Emilie Richards's Blog, page 34

Sunday Inspiration: Your Gift

“The meaning of life is to find your gift.  The purpose of life is to give it away.” –Pablo Picasso

In this season of giving I can’t help but feel anxiety and tension about what to give to whom and how much to give to how many — not to mention what I want for myself.

But these words by Picasso help me to understand the true meaning of giving, and that is to share our individual gifts with others, whether that means material gifts or gifts of our talent or most especially our love.

There are so many ways to give to others rather than the commercialization of giving, so many ways to let others know how much we care for them.

I hope you will keep in mind Picasso’s words as you go over your gift list and search for ways to find both meaning and purpose in this season.

 

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Setting: Carolers, Snowmen, Gingerbread? How Do You Know It’s Christmas?

I’ll confess I’m doing something I shouldn’t below.

The “shouldn’t,” of course? Use this photo, which is blurry and certainly not professional. I snapped it for fun one day in October using my iPad. So what does it say about me and this blog, and why am I including it?

The Background:

This year we stayed later than usual at Chautauqua Institution in Western NY to enjoy a real autumn. We were surprised at how deserted the grounds were right after the “season” of culture, art, lectures and concerts ended. I was delighted at the silence, which makes writing so much easier, but I did spend a lot of time gazing out my windows.

I was delighted with this particular bank of them and the vibrant reminder of autumn every time I went into our upstairs sun room and settled on my favorite couch. Our cottage is small, and the downstairs was chilly. But the sun room was toasty and flooded with golden sunlight. You can imagine why we spent so much time there as October progressed.

The Windows:

When fall began I noticed immediately that the three windows I gazed out each day told different stories. The two on each end showcase the evergreens growing outside our window (left) and those farther away at a neighbor’s  house (right). But the window in the middle? Even though it was only inches from its neighbors, the middle window was a blaze of fall color from trees in the park across the road. Every day I sat and admired it. And every day I thought about the way the places we live, see, hear, and smell change us, especially our attitudes.

The Novel:

When I finally returned home to Florida I bought and read Munich, by Robert Harris. I really like Harris’s writing, and Fatherland, another of his novels, is one of my all time favorites. Munich is set right before WWII, when Neville Chamberlain, Hitler, Mussolini and Daladier, of France, met to affirm that Germany could take back a big chunk of what was then Czechoslovakia, in order to avert (they hoped) another conflict. We all know how that turned out, but this was a surprisingly sympathetic look at what Chamberlain tried to do and why. There’s more to the story, of course, and this is fiction. The two major characters are fictional, too, but the historical events are real.

Today, though, let’s get back to “setting.” I was surprised at how much description Harris used in his novel. I read through pages of description about the inside and outside of buildings, of musty rooms in London government offices and the glittering stone of Hitler’s architecture, of uniforms worn by the Nazis, and banners and revelers in the streets.

The Right Way to Write?

Long descriptions used to be common in novels, drawing the reader into a place, a time period, a character’s world. Try Dickens or Sir Walter Scott, for instance. Am I right?

Now we as authors are advised to choose a word here, a sentence here, to describe the milieu our characters find themselves in, and we school ourselves to let that be enough. Readers want action. They want excitement. They do not want long paragraphs of description.

Not that all novelists listen. While romance writers are often ridiculed for using too much description, I find that mystery authors are the most likely to use copious amounts. In both genres, the book is most enjoyed if the readers feels that he or she is right there with the main character, living his/her life and learning what he/she knows.

Finally, Back To Setting:

So back to my windows. I stayed in NY to experience autumn before I returned to Florida. But if all I knew about autumn were what I saw in my three windows, what could I tell my readers? That autumn is feathery green, patiently waiting for the first snowfall to settle on each curling frond? Or would I describe autumn as a blaze of reds and golds, illuminating the diminishing light and the browns and tans surrounding it until each leaf has fallen? Wouldn’t my description depend on the mood I wanted to convey? All three views, after all, were real.

Robert Harris wanted us to walk government halls, both British and German, to understand the different temperaments and historical moments that each country was experiencing. He accomplished it with dialogue and characterization, but most of all, I think, with setting. He chose which window he wanted to describe and drew his reader into the story by giving them a visual picture. It worked beautifully.

By the way, I miss my windows, although I am absolutely certain not an autumn leaf still clings to the branches of those trees.

Midweek blogging may be hit or miss this month with the holidays.  But do watch for Sunday Inspirations each week. And take the time to enjoy your own special setting and all the things we take for granted that make the holidays come alive for each of us, no matter what holidays we choose to celebrate.

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Sunday Inspiration: St. Andrew’s Day Blessing

Did you know that yesterday was St. Andrew’s Day, which is an official national holiday in Scotland? In case you’re wondering, Saint Andrew is represented in the New Testament to be the disciple who introduced his brother, the Apostle Peter, to Jesus.

So whether you have Scottish blood or not, whether the bagpipes make you tear up from pain or delight, I hope this Scottish blessing will brighten your day and your week.

May the blessing of light be on you – light without and light within.

May the blessed sunlight shine on you like a great peat fire, 

   so that stranger and friend may come and warm himself at it.

And may light shine out of the two eyes of you,

   like a candle set in the window of a house,  bidding the wanderer    come in out of the storm.

And may the blessing of the rain be on you,

   may it beat upon your Spirit and wash it fair and clean,

   and leave there a shining pool where the blue of Heaven shines,

   and sometimes a star.

And may the blessing of the earth be on you,

   soft under your feet as you pass along the roads,

   soft under you as you lie out on it, tired at the end of day;

   and may it rest easy over you when, at last, you lie out under it.

May it rest so lightly over you that your soul may be out from under  it quickly; up and off and on its way to God.

And now may the Lord bless you, and bless you kindly. Amen.

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Happy Thanksgiving and Holiday Trivia To Ponder

Here’s a little holiday trivia to make tomorrow more fun. Did you know?

Canned cranberry jelly is the least popular traditional Thanksgiving dish. Detractors say when it’s served right out of the can, it reminds them of dog food.  Bow wow.

Green bean casserole made with mushroom soup and canned onion rings is the second least popular.

Instead of the bald eagle Benjamin Franklin wanted the noble turkey to be our national bird.

In 1947 Harry Truman was the first president to pardon a turkey.

President Franklin Roosevelt tried to change the date of Thanksgiving, setting it earlier by one week in order to encourage more holiday shopping during the Depression. Good intentions don’t always work out. The date change didn’t last.

The original Thanksgiving celebration was meant to be a fast, but changed to a three day feast once members of the Wampanoag tribe arrived to explained how to really say thank you. (And you think an hour at the table with relatives is hard to take.)

736 million pounds of turkey are consumed each Thanksgiving. 50 million pumpkin pies are also consumed. Many of the latter are consumed by people like the author of this blog who doesn’t like pumpkin pie.

Think and its tryptophan is why you feel sleepy after the meal? Apparently not. Tryptophan doesn’t really take effect because there are other amino acids in the meal to balance it out. Maybe you’re tired from conversation, preparation, and all those glasses of wine and beer lifted in toast!

And finally, not holiday trivia but a poem: A Funny Ode to Thanksgiving. I couldn’t find out who to attribute this prayer/poem to, but we thank the author. With a little editing here t’is:

May your stuffing be tasty

May your turkey be plump,

May your potatoes and gravy

Have nary a lump.

May your yams be delicious

And your pies take the prize,

And may Thanksgiving dinner

Stay off of your thighs!

Happy Thanksgiving to each and every one of you who celebrate this date or another holiday of gratitude.

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Sunday Inspiration: Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. It turns problems into gifts, failures into successes, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. It can turn an existence into a real life, and disconnected situations into important and beneficial lessons. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”

–Melody Beattie

May gratitude unlock the fullness of your life this Thanksgiving and every day of the year. Happy Thanksgiving friends!

 

 

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Why Authors Do Book Signings

For the first time in a long time I did book signings this summer and fall.

Emilie with cousin and niece.

Delightful Summer Signings

My publisher assigned an enthusiastic new publicist to A Family of Strangers, and she arranged three signings as the book debuted. Two were out of town, lots of fun and productive. One was in Maryland pictured here where a niece and a cousin came to surprise me. And another was in Pennsylvania where a long time reader brought her Happiness Key quilt to share with the group–reminding me to finish my own, thanks.

The third signing was one of those that authors talk about at the bar during writers’ conferences. And not in glowing terms. But the two good signings made up for it.

Past Signings? Let Me Count the Ways

I’ve done signings where I’ve passed the time by pointing customers to the mall’s rest room. In contrast I’ve done signings where I can’t scrawl my name fast enough–although I’ll confess many of these were signings when my book was a free giveaway.

Emilie at the Houston International Quilt Festival with fabulous author Sandra Dallas

Then there were signings at quilt shows. I loved doing these when I was publicizing my Shenandoah Album series. Not only are quilters enthusiastic readers, if there was a signing slump at the show mid-afternoon, I could visit other booths and buy more fabric I didn’t need. Quilter heaven.

I have writer friends who organize massive signing schedules on their own, and I did a few of those in the earlier days of my career. Once Kylie Logan/Casey Daniels and I went out together to bookstores in Southern Ohio.  I’m not sure how many books we signed, but we sure had fun and helped cement a friendship that continues today. Yet another time I traveled through Texas and Louisiana with some of my New Orleans writer friends in an RV, signing books and talking to readers. I know each of us  remember that trip fondly.

My publisher organized other tours. I once traveled on a bus with writers who wrote for multiple publishers signing (successfully) at grocery stores and other non-traditional signing venues. I remember a stop on a different tour where I walked into a Borders (ah, remember Borders?) and thought something was wrong because there were so many people milling around. Turns out they’d come to hear me speak and get a book, too. That made up for yet another stop where I spoke to three people who had wandered in off the street to buy the latest John Grisham or Danielle Steel.

Then there was a different Borders signing complete with bagpiper because my book was set in Scotland, and yet another that Diane Chamberlain and I did together, complete with a chocolate sheet cake adorned with our names at the top of the New York Times bestseller list.

Buckeye Book Fair with Karen Harper

The Fabulous Buckeye Book Fair

Early this month before I left New York and Ohio for sunnier climes, I signed, not for the first time, at the all day Buckeye Book Fair in Wooster, Ohio. I sat with Karen Harper on one side and Kylie/Casey on the other. I signed dozens of books and chatted with many readers who’ve read everything I’ve written. It is always a pleasure to be at Buckeye and I was delighted to be invited again.

So why do writers do book signings? Is it for the money?

I’d love to say yes, but not really. I receive about 8% of the cover price of one of my books. That means if a book sells for $14.99 or so, I might receive $1.20 for each one signed and sold, but the money doesn’t arrive for many months until royalties are paid. So if I sell two dozen books, I’ll make about $29. That’s for anywhere from 2 to 8 hours of signing time. Not to mention the travel time, gas, writing time lost, and everything else that went into it like food, hotels, clothes.

So it’s not the money, right? Why, then?

I think I’ve hinted at the answer above. It’s not that complicated.

First, I get to meet my readers face to face. If there are no lines of readers waiting for autographs I can talk to each one, find out what they like that I write, find out who else they read and why, even get ideas for future books they’d like to see.

Kylie Logan signing The Scent of Murder at Buckeye

Second, I often have the opportunity to sign with other authors. Writing can be a lonely business. We don’t work in offices surrounded by others. We work alone and I rarely go to conferences now. So book signings are a great place to catch up with friends.

Finally, signing one book is the first link in a chain. Readers buy books, and then they share them. I searched for statistics but couldn’t find good ones, although this conversation on the lifespan of a library book was fun to read. Still, we know the average paperback is read many times by different people.

Readers tell their book clubs about books they’ve loved and suggest them for discussion. They pass them to neighbors who are looking for new authors. They give them as gifts, discuss them on social media, blog about books they love.

And loyal readers, who have discovered us at book signings, will buy our next book signed or unsigned. Because not only do they like our writing, they like us, too–if we are, indeed, easy to like.

Nobody’s asking, but here’s my advice to anyone who wants to host a book signing.

Any signing at an enthusiastic venue, with local publicity to draw in readers and a coordinator who wants to make us comfortable is automatically a successful signing. No matter how many or how few books we sell.

I’ll share a secret. There are bookstores that every author wants to visit. The word gets out when authors know we’ll be well treated. We don’t have to sell a hundred books. We need a smile, a warm handshake, lots of copies of our books just in case, and a newspaper article or advertisement to draw in readers. If you’re glad to have us, we’ll love being with you.

Am I right? As a reader, have you discovered new authors at book signings? I’d love to hear about it.

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Sunday Inspiration: Constant Kindness

“Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes the ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust and hostility to evaporate.” -Albert Schweitzer

We live in a world in serious need of kindness. While most of us probably can’t manage “constant kindness,” I bet the more we think about kindness, the more we can manage.

So I’m thinking a lot these days about how to incorporate more kindness in my daily life. How about you?

And I mean that kindly.

 

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Life Hacks: Make Reading More Fun

Do you ever find yourself on an organizing spree?
My confession:

I rarely organize. I straighten and I clean when necessary. When piles in my study are taller than I am, or when I can no longer navigate the route to the love seat only three feet away, I know it’s time to clean and clear and I do it reluctantly. But I rarely take the necessary time to change things so cleaning and clearing will be easier or even unnecessary.

I cleaned my study this week, and this time I was in the mood to tear it apart and start again. I’m still working on it. The biggest change was moving a bookshelf into my study closet and emptying the many boxes of books secreted throughout the house so that I can see them and also free up a hall closet for small appliances.

There are a lot of books, and I’m considering ways to reduce them. We’ll see what I come up with in the new year. I’m thinking there will be a whole lot of post office trips in my future.

And in my file cabinet…

In the meantime I also cleared out my file cabinet to make room for some new file folders. I found a section of our local paper, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, that appears once a year titled Life Hacks. I can never make myself get rid of this. There are so many great tips. For instance the page entitled “Day at the Beach” recommends we use fitted sheets instead of blankets on the sand, anchored on the corners to make a little pen to keep out sand. And did you know that sprinkling your feet with baby powder dries the wet sand on them and makes it easy to brush off?

Neither did I.

I was pleased to see there was a page on reading. So I thought I’d paraphrase those for you today. How many of these do you already do? How many seem counter intuitive?

Presenting Life Hacks for Reading:

Speed up your reading by using a finger or different pointer to scan lines. Your brain then has to work harder to keep up. Eventually you’ll read faster and finish sooner.
Always turn off your phone or other devices to keep distractions at a minimum as you read.
If you read in bed to help yourself fall asleep, don’t read in bed at other times or you’ll be napping more than you want. Choose a comfy armchair or couch and be sure the light is good.
Keep a record of everything you read on your computer or in a journal. I know that sometimes I’m part of the way through a book before I realize I’ve already read it. A quick check can help with that. The app Goodreads lets you keep a book list. I did this for a year and it was fun, but I’m thinking now that a journal would be easier. One I keep beside my bed.
Forget all those lectures on not writing in your book and make a point of doing just that. Your notes, either on your eBooks or underlines/highlights in a print book, will bring back great memories the next time you pick it up.
Why are you plodding through that book? Reading something you’re not enjoying? Life is short. Don’t waste your time. I will add that sometimes pushing on just a bit will uncover a story you love. So don’t quit too soon, and, of course, never quit reading one of mine.
Have you heard of Project Gutenberg or Archive.org? Classics in the public domain (this means the author is no longer receiving royalties) are free in both places. Librivox even shares public domain books on audio read by volunteers. Check these out if you’re in the mood to read or listen to War and Peace.
And on the subject of audio books? Not in the mood to read or for some reason you can’t? Don’t forget to listen to your favorite authors. I listen to audio books when I walk, sew or travel. I wouldn’t be without them. And most of my recent books are available in audio now, along with your other favorite authors.

So what do you think? Have any other reading hacks you want to share? Or life hacks in general? We all need suggestions on making life that much easier.

Right?

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Sunday Inspiration: “Today I choose life…”

“Today I choose life. Every morning when I wake up I can choose joy, happiness, negativity, pain… To feel the freedom that comes from being able to continue to make mistakes and choices – today I choose to feel life, not to deny my humanity but embrace it.” -Kevyn Aucoin

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Traveling South For The Winter

Did you see me waving as we drove by? I hope so.

Southern Exposure will be back next week when I’ve settled in and unpacked. In the meantime, have a great week.

 

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