WRITING (About) LIFE and (The) WRITING LIFE--Dianne Dengel Print

I got my Merry Christmas a little early, the Dianne Dengel print, “Out to Lunch.” My agent once asked me what I wanted from my writing career, and I said, “I want to be read.” This print is the personification of that. I want readers to grab whatever spare minutes they can find to read my books, and seeing this hard-working little old lady enjoying her romance novel makes me smile.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE!

(THE) Writing Life--THE BRIDE FAIR

THE BRIDE FAIR, the companion book to THE PRISONER, is now available in Kindle format in Australia. Both books are winners of the RWA RITA Award for Best Short Historical Novel.

https://tinyurl.com/y7qyuogj

(THE) WRITING LIFE--ON SALE

THE MARINE, winner of the 2018 EPIC Award for Best Contemporary Fiction, is ON SALE until July 31. $1.99. Ebook format, all platforms available.

Amazon Link: http://a.co/0PNCNnL

Kobo Link: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-marine-10

B&N: https://tinyurl.com/yafxrexh

(The) Writing Life--An FYI

I've just heard that THE BRIDE FAIR, a Romance Writers of America RITA-Winner for Best Short Historical and the standalone sequel to THE PRISONER, will be available in Australia in the fall. 

(The) WRITING LIFE...

Conventional wisdom has it that books written by men sell better than books written by women. If that is indeed the case, please feel free to think of me as "Charles."

THE MARINE

2018 EPIC Award Winner for Best Contemporary Fiction

and

BAND OF BROTHERS

The Stand-Alone Companion Book

WRITING (About) LIFE---The Legacy Garden

Come let me show you the iris patch. It was so cold this past winter, I was afraid they wouldn't bloom:

The first three irises came from my late mother-in-law's iris bed. She loved these flowers, and her backyard was completely turned over to growing them. She had such an array that people used to drive by her house to see them, back when as many people as could fit into the family car went for a ride on Sunday afternoons--parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends and neighbors. And of course the children. I loved doing this as a child even though I was always stuck in the middle and didn't get to see much of anything. It was still an adventure and other people's flower gardens were high on the list of things to go and see.

And this is a patch of volunteer white violets that is bravely coming up through a crack in the patio. The original plants are from my late mother-in-law's garden as well. They will take over everything if you let them. I like them growing pot-less on the patio, though. 

This one, the "black iris," isn't a legacy flower. I bought it at a flea market a few years ago. It doesn't bloom every year, but as you can see, this is the year.

Pretty, aren't they?

WRITING (About) LIFE...

I've been told I need to blog more, and in that light, here's this:

During the past 36 hours, I boldly opened a window so Carl (he's my pre-owned, former military now writer cat) could have a new rampart from which to guard the castle walls and stop pestering, even though I know, in this old house, getting something to open doesn't necessarily mean you can get it to close--owners of old houses and ginger cats will understand this. So I couldn't close it. Carl was thrilled. Jumped into and out of the window all night long, because he was at Defcon 1 by this time. Yes, my sleep was broken, after which he trampled the pieces. 

But I'm getting ahead of myself. BEFORE I went to bed, I was watching BONEKICKERS via the Roku, and I suddenly got a dialogue box on the screen complete with red exclamation point telling me my device was overheating. Which scared the bejeebies out of me. So I dismantled the Roku and went online like it told me to. It said that my streaming stick was too close to something electronic and bade me fill out a form that included the serial number so I could receive a free HDMI extension cable and move it out of harm's way. The SN was a 12-digit number stamped on the back of the device, it said. Enter that on the form, it said. Well, I did, and the form wouldn't take it, no matter how may times I tried. It's hard to mess that up, when there is only one 12-digit number there, AND it was quite readable. Anyway, I eventually gave up because they obviously didn't mean it when they said "free HDMI extension cable."

THEN the washing machine royally died, screaming to the very end. Then there was the duel to the death with a camel cricket when it cornered me in the bathroom. Those things do not run away. They run toward, and I am not yet to the point where I can squash one with my bare feet.

The bottom line, dead or alive, the camel cricket is no longer among us, the window is still open, and the washing machine guy is lying on the floor in the utility room doing surgery on the Maytag. (Did you know "Maytag," as an entity,  is no more? It's now Whirlpool. The things one learns in the middle of chaos.) The Maytag has a new name, BTW. "Macbeth." After all that scene-chewing drama when his pump gave out yesterday, he deserves it.

(The) WRITING LIFE--THE MARINE and I Won...

I've just been notified that THE MARINE has won EPIC's 2018 eBook Award for Contemporary Fiction.

(The) Writing Life--Book On Sale

Let me introduce you to "Daisy and Eric," probably the two most important characters in my book, PROMISE ME A RAINBOW. They were the all important catalyst every writer hopes for. 

"Daisy and Eric" are Tom Clark gnomes. If you're not familiar with his work, his gnome sculptures will always evoke some kind of emotion. In my case, it was curiosity. What would a woman who had been told she could never have a child of her own think when she saw them? And how would they effect a little girl who had lost her mother? 

There was no way of knowing, of course, unless you write the book that will answer these questions--which I did. 

At the moment, PROMISE ME A RAINBOW, in all eBook formats, is on sale for $1.99 until March 31.

And as a reminder, you don't have to have a Kindle to read it. You can download the free Kindle app and read it on your desktop, phone or tablet.

This is the link to Amazon.

WRITING (About) LIFE...

Again with the rain this morning. I wish I could hear it. This house has deep eaves and a tall attic space, so I rarely hear “rain on the roof” like I did when I was a little kid and still at home. Always loved that sound. Rain, and if there was enough wind, the pines soughing. Those pines weren’t the tall, tall spindly pine kind. They were more like an oak tree with large trunks I couldn’t reach all the way around. Our house was surrounded by them. When it snowed, the branches would all but touch the ground and it was like being in a huge, green, wonderful-smelling cave. One tree in particular was great for climbing. My neighborhood BFF and I had our self-assigned limbs. We would climb and sit exactly where we were supposed to. It was great—except for the pine sap (“rawsin”) I got all over me. Ever tried to get pine sap off your skin? And there was the thing about little girls getting themselves all “sappy.” LIttle boys, no problem. Little girls, eek, no. My climbing worried my mom. A lot. We climbed anyway when she wasn’t looking. I’m happy to say neither the BFF or I ever fell off our limbs. Never even had a close call. She came to my mom’s funeral even though she could barely walk. Both our climbing days are done. All those big pine trees are done, too. At my mom’s house and all through the South. Killed by some kind of murderous pine tree weevil. I wonder if children now will remember their video games the way I remember those pines?

(The) WRITING LIFE--News

I'm very happy about this. Carl, my pre-owned former Navy-Marine feline, now a #writercat, will be, too--just as soon as he wakes up. No, really. He will.