Janet Fisher's Blog, page 18
February 8, 2016
NEW BOOKS!!!
Boxes of books came today! What a thrill to actually hold one of these real books in my hands and flip through the pages. My good old story I have loved for so long. Now in print so other people can read it and come to know some of my favorite characters. And the books are beautiful! I love what the publisher did with the cover.
My agent emailed me over the weekend to tell me she had gotten her copies, so I suspected mine might come today. I gave a talk at my Roseburg writers’ group this morning and had to leave home before the books came. But when I got back they were waiting on the porch for me. Ah! What a sight!
Checking an old blog post, I see that boxes of my first book came early the month before the release date too. And for those of you who have pre-ordered The Shifting Winds from one of the online outlets, you may actually get your book before March 1. I don’t know, but I think people started getting them earlier last time.
Oh, what fun! This is one of those moments for a writer. Sheer pleasure. I am so looking forward to sharing. :-)
February 1, 2016
Turning the Page
Today marks a transition for me when I turn the page from writing to marketing. The photo below shows the rough draft of my latest writing venture, Book Five in my Golden Isles Series, Webs of Stone, and a draft of a poster for the launch of my upcoming release, The Shifting Winds. Release date is one month from today, March 1, so I must really get onto the marketing side of things.
I finished the rough draft of Webs of Stone on January 19, then had to read it, once on the computer and once on paper, to get it ready for readers. I delivered it to my first reader yesterday, my daughter Carisa. So today I can focus on The Shifting Winds.
Of course it isn’t quite that tidy. I’ve had to do a few things for the upcoming release before today. I’ve scheduled some events and worked on my contact list. My daughter Christiane put together the poster for me and we worked on it a few days ago. But I feel the transition today, now that I can set the writing aside for a bit.
Friends often ask if I get confused going from one of my book projects to another, and I have to admit sometimes I feel conflicted. There’s such a long lag time between the writing of a book and the release of an actual book you can hold onto, you might write several in between. I have an added shift because I’m writing in two distinct time periods. It’s the same genre, historical fiction, in which I follow my theme, “following strong women through history,” but some of my books are set in nineteenth century America, and some are set in ancient Ireland and Crete roughly 3,000 years ago. Both are periods when women faced great challenges.
When I’m in the middle of writing one, as I just was, I’m really in that world. I have been immersed in the ancient world of Ireland and the surrounding scenes in Britain and Brittany and the Iberian peninsula, absorbed in the lives of my characters. I get a little otherworldly, a fine Irish concept with its myths of the Otherworld. For me it’s like getting caught up in reading a good book and not wanting to put it down. But when you write one it takes a lot longer.
So when I’m in that world it can be difficult to focus on another world, including the one around me. But now the new one feels done enough to let it rest while I turn to marketing of the one about to be released. And I move from the fourteenth century BC to the nineteenth century AD, with occasional glimpses of the twenty-first.
I love to write. I am more a writer than I am a marketer, but I do enjoy the readings and signings, the book talks, the book clubs–especially the book clubs where I can sit down with a group of readers and talk about the nuances of the book because they’ve already read it. I love hearing from readers. Their responses enhance my joy in the work and make it feel worthwhile.
Now I look forward to sharing this new book because it’s a favorite of mine. I’m so glad it’s going to be out there for others to read, and I hope readers enjoy the characters and the predicaments I had fun getting them into.
January 11, 2016
Book to Launch
My debut historical novel, The Shifting Winds, is about to launch. As you may have seen in the sidebar, I have a couple of book signings scheduled already. The first launch party will be at the Elkton Community Education Center (ECEC) library in Elkton, Oregon, better known as the butterfly place, on Sunday afternoon, March 6, from 2 to 4 pm. Less than two months away now. This is the same place I launched A Place of Her Own two years ago, and everyone there helped me make that a wonderful sendoff for Martha’s story. I look forward to another great beginning this year.
The photo above shows the ECEC library building. Elkton is about seven miles from my home on Martha’s Century Farm.
My next party will be later in the week at the Douglas County Museum in Roseburg, Oregon, Thursday evening, March 10, from 6:30 to 8:30 pm. At this event I will offer a tribute to the late George Abdill, former director of the county museum. George offered me considerable information and inspiration for The Shifting Winds, which portrays one of his favorite periods of history when fur traders and pioneers came up against each other on the American frontier of the mid-nineteenth century. And I did have a lot of fun putting this story together.
The Douglas County Museum, shown above, is at the county fairgrounds just south of Roseburg’s downtown.
I hope many of my local friends will be able to attend one of these opening parties. We’ll have refreshments, readings, signings, and plenty of conversation with book-loving people. In addition to The Shifting Winds, I plan to have copies of A Place of Her Own available.
In the coming days I’ll be adding more events around Oregon and beyond. Those will be listed on the right-hand sidebar as they’re arranged and also on the “Events” page, where you can see not only where we’re going but where we’ve been.
Cheers!!! :-)
December 24, 2015
Christmas With Elk
Merry Christmas, everyone. I had such a good response to my last post with elk pictures, I decided to share the treat I relished on this foggy Christmas Eve Day morning, when my elk friends returned. They came back to the pond and then moseyed up, almost to my front deck. These photos are all taken out my front windows–with a special focus on the big dad. He looked around, as you can see, but didn’t seem too concerned, finally hopped over the fence and enjoyed a moment beneath the spreading oaks. Wishing you all the best in this holiday season and the coming new year!! :-)
Now, without more comment, the elk:
December 15, 2015
Visitors and Procrastination
I woke up today ready to start the rough draft of Book Five in the Golden Isles Series, having completed the comprehensive outline at about 10 pm Sunday night and taken a day off to do the mundane so I could charge ahead without too much interruption. Now, I can dilly dally as well as anyone when it comes to starting a project of that magnitude, Procrastination being the flip side of my old friend Perseverance. Nothing harder in writing a book than that first blank page. So, there’s no end of things you can think of that need doing. Cleaning the office. Checking a few scenes from the last book and getting caught up in the story. An extra scrub on the kitchen counters.
But nothing serves Procrastination like unexpected visitors. Like these.
Now, I’m not Robin Loznak when it comes to taking a photo, and my camera won’t do what his will, but I hope you’ll forgive the less-than-crystal-clear shots when you consider my excitement. The above photo is taken through glass, my kitchen window, no less. They’re right outside my fence. That’s a bull on the left. You can just make out the antlers. The cow caught sight of me even through the window, and they don’t stay long if you spook them.
So when these moseyed on I kept behind glass awhile, just for the joy of seeing them. And doing my best to record what I saw.
The photo above is still through glass. And I might add in my defense, the fog was drifting. They’re enjoying the pond and the green grass nearby.
The center cow above is getting a kick out of it. See her right back leg kicking up the water? They romped around in the pond for a while, but the real action shots are too fuzzy to make out. The antics were fun to watch. Elk seem to have a sense of play, even the old ones. Once last year I saw three big bulls in this pond. I wasn’t sure if they were fighting or playing. But they would dip in the water, shake their antlers hard, and then rush each other. Great entertainment!
After enjoying the show and procrastinating for a considerable length of time I finally dared venture outside, knowing that even if I scared them away I had gotten my money’s worth. I took the above shot from just outside my front door. And I was reminded of another wild critter I saw last summer. I had just glanced up the road from inside when a golden-brown critter waltzed down that road above the turn where tall grass blocked my view of all but its back. My first thought was deer, commonplace visitors. But it occurred to me that the animal seemed low to the ground. Was the grass that tall? It meandered around the turn and I saw its legs. Short legs. It turned and went off the road so I could see its tail. Long tail. Oh my! A cougar, about 100 yards outside my front door. I had been planning a walk up that road. I changed my mind and didn’t go just then.
But I don’t worry about elk–usually. There was a time I wondered if I was being challenged, but that’s a story for another day. These didn’t challenge, and they didn’t run. I went back inside and watched until they strolled on.
I did get started on the book. Nine pages, about 2,700 words. Not a shabby start. Not the best either. But with such great visitors, how can you not procrastinate a little?
December 6, 2015
Website Updated
With new books on the way, the time had come for a website update. And since I was visiting my webmaster, my daughter Christiane, that worked out well. First, we had to change the release date for The Shifting Winds from April to March, since it’s coming out a month earlier than planned. And we had to show it’s availability for pre-orders. With that done, we added an Excerpt so you can read a few paragraphs of the story. Then there were new books to talk about. Today we added a description.
The above photo I took some years ago shows Britain’s famous Stonehenge, which figures in the newest writing project, Book Five of the Golden Isles Series. The book is called Webs of Stone. You’ll find a description on the newly revised Books page. Up until now I’ve shown only five books for the series because I wasn’t sure if I had ideas enough for a book for this 16-year period in Ireland between the end of Book One and the beginning of the final book. That gap parallels events in the Mediterranean at that time, events shown in Book Four, but what was going on in Ireland then?
My muse was slow to visit, but when I took a Thanksgiving trip to Kansas City to visit Christiane and my granddaughter Calliope, inspiration struck. My muse talked to me. It happens in odd ways sometimes. I was searching for a hideout for my outlaw character somewhere north of Stonehenge (which I call the Great Stone Circle of Wessex in the book). And I wanted mountains. Where would I find mountains in England? Would I have to go as far as the Scottish Highlands? That’s a long way from Wessex when you’re walking or riding a pony. And I’d been in the Scottish Highlands. When you’re used to the Cascades and Rockies they seem like rolling hills. Maybe Wales? I’d seen some real mountains there. I clicked the “terrain” figure on Google maps and found the Lakes District in northern England. Then with a click on “street view” I found myself in rugged, craggy, stone-strewn mountains with steep dropoffs down to lovely lakes. Perfect! I could see myself there, my characters. And the story took off in my mind.
The photo above shows another stone circle in near silhouette. This is the circle I chose for the home circle of the Golden Eagle Clan, the central clan for both Book One and Book Five. It’s the Bohonagh Circle near Rosscarbery in Ireland. For me it’s the Golden Eagle Circle. I was lucky enough to spend several days traipsing around these pillars and the vicinity back in 2004 when I traveled to Ireland with my good friend Tilly Engholm. She was my next-door neighbor in Portland then, an avid traveler, and we had a great time on this trip–although as I wandered from circle to circle, she began to weary of stones. Once she sighed and asked, “We’re going to go see more rocks, aren’t we, Janet?” And I had to admit we were. I do love the stone circles and the power I feel in them. Fortunately, Tilly was agreeable.
I wrote Book One, Whisper of Wings, that year. Since then, I’ve spent most of my time focused on Crete, where Books Two through Four are centered. It’s lovely to be experiencing Ireland again–and England, with a few scenes on the coast of Brittany and in what is now Portugal.
I’m excited that a new story is taking off and look forward to immersing myself in it. If you don’t hear from me as often in the next few weeks, that’s where I’ll be–Ireland and the High Lakes and the plains of Wessex and those other places–from roughly 1406 B.C. to 1390 B.C., exploring the mysterious circles and other rocks scattered over the British Isles and Western Europe like interlaced webs of stone.
Check out the revisions on my website. Cheers!
November 17, 2015
Speaking in Roseburg
The Douglas County Genealogical Society asked me to speak at their meeting Thursday, November 19, at 1 pm in Room 310 of the Douglas County Courthouse. I’ll be talking about my books, A Place of Her Own and The Shifting Winds. The meeting is open to the public.
For the benefit of many in the audience who may be searching for their own ancestors, I want to share some of my experiences in seeking out the story of my great-great-grandmother Martha Maupin, subject of my first book, A Place of Her Own.
I will go on to tell how that book came to be published and how that led to a deal on the second book, The Shifting Winds, which will be released in March 2016.
Time permitting I’ll read excerpts, leaving plenty of time for questions from the audience.
November 16, 2015
Outtakes #11 – A Place of Her Own
This post comes from an opening for another of my personal chapters for A Place of Her Own, a segment describing Wildcat Canyon, a remarkable cleft on the mountain. The chapter title was “The Death of Dreams.” The scene leads into a discussion of divorce, some of which was retained in an Interlude. But most of this was cut. Clip…..
On our walk through Wildcat Canyon, my son-in-law, Robin Loznak, captured a stunning image of this exquisite mushroom goblet, as it drank up the rain.
~~~
The canyon, November 2010. A canyon could close in on you, give you a sense of entrapment. It could be a place of danger, haunted by cougars and rattlesnakes and unnamed fears. As I walked through Wildcat Canyon, the deepest cleft on the property, I felt a mix of unease and adventure. I was here. I accepted the challenge. A bristling sensation crossed my flesh, as if alerting me to every element around me.
Drips of rain filtered through the canopy of trees, the thick evergreen boughs offering some cover against the shower that surprised us. Lured out on this November morning by a feeble sun after days of rain, my son-in-law and I had decided to take this walk today. A light drizzle started before we even reached the Tree Farm Road up to the west hills pasture, and by the time we approached the mouth of the canyon, rain had begun to fall in earnest. We were glad for the tree cover and hoped the shower would soon pass.
Our two dogs hurried ahead, oblivious to the weather. I had asked Robin to go with me into the canyon, believing it one place Martha would surely want to explore. Her sons would, as Robin and my grandson Alex did when they learned of the place soon after they moved here. With recent cougar sightings in the area, I wasn’t comfortable going alone. The dogs would help scare off big predators, but another person would help too. Robin was happy to come along. He brought his big camera, ready to get some good nature photos.
We tramped uphill along the old logging road that cut through the canyon, not much more than a trail now, overgrown with grass and brambles, fungi scattered over the spongy ground. Unusual mushrooms, like orange goblets, lifted their heads as if to gather nectar pouring from branches above.
Towering Douglas firs helped dim the scattered light reaching this narrow gash in the earth. A high rock wall loomed on our left, just beyond the deepest cut below the road. I tipped my head back to see the top of the wall, up to the twisted trees lining the upper edge. The yawning mouth of a small cave opened deep in the rock near the top. Jagged ledges and holes marked the entire cliff face. Places for predators to hide? Ferns draped from the rock wall and covered the canyon floor, where moss carpeted rocks, tree trunks, stumps.
We scrambled down to the base, nearer the cliff. Should we? We found game trails. Cougar? Or just deer, the cougar’s favorite food? Would we surprise something we wouldn’t want to stir? No cougar would be unaware of our presence as we stomped through brush, snapping twigs, the dogs dashing from one curiosity to the next.
The overhead boughs could no longer hold back the rain that began to pour steadily, drenching us and everything around us. I pressed through the waist-high ferns, clinging to their giant wet fronds to keep from falling on the steep slope strewn with fallen branches, logs and rocks. A thick mulch covered the earth, the debris of ages. I couldn’t see a game trail anymore. As I plowed forward, I tried to imagine traipsing through this in long skirts.
Brambles tripped me. How like life. I could feel Martha’s sense of entrapment, her desperation, as she plunged through her own canyon of challenge. Divorce. It had seemed a foreign word to me. Something other people did. Yet how much worse for Martha in her day. Although not unknown in 1860, especially in the West, divorce was still rare. How could she do it? But how could she not?
I had asked myself the same questions. Shaking my head, I walked on, thinking about her. Why did she stay with him as long as she did?
November 8, 2015
The Shifting Winds Online
Update: The release date has changed, as some of you may have noticed. The book is now set to come out on March 1, 2016, one month earlier than planned.
My upcoming book, historical novel The Shifting Winds, has appeared on the online sites like Amazon and Barnes & Noble for pre-order.
You’ll also find it listed on Indie Bound. That’s a cool site where you can put in your zip code and find a list of nearby independent bookstores that will offer the book for sale. I always like to support the local stores whenever possible.
Powell’s in Portland has it listed but no photo yet. That’s almost local for us Oregonians.
And if we’re talking Portland, there’s my once-upon-a-time neighborhood store from when I lived in Portland, Annie Bloom’s Books in Multnomah Village, and they have it listed too. Yay!
Other sites include Books-A-Million and of course the publisher, Globe Pequot Press, TwoDot imprint, under the Rowman & Littlefield banner.
It’s always exciting to see the book go online. That’s when the dreams begin to whisper of a tangible, holdable bit of substance.
Outtakes #10 – A Place of Her Own
This Outtake comes from one of my personal chapters in A Place of Her Own, a segment leading to a Tribute to My Father that I’ve already used for a post. The scene describes a day my daughter Carisa and I walked up my father’s mountain and found ourselves in bear country. Most of my scenes were cut to focus on Martha’s story, including this and the tribute, but maybe you’ll enjoy this, and if you haven’t seen the tribute, you can visit that here. Clip…..
Robin Loznak caught one of our bears with his trail-cam one night in October last year, a nice black bear posing for its portrait on the mountain. I prefer to see them this way.
~~~
The west hills, September 2010. The golden grass stood so high the dogs couldn’t see their way. One a yellow lab, the other a black lab mix, they weren’t small dogs, but the grass came well over their heads. Heavy rains last spring had produced rich forage for the cows this year, and they hadn’t been on this pasture lately, making our walk difficult, except for a few beaten trails. Deer probably. Maybe elk. Or bear.
The scent of rain filled the air now, and a soft sprinkle started again after scattered morning showers. My daughter Carisa and I tromped through the thick, damp growth behind the dogs. I wanted to check out the most recent timber planting to see how it was doing, and I wanted to check out this part of the farm, wondering if Martha had done the same in her first year here.
When I was a kid we called this pasture Horse Heaven Hills. I didn’t know why the name. Maybe because the grass grew so sweet here, the animals experienced the place as their own heaven? It always seemed a bit sublime to me. For a long time I planned to build my house over here, but when my dad cut the timber that would have circled behind the house, I began to look elsewhere.
Turning, I could see how the pasture meandered up the hill in steps and ridges, down to the bluff on one side, up to Wildcat Canyon above–a deep slice into the forested ridgetop. The land was more rugged on this side of the property than the softer ridge where my house sat. A middle ridge ran between this and my house, beyond our view now.
While I found hills and hollows in the parts of Missouri and Illinois where Martha lived and traveled, there was nothing you could call a mountain, nothing to prepare her for the terrible mountains of the West she had to cross, nothing to prepare her even for the hills of her own farm. This wasn’t anything like the rugged crests of the Rockies or Cascades. I doubted it was technically a mountain, though I hadn’t found a clear definition of the term. This rose about eight hundred fifty feet from the valley floor to the top. But to my dad this hill on our farm was always the mountain. His mountain. Maybe that was because Martha saw it as a mountain and the designation continued with the family. Hills to her would be like the gentle rises in Missouri and Illinois. The farm’s elevated land of sharp slopes and sweeping ridges was in her eyes a mountain. Before my dad, Martha’s mountain.
Dipping under a hot wire to reach our newest timber planting, Carisa and I found new firs growing well despite competition. We approached a mound of blackberry vines crouched on the land like a huge thorny web, and took advantage of its better part. Something had cleared the way into the bush. We had a little snack of the delicious berries. Then I saw a pile of scat full of berry seeds. Big scat. “What’s this?” I asked. We peered closer. Goose bumps rose on my skin. “It doesn’t look fresh.”
We stood taller and looked around. A bear had been here, a large one, but not recently. With all our noise and our two dogs, it probably wouldn’t come back now. We shrugged and happily continued our snack.
And of course there’s this all-time favorite Robin Loznak photo of other wildlife on the family farm, one of several photos included in A Place of Her Own. The Roosevelt elk herd ranges across the mountain, and on rare occasions even slips down to the river bottom.
