lillie is both a writer and an editor, and her blog covers a wide range of topics. Guaranteed to keep you informed and entertained.
Today, Lillie is gracious hostess to an interview with me as well as her review of my latest Christian romance, "Here Today Gone Tomorrow".
Hop on over and treat yourself to a visit to Lillie's site. Leave a comment, and you might win an Amazon gift card--just in time for the holidays!
http://lillieammann.com/2013/10/28/au...
See you there!
Carlene Havel
http://goo.gl/s6EQS
Today, Lillie is gracious hostess to an interview with me as well as her review of my latest Christian romance, "Here Today Gone Tomorrow".
Hop on over and treat yourself to a visit to Lillie's site. Leave a comment, and you might win an Amazon gift card--just in time for the holidays!
http://lillieammann.com/2013/10/28/au...
See you there!
Carlene Havel
http://goo.gl/s6EQS
September 17, 2013
How Does It Feel?
My new book is out. I’ve gone public. With apologies to Charles Dickens, it’s the best of times and the worst of times.
It is too late to check for a misplaced comma or ponder whether a different word fits better than the one I used. Maybe the blurb should be shorter. Or longer. Or different. Would a darker shade of blue have more eye appeal on the cover? Why ask? It’s too late.
I have revealed my innermost being by pouring myself into the written word, and now it is out of my hands. Some say publishing a book is similar to giving birth or watching your firstborn pack up her things and drive away to college, or marriage, or a big city job. There’s joy in the event, but an underlying awareness that nothing is ever going to be exactly the same again.
I sit at my computer, awaiting the verdict of the jury. That’s you, dear reader. Will you treat my little opus with kindness? Immerse yourself in the story I lovingly wrote? Write a review and sprinkle a few stars over your words? I hope so.
Whatever happens, I can forever add that magic post script to my name. How can one little word be so consoling? How can that title send me back to a solitary office to saw out another chunk of my psyche and offer it up to the inspection of every passer-by? I do not know the answer. I only know how much it means to sign off in this fashion.
Carlene Havel, Author
http://goo.gl/s6EQS
It is too late to check for a misplaced comma or ponder whether a different word fits better than the one I used. Maybe the blurb should be shorter. Or longer. Or different. Would a darker shade of blue have more eye appeal on the cover? Why ask? It’s too late.
I have revealed my innermost being by pouring myself into the written word, and now it is out of my hands. Some say publishing a book is similar to giving birth or watching your firstborn pack up her things and drive away to college, or marriage, or a big city job. There’s joy in the event, but an underlying awareness that nothing is ever going to be exactly the same again.
I sit at my computer, awaiting the verdict of the jury. That’s you, dear reader. Will you treat my little opus with kindness? Immerse yourself in the story I lovingly wrote? Write a review and sprinkle a few stars over your words? I hope so.
Whatever happens, I can forever add that magic post script to my name. How can one little word be so consoling? How can that title send me back to a solitary office to saw out another chunk of my psyche and offer it up to the inspection of every passer-by? I do not know the answer. I only know how much it means to sign off in this fashion.
Carlene Havel, Author
http://goo.gl/s6EQS
August 28, 2013
Is Knowledge Power?
I suppose every little girl occasionally thinks her Daddy is superman. My father reinforced this idea by his exceptional strength, along with over-the-top bravado. I look at an old picture of him striking a weight lifter’s pose, showing off the muscles honed by years of physical labor, and I wonder how he can be so different now.
Time and illness have sapped the strength both from Dad’s body and also from his once-agile mind. His memories of the far distant past remain somewhat clear. More recent events have dimmed and blurred. Anything that occurs here and now disappears immediately. Dad’s logic has receded even more than his memory. He is reduced to the selfish whining of an infant, determined to have whatever he wants, regardless of the impact on others or his own well-being. The two-hundred-pound baby tells the ER nurse he needs to go home because he’s feeling sick. When that doesn’t work, he insists he never felt better in his life and threatens to arise from the hospital bed and drive home. That he hasn’t driven in years, no longer owns an automobile, and could not walk the few feet to the exit—none of this factors into his demands.
Dad struck his head when he fell, the reason for our most recent trip to the Emergency Room. Did that blow bring on this period of lucidity--an interlude I always thought would be welcome? He becomes only mildly befuddled, as if awakening from a deep sleep. The questions begin, but for once he almost seems to understand and process the responses. “Where am I? What am I doing here? What time is it? How long have I been here?” At the end of the routine questions, new ones appear. “What’s wrong with me? Am I losing my mind?” When our answers do not satisfy, he labors to communicate. “You don’t understand what’s going on with me,” he says. “I’m all right sometimes and then a darkness comes over me. It’s hard to explain.” He shuts his eyes. “I think I’m going crazy.” Eyes opened again, he adds words we never expected to hear, even if they were true, “I’m scared.”
For a while longer, it’s obvious he is struggling to organize his thoughts. He asks the name of the hospital. As much as fifteen minutes later, he repeats it. In the context of his usual short-term memory struggles, this retention is remarkable, perhaps even miraculous. Still, it’s a fight he cannot win. Like a boat drifting away from the pier, he begins to ask questions and make statements that would make sense only if he were twenty or thirty, not 87. “Where’s the baby?” he asks my mother. “We’ve got to get home. The boys will be getting in from school.” He talks impossibly of driving to another city this morning, along with his father, who has been dead for more than six decades.
Finally, there is a diagnosis, treatment, and release for Daddy to return to the memory care home. He refuses food, even though it is now late evening and he has had no dinner. The internal fog clears just enough for him to recognize, once again, that things are not as they should be with his mental abilities. My mother spends the night sleeping in a chair, holding Daddy’s hand to keep him from being afraid.
I will never again attempt to summon my father to the doorway of the cave where he lives, the dark dungeon known as Alzheimer’s dementia. The illusion that he does not understand his sorry state has been shattered permanently. I’ve heard it said that knowledge is power. Today it’s nothing more than pain.
Carlene Havel,
Author of "A Hero's Homecoming" co-author “Daughter of the King”
http://goo.gl/s6EQS
Time and illness have sapped the strength both from Dad’s body and also from his once-agile mind. His memories of the far distant past remain somewhat clear. More recent events have dimmed and blurred. Anything that occurs here and now disappears immediately. Dad’s logic has receded even more than his memory. He is reduced to the selfish whining of an infant, determined to have whatever he wants, regardless of the impact on others or his own well-being. The two-hundred-pound baby tells the ER nurse he needs to go home because he’s feeling sick. When that doesn’t work, he insists he never felt better in his life and threatens to arise from the hospital bed and drive home. That he hasn’t driven in years, no longer owns an automobile, and could not walk the few feet to the exit—none of this factors into his demands.
Dad struck his head when he fell, the reason for our most recent trip to the Emergency Room. Did that blow bring on this period of lucidity--an interlude I always thought would be welcome? He becomes only mildly befuddled, as if awakening from a deep sleep. The questions begin, but for once he almost seems to understand and process the responses. “Where am I? What am I doing here? What time is it? How long have I been here?” At the end of the routine questions, new ones appear. “What’s wrong with me? Am I losing my mind?” When our answers do not satisfy, he labors to communicate. “You don’t understand what’s going on with me,” he says. “I’m all right sometimes and then a darkness comes over me. It’s hard to explain.” He shuts his eyes. “I think I’m going crazy.” Eyes opened again, he adds words we never expected to hear, even if they were true, “I’m scared.”
For a while longer, it’s obvious he is struggling to organize his thoughts. He asks the name of the hospital. As much as fifteen minutes later, he repeats it. In the context of his usual short-term memory struggles, this retention is remarkable, perhaps even miraculous. Still, it’s a fight he cannot win. Like a boat drifting away from the pier, he begins to ask questions and make statements that would make sense only if he were twenty or thirty, not 87. “Where’s the baby?” he asks my mother. “We’ve got to get home. The boys will be getting in from school.” He talks impossibly of driving to another city this morning, along with his father, who has been dead for more than six decades.
Finally, there is a diagnosis, treatment, and release for Daddy to return to the memory care home. He refuses food, even though it is now late evening and he has had no dinner. The internal fog clears just enough for him to recognize, once again, that things are not as they should be with his mental abilities. My mother spends the night sleeping in a chair, holding Daddy’s hand to keep him from being afraid.
I will never again attempt to summon my father to the doorway of the cave where he lives, the dark dungeon known as Alzheimer’s dementia. The illusion that he does not understand his sorry state has been shattered permanently. I’ve heard it said that knowledge is power. Today it’s nothing more than pain.
Carlene Havel,
Author of "A Hero's Homecoming" co-author “Daughter of the King”
http://goo.gl/s6EQS
August 23, 2013
A Dart to the Heart
I got one today. Strangely enough, I’m not sure this was an intentional wound. It could have been an act of thoughtlessness, not malice. Nevertheless, the arrow flew right to a place not protected by armor plate, and plunged deeply into a tender spot. I haul out the only successful antidote, prayer. And I apply a copious amount. Then I remember it takes a while even for such a powerful balm to work into the poison and relieve the pain. And so I wait. And read a Psalm or two. Pray some more, and wait again.
Carlene Havel,
Author of "A Hero's Homecoming" co-author “Daughter of the King”
http://goo.gl/s6EQS
Carlene Havel,
Author of "A Hero's Homecoming" co-author “Daughter of the King”
http://goo.gl/s6EQS
