Laura Wiess's Blog, page 2

Anticipation

You guys know that tomorrow, on Tuesday, November 26th, SUCH A PRETTY GIRL is going to be a KINDLE Deal of the Day on amazon.com, right? And that the sale price ($1.99!) saves a ton of money, which is the perfect kick-off for this holiday season?

Well, that and (for me) anticipating a heaping plate full of my father's delicious Thanksgiving stuffing, which I gathered the ingredients for today. It's a wonderful family recipe, delicious hot or cold (yay, leftovers!) and teams up perfectly with my late grandmother's canned winter dill pickles, which my sister still puts up every summer, and generously gives out every holiday season.
 
And it's funny; out of all the dishes on the Thanksgiving table, new recipes tried out that came and went, even the other staples, these are the only two that truly mean Thanksgiving to me, in a much deeper way than just food. They are of my family, traditions created every single year with toil and effort, care and love by people who mean the world to me.

Oh yes, I'm thankful, and second helpings are a given.

This year, I may even have thirds.

    

It's Me, Again

I know.
I'm actually back here two days in a row. Can you even?
This is what happens when I structure my time.
I start catching up.
Feels good.

It's cold here today, with wind gusts swirling down off the mountains and wreaking havoc in the field full of dead goldenrod and all the other wildflower seed heads I've left there for the birds and whoever else stops by for something to eat. We're also supposed to be getting snow squalls, only according to weather.com they may rage in and create very little visibility, then sweep out again. And now they are. Oh, boy.

There are things I love about winter, but what I translate as the cruelty of it isn't one of them. (And yes, I know it's not a deliberate cruelty, just a necessary seasonal change, but that change affects everything.) I live in a place where the wildlife is fairly abundant (seems like there was a lot more of it when I first moved here, though) and winter makes survival so much harder for so many of them.

Food becomes scarcer, bellies are harder to fill and the search is all-day affair, sometimes just to break even. The thought of this kills me, for both man and beast. Shelter on these mountains may seem like a given but where I am there aren't all that many wind-blocking pine trees and so the majority of the trees drop their leaves and are stripped bare, leaving little place to huddle. True, there are caves, dens and ledges, brush piles and abandoned buildings, and so I have to hope it's enough. My property is open to any animal who chooses to shelter here, and I try to make things easy for them.

For instance -- and this is a small example but when you're a prey animal and never really safe, I'm thinking a little nest out of the wind and weather might help -- so when I went out to close down my garden this year, I turned over one of the big potato pots I'd grown potatoes in and discovered a large grass...well, kind of like a hut underneath it. Or a grass tent. Something that whispered, "Someone small and vulnerable, maybe a field mouse or a little vole family lives under here." At first I was going to just stack the empty pot with all the others and then I stopped and thought, "Wait. I can do better than that."

Because the temperature is dropping and the ice is coming, and the snow, and while I'm warm and tucked away inside, so many others aren't. 

So I put the pot back over the little grass hut, and then I went and put a mess of others back out, too. So what? Why not? Instead of one tidy but useless pile, now I have a multitude of upside-down pots resting on the long grass in my fenced-in garden.  Like a fun, scattered little neighborhood where anyone who needs shelter, temporary or otherwise, can slip in and take it. 

Like I said, a small thing to me, but maybe not to someone who needs a place to bed down and tuck those cold little feet up beneath them and doze, just for a while. 

And you know what? Writing this, I just realized that it doesn't feel like a small thing to me at all. It feels necessary, like a heart-gift I give myself, creating safe places outside and hoping someone uses them. And I may never know if they actually do or not, but that isn't the point. The point is that in an inhospitable climate, when everyone struggles harder just to make it through, that there is yet another safe place -- a rest stop maybe, for the cold and weary -- to catch  a moment of peace.
 
So, that's my take on winter. And once again, next spring, I'll plant a few more pine trees.

And happily, in book news, this amazing review of ME SINCE YOU (coming Feb 18, 2014) knocked my socks off so read on, enjoy, and stay warm!

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/521645354

Such a Pretty Girl Kindle Daily Deal

I know, I admit it.
I've been a bad blogger.
I could give you a thousand reasons why in an attempt to justify my absence...or I could just say I'm sorry, I'll try to post more than twice a year (or whatever ridiculous number of days it's been) and start writing.

I'm going for Option #2 because all of a sudden it's November and the days are short, and in just one more week the holiday hustle begins and really, who has time to listen to me grovel?

So I'm excited to begin with some good news for readers, especially since this is the time of year when bargains really matter:

On Tuesday, November 26th, for one day only, SUCH A PRETTY GIRL will be one of Amazon's Kindle Daily Deals, on sale for $1.99!



If you have any YA, new YA or adult readers on your list, or just want to treat yourself, November 26th is the day to do it. It's a fabulous sale price and a first for this book, so please feel free to pass it on!
 
Whew. Felt good sharing that news. I've always loved a good book bargain, and I'm thinking maybe you do, too. For me, the approaching winter has always been the time to tuck in, snuggle down, get cozy and read. A lot.

So I'm going to try and stop back in tomorrow to say hi, and yes, hopefully even the day after that. Sending all best wishes out, and be back soon!

Me Since You update

Okay, I admit it: I'm an absentee blogger, or I have been these last months. I'm sorry. Daily updates usually happen over at Facebook now, so please feel free to come on over and friend me if you'd like more than a spotty, sporadic check-in like this. Hope to see you there!

Have been working on the copyedits, etc., for my next book ME SINCE YOU, which has been rescheduled for release on February 18, 2014. Think of it as the perfect chance to curl up under a cozy afghan with the hot beverage of your choice and a fire in the fireplace, and read while the wretched February snowstorms rage outside your living room window!

I know, I know. Impossible to think about winter when summer just got here, so we'll come back to winter again later, when it's more appropriate.

Hope you're having a wonderful summer so far!

Blue Skies, Crisp Breezes

Yes, like it or not, autumn is on its way.

There's an owl hooting outside, and something small is rustling around in the bushes. I can hear them both through the open window near my desk. It's very cool.

I'm working on the revisions for my next novel Me Since You and am very excited about it. Also, since so many readers have asked if I'm doing book signings anywhere near their hometowns across the U.S. (and usually, unfortunately, I'm not) a Specials page has been added to my website in time for the holidays, allowing you to order autographed copies of select books (limited numbers, though) for gifts or for yourself!

The leaves are beginning to fall here, and the nights are growing chillier. In an odd stroke of luck, my vegetable garden, which kind of lumped along all summer doing nothing spectacular has kicked into high gear all of a sudden, offering me up tomatoes, carrots, squash, cucumbers, basil, onions, dill, beautiful leaf lettuce and with any luck, kale.

Kale is my new best friend, as I've been researching the buy organic, buy local, buy in season, whole foods, plant-based diet thing and so far the more I learn and put it into practice, the more I love it. (I could talk about this all night but I'll spare you the enthusiasm. Let's just say I feel really good these days, and leave it at that.)

Farm Aid is coming up and this year it's in Pennsylvania and for the first time ever, I'm going to be there! I'm very excited about this, and about supporting family farms. Also on our future concert schedules are (both firsts for me) The Monkees with Mike Nesmith and Smokey Robinson. I cannot wait!

So I hope you're out there kicking up leaves and enjoying the beginning of a beautiful fall!

Missing May Already

Okay, I've been laying really low for the past million months working on my next novel Me Since You and I am really, really happy to say that it's headed out to my new editor on Monday morning. Fingers crossed for what comes next.

And in the meantime spring has been sending over lots of interesting animals to commune with:


I know you've seen her before but she's just so rumply and good-natured I have to post her again. And again, lol.





I haven't seen her in a about two weeks now, so I hope she's just off having some wee ones and will bring them back so I can delight over them.

And then the next happy go luck visitor:


The next was a fox I didn't get a photo of but right after that came the big boy bear in the middle of the day. I waited inside until he was far enough away and then took this:


Just so you know, he was WAY across the property and still looks big in the picture. I also missed getting a photo of the snake that crawled across my doorstep but it was an Eastern Milk Snake and didnt get my little toad buddy here, thank goodness:


And the latest visitor is this lovely Wood Turtle I found in the road and who dove straight into the pond and is swmming around with her head up like the Loch Ness Monster, so... Nessie it is.


Actually, the latest was a tiny fawn curled up and hiding in the tall grass waiting for her mama to return. No pictures because I didnt want to scare her but she was about the size (curled up) of a hearty loaf of Challah bread with big, brown eyes. Beautiful. And yesterday at around 1:30 in the afternoon a lone coyote started to howl right nearby and oh, that sound is so evocative.

Also, this showed up on my dining room table in May, thanks to my family who came up for my birthday. YUM.


I do love New Jersey bakeries, boy. Candles to blow out everywhere, lol.

So it's been a fabulous month: spring, birthday, animals and Me Since You. Hope all is well with you guys!

May Fest with Friends

Ah, where to begin?

The Hudson Children's Book Festival in Hudson, NY on 5/5 was fabulous fun, as was the road trip through the Catskills up. I was lucky enough to meet The Ambassador of Children's Lit and wonderful author Walter Dean Myers:


And I discovered that Such a Pretty Girl was part of the 7th grade English curriculum which was grand, and that the 8th graders actually had the option of choosing an additional three of my books to read for class. A deep curtsy to all the wonderful teachers I met, and of course the 7th and 8th grade students who deliberately stopped by to say hi as they were a blast.



And my charming and funny 'Author Handler' Janet, also a teacher:


And some fabulous authors, including Jo Knowles, Terry Truman and Tim Tocher:


Ahh, gymnasium lighting makes us all look like zombies but what they hey. We're still smiling.



And Tim, who will be up at the Millbrook, NY Book Festival if you want the chance to get out there and say hello.



One of my favorite festival moments was one that may send some of you screaming but this has been on my personal list of things to do for years, and it amazed me that it finally came true. I mean really, what're the odds that the author in the booth next to me would have brought a small cage of Giant Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches with her and let me hold one? It was a huge and very patient, tolerant insect and it did hiss, which kind of made me sad once I found out they do it when they're scared. But this was a glory moment for me:


What can I say? Bugs fascinate me. They always have.

I was also lucky enough to meet up with a pair of my favorite cousins and have dinner, meet some wonderful cats -- Hi, Sasha! -- and indulge in some very stirring travel conversation. So thank you, Ilona and Henry, for hosting us and giving us such a grand evening.

And thanks to Wendy, too, for covering a thousand bases, being a great friend and the perfect traveling companion. Dinner out on Cinco de Mayo with Lee and Olivia was a blast, and gave me more interesting things to think about. Thanks so much, guys!

Back home, my favorite little skunk showed up again. She is very sweet, patient, tolerant and even the outside cats dont' seem to mind her too much:


Patience, kids. Always patience.



And now it's back to working on this new book, Me Since You. Hope spring is as beautiful where you are as it is here. Enjoy!

Long Time, No See

Well, it's been a long time since I posted. I've been writing like crazy -- I have a deadline coming up fast -- and so all efforts are being channeled into the manuscript for my next book Me Since You.

Consider this kind of an update post just so I can send good wishes out to everyone, say Happy Spring and show a little of what's been going on here.

First up, if you're going to be anywhere near Hudson, NY on May 5th, please stop in at The Hudson Children's Book Festival on Harry Howard Ave and say hi. I'll be one of the authors there and there's nothing more delightful than meeting readers or seeing old friends again!

Second, there is a new, very sweet-natured and tolerant little skunk hanging around now. I almost stepped on her the other day by mistake and instead of getting excited and raising her tail, she just waited while I stopped, and very quietly backed up. This is the third time I've met up with her and so far we're doing really well at tolerance and harmony.

Here she is, having a snack the other day, while one of the cats waits his turn:



I happen to be a fan of skunks so this works out pretty well. I get to watch her and hopefully get her used to my presence (without getting sprayed) and she gets to roam unmolested.

We'll see how it goes.

And then we have another pair of visitors on the pond, and their feline audience out on the bank:



I love spring, the greening, the energy, the rebirth.

So I'm headed back to work now but I'm sending all good thoughts out to you guys for a sunny April and a gorgeous May.

I'll be around.

Watching for Crocuses

Okay, so winter isn't my favorite time of year.

I admit it. I'm a spring girl, all the way.

Beginnings. A green haze through the woods. Soft breezes, Crocus, daffodils, lily of the valley, grape hyacinths. Ahhh. Love them. Spring always makes me feel like all things are possible.

In the meantime, I'm still working on this next manuscript, and loving all the odd, fifty degree days coming my way.

Can't wait until the windows can stay open, night and day!

Holly Jolly

Ahh, what a festive time we've had! And happily, it isn't over yet.



Company's here and there's a rousing, cut throat game of Monopoly going on in the living room. I've stolen away for a few moments to sit back and exhale, and enjoy the sounds of their laughter because it really is wonderful. We had a lovely dinner at my friend's today, with good company and an astounding feast, gifts to open and much merriment.
 
I was lucky enough to meet a fabulous dog today, too, a rescue greyhound named Blaze (Blaise?) and her person Norman, who she adores. 



I'm feeling very grateful right now, peaceful and full of hope. Looking forward to celebrating Christmas with my family next, and hugging them till they beg me to stop! 

And then? Well, then it's writing like crazy and getting ready to ring in the new year.

What a beautiful season. Wishing you all the best of it.