Barbara S. Stewart's Blog, page 7

Lookie here!

MARK YOUR CALENDAR! AUGUST 27th – SOMETHINGS GOING ON!!!

A new week!

Happy Day Peeps!

I hope everyone has something in store today that will make YOU happy!

What are you reading right now?????

Respond t this thread and you never know what will happen!

Love, B

Friday Feelings

The end of another work week.

Now I can “work” on what makes me happy! Right now that is a handsome blue-eyed, sandy-haired country western singer named Tate.

If you’ve been around here very long you’ll know that I mention my characters talk to me – they wake me in the middle of the night sometimes and I have to just get up and type what they’ve brought to my thoughts. Tate has been “talking,” and I love where the story is going. I love the lyrics to his songs that he shares with me and I can’t wait to share them with YOU!

I have a book that I will finish today hopefully – I’m reading The Sweet Gum Tree by Katherine Allred and I love it! I’ve found her to be a  writer who can take you places and make you feel like you are there. I also love her disclaimer about her book: “Blush: This is a suggestive romance (love scenes are not graphic).” I’m going to find a way to word that differently, but say the same thing to start putting with my books. I don’t write erotica. I don’t want people going in thinking they’ll find that in my books and then review the book based on the lack of sexual content. I write love stories that I hope make you THINK about what’s happening and not me spelling it out graphically.

Well, I still have the J O B to go to today, so off I go.

Have a blessed and HAPPY Friday!

Love,  B

 

 

Getting back to what makes me tick…

If you are one of “Andy’s Angels” you saw a lot of this on my post this morning. But since some of you aren’t…

The picture above made me ponder – that’s what I do – I see something or hear something and it makes me think.  

Bethy journaled everything – she had a treasure box of memories – she got that from me. I was cleaning the closet in our office yesterday because the contents were starting to crawl out and it frightened me (HA!) I’ve saved every note I wrote on all the books – I saved special notes that YOU sent me and I even saved the celebratory cork from when the first book published. I realized that some of the revisions of revisions of edits of revisions didn’t need to be saved – so I took the first and the last to save. As I was moving things around the scrapbooks that I kept for several years were there and I opened a few and read about memories.

Now, it seems that a lot of MY MEMORIES are finding their way into the pages of my books. You may not know they are my memories, but my friends and family point them out often. I LOVE THAT.

I’ve started using the app Evernote to help me get organized, I also have lots (probably more than LOTS! ) of things pinned to Pinterest to help with story “helpers” what I have pinned to my STORYBOARD helps me see what you read.

How many of you are keeping track of YOUR life story?

Do you journal? Scrapbook? How are you preserving the special things and moments in your life to share with “your future?”

I will look forward to hearing how you WRITE and EDIT your life story.

 

 

 

still a work in progress

Hi All!

I’ve worked on the site some today – still have some things I want to change, but it looks better (to me)! What are your thoughts?

I’d like a link to my Pinterest page so that you can see my Storyboard page and see some of the ideas I use as I write.

It’s getting there!!!

Thanks for stopping by

Have you seen this?

I was scrolling through stuff I’ve book marked for research for stories I’m working on. Gene always laughs and says if anyone ever dumped the hard drive on my computer they’d find all kinds of stuff! Information on adoption, places all over the world, sites to give me information to make what I write accurate….

But I digress

I found this and I HAD to watch it – again. I love that Bethy MacMullen read the story and came up with this beautiful trailer. (I also LOVE LOVE LOVE that her name is Bethy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qe90vGrMyC4

Give it a look if you haven’t already.

Love, B

Happy Unofficial Beginning of Summer….. READING!

Greetings all!

I’m soooooo happy to have a long weekend! I’m going to try HARD to do something I haven’t in a while… READ!

And I was thinking that since the is the UNOFFICIAL BEGINNING OF SUMMER that I’d help you get some reading material for your Kindles!

If you’ve already read these books – SHARE the LOVE!

The Rock and Roll Trilogy (Rock and Roll Never Forgets, When I Look to the Sky and Feel Like Makin’ Love) are on a PRICE COUNTDOWN on Amazon. (I only do Kindle).

I believe the start time is 5/24/14 (8AM PST) starting at $0.99 5/27 from 8AM PST. My bad – I forgot to write it down! SO GOOD CHECK AMAZON!!!

The Face in the Mirror is a 12 hour countdown! from 8AM PST Saturday – 8PM PST (11-11 US EAST COAST)

The links are on the Book Pages!

Enjoy!

XXX, Barbara

A little bit of Tate…

I am writing.

I haven’t been able to really say that for a while. My head has been far too full of other things. It seems that we (Gene and I) are getting closer to whatever ‘normal’ will be for us for a while and I started writing. At 4:00 this morning I woke up and as hard as I tried to go back to sleep, Tate pulled harder for me to come and write.

He said I could share some of this with you – remember that we (Tate and I) are in the early stages of our relationship – still learning each other and where we are going.  :)

Just a little tease.  (If you are one of Andy’s Angels, you saw a different tease a while back).

 

I couldn’t get her story out of my head. It broke my heart every time I thought about her. Two very anxious weeks passed and finally, Deirdre my assistant told me my suits were ready to pick up.

“I’ll go get them,” I told her.

“Are you sure? I’d be happy to take care of that,” she said. “It’s kind of my job.”

“I got this. I’ve got an errand to run on the way, so I’ll take care of it.”

I stopped by a florist on the way and picked up a deep blue vase, filled with white carnations. The blue reminded me of her eyes. The white flowers made me think of her skin. What I could see was pale and flawless. I wanted to know this woman. She was alone when I arrived.

“Are those for Dion?” she asked when she saw the flowers.

I laughed out loud at her comment. “He is kinda pretty, for a boy, but I’m not his type.”

“You sure?” she asked.

“Pretty sure,” I said, and handed her the flowers. I leaned closer and whispered, “I like girls.”

“Your tux and suits are pressed and ready. They’re hanging in that garment bag.”

“Listen,” I said. “It’s late, grab a quick bite to eat with me. Let me show you I’m a good guy.”

“Sure…”

“Great!” I shouted.

“No. No. Uh…” she stammered. “I meant ‘sure’ you’re a good guy, not ‘sure’ to dinner. I really can’t…”

“Yes. You can. Forty minutes, an hour tops. Look, I’m not going to take no for an answer. It’s dinner, Maisie.”

“Just dinner,” she said, but I felt the hesitation.

 “I need an hour to finish up, I’ll meet you…”

“Nope. I’ll wait. You’ll ride with me and I’ll bring you back here when we’re done.”

“I won’t go,” she said in an indignant voice.

“An hour, Maisie,” I said.

She turned her back to me. She said nothing, but her body language spoke volumes. Her shoulders dropped as though she’d been defeated, and it broke my heart. She went to her work area to tidy up, placing the vase of flowers by her sewing machine, and it made me smile.

She turned the light off and said, “I’ll drive. You can ride with me – that way I can leave when I’m ready.”

“Deal.”

More soon…

Love, B

 

From your eyes…

Just a quick post this morning, I’m trying to be better, and mindful that the blog needs me. Life has just been so…. different – yeah, that’s the word – lately.

I love reading your reviews, even that bad ones. I try to look at each as a learning experience to allow me to LEARN to get better at this, and I believe that if you’ve read from the first book to TFITM you see that growth. I also try to keep a tough skin when some of the bad reviews aren’t nice reviews… everyone’s a critic, right?

My post this AM “From your eyes…” is because there are some beautiful reviews on good reads, and I’m not just talking WORDS. I love that you share YOUR visuals of the characters, the locations, the emotions… it makes me happy to see what YOU see.

I appreciate all of you for taking a chance on MY DREAM. For sometimes reading through “too much” or “too little” to read THE STORY. I can promise you that the love shared between a woman and a man in my books won’t get too graphic. I push a little closer (no pun intended) each time, but then this big stop sign pops in my brain. Don’t stop believing in me, but I won’t be giving you erotic love scenes.

 

Thank you for sharing my JOURNEY – get it – don’t stop believing – journey…

I’d love to see more of your visions…

With love that I mean, not just say…  Barbara

 

Too long gone…

Those 3 words mean many things today.

For those of you celebrating Mother’s Day as a mother, or with your mother I wish you many blessings. Make memories that you will never forget. These were Mom’s favorite flowers – she called them Daffy-Dills. I can remember every spring when we lived up north the yellow blooms popping up along the house.

Today isn’t just Mother’s Day without my mom. It’s my dad’s birthday, so I am feeling a little nostalgic. And then… my brother is traveling on business and had an opportunity to “go home” and shared some memories with me that allowed me to share some memories with Gene and some memory texts with my brother as he sent the pictures.

 

Sometimes she planted other things  that were kind of pretty, but had another purpose – rhubarb and asparagus were always planted along the side of this house. and she made pies and cooked that nasty asparagus!

Behind this house were two fields that Amish families either had tobacco or corn growing in them. There was a ditch between the two fields that they called a ’tilly’ and in the winter when snow filled it, we made tunnels and forts in there and had WICKED SNOWBALL fights!

There was a hill and my brother sent this pic with a message that said that he remembered it being much bigger when we’d sled. It was big enough that they would have to close it and we’d sled and sled. Many memories of that hill…

We went to school with Amish children and lived among them.

My brother wouldn’t remember this, because I was only 4 or 5 then, but we lived at the top of a hill and an Amish family adopted us I remember riding, along with my dad’s mother, Honey, in the wagon while they picked tobacco. I remember they invited us to a wedding of one of the family, but I think it was probably more like what we would call the reception. I still have this doll that one of the family made for me. I used to have one of the bonnets that the women wore.

The one thing I remember most vividly about the house on the hill was sitting with my mom in front of the black and white TV and her crying as we watched the news about JFK’s assignation.

My dad loved trains and had the HO scale set up as whole towns. And we rode the Strasburg Rail Road many times. Sometimes we’d just go to watch the train pass by.

This is the house I’ve shared with you that had a cedar closet in my bedroom and I would sit in the closet and read… It had a swing on the porch when we lived there and I remember many times hearing my dad swing and the chains in the hook squeaking – it was just below my bedroom wind on the left in this picture.

 

We left here and headed to Florida to be close to my mom’s family and that is really what I call “home”. I haven’t been back since 1993, so it was nice of Charlie to share his memories from Pennsylvania.

 Thanks for taking me back, Charlie…

I know I’ve babbled on… I hope you’ve enjoyed my memories. What I’ve learned through everything that I’ve been through with Gene the last 7 weeks, and through these memories is not to take ANYTHING for granted. We never know what tomorrow holds, and everything we know could change in the blink of an eye.

Share a family memory by replying to this post and maybe I’ll do a giveaway to my favorite one. I like to laugh (hint hint).

Thank you for allowing me to share this with you.

I’ll leave you with some Bon Jovi – who says you can’t go back?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abzbVFuxigg

If you’re reading this – I love you…

B