ALA in New Orleans, 2011!!!

What can I say? It was awesome, overwhelming, wonderful, exciting, and I LOVED the people at Scholastic! They were so warm and friendly and helpful and took me under their wing. There were Scholastic publishing offices people there from New York City as well as Book Fair folks from around the country who man the offices and warehouses and buy and sell books to schools and bookstores. Really impressive people, I loved them!

Here's a couple of pictures below and there are lots more at Facebook with tags and descriptions if you'd like to take a peek. Go here! ALA New Orleans Pictures!

And if we aren't friends on Facebook yet, please Friend me!

After ALA, I traveled Louisiana for another 5 days and went on a swamp tour on Bull Run Bayou and to Nottaway Plantation, and the LDS Temple in Baton Rouge, and visited friends on Bayou Long, and did some filming for my book trailer for my upcoming book, Circle of Secrets. Fun stuff!

So more pictures coming later this week! Stay tuned!

Launch of my Newly Designed Website!

So here it is . . . after much work and angst . . . MY NEW WEBSITE!!! I've been writing new bios, short and long, so don't forget to click at the end of the sidebar bio for more about me and growing up and writing. Plus there is a Q&A, which is something I've never done before. And my blog - in links to the last 5 posts - comes through on the sidebar, too! Hope you enjoy browsing around. 

You will see a Louisiana theme on the website (the flowers are azaleas in the top corners like these I took last year).



I've been wanting to rant for weeks about the Louisiana oil spill but I can hardly bring myself to think coherently the whole situation is so upsetting to me, let alone write/blog about it.

I hope to blog about my feelings and perspective in the next week or two before The Healing Spell launches in 20 days! YES, ONLY 20 DAYS AND I'M TRYING NOT TO FREAK OUT. But all will be well for me, I'm sure. NOT so for my dear, beautiful Louisiana and the people I love there. I've been heartsick, angry, and I rant every day to my family, but it's such a helpless feeling.

I just hope that places like this will not become obsolete.

The Cajun Book Lady is my new BF!

OH. MY. GOSH.  THE CAJUN BOOK LADY just gave me the most AMAZING review!!! Read some WOW here!

I am so touched and honored and excited and just plain THRILLED TO PIECES!

She's a great book blogger, too, and a real sweetheart, so go friend/follow her!


Kristine's review especially means a lot to me because I wanted to get Louisiana *right* and I've spent a decade visiting and researching and loving that state. I'm an adopted Louisiana girl now by some wonderful friends in various small towns there. I'm truly honored and the people I've met have opened their homes and hearts to me in so many different ways. I treasure all of my experiences there and the wonderful memories I will always have -- as well as the continuing experiences and memories because I'm going back. Of course! Thank you from the bottom of my heart. xoxo

Don't forget!!! *****Last day to enter the giveaway of an ARC of THE HEALING SPELL!!! Go here to post your *entry*! Extra entries for spreading the love . . .

Coming Out of the Drafting Cave

My head is spinning, my house is a disaster area and ready to be quarantined, Christmas is 17 days away and my head is still in early November. My mind is full and blank at the same time (how can that be?!? Weirdly, it's true, and I'll bet every mom/writer combo woman knows exactly what I'm talking about.)

Since I'm not sure my brain will spit out coherent words for a while, here is my last six weeks in pictures . . .

Road Trip to Louisiana with darling hubby! We got away from the kids and the house and mess and the babies (missed them dreadfully though!) and ran around like crazy and had SO MUCH FUN and didn't want to come home. It was like running away and yet a 5 year overdue vaca with my hubby and a research trip rolled into one.

I'm very good at multi-tasking.

Did you every doubt?




Highway 10 through 900 miles of Texas!



This is a very good likeness of us by the end of 1500 miles.




Cool gators on Lake Martin, Louisiana







Gorgeous hibiscus at Shadows-on-the Teche Mansion in New Iberia.



Back home and writing my first draft again of THE TRAITEUR'S DAUGHTER (Title to be changed now due to and editorial mini consultation via email. Something I suspected we would do so I am now on the "Great Title Hunt".






I was home for 7 writing days and managed to get from 43,000 words to 67,000 words. And unpack and repack and get ready to go again!







Off to Arizona for a full week of Book Trailer Production with music discussions and timing issues and personally creating more images for a trailer that needs very unusual pictures not found on istock or Getty. We managed to be very sneaky to get some of our shots - and not get caught! Or kicked out of a hospital and Hobby Lobby. . .



Then Turkey Day with both sides of the family and lots of back and forth and visiting and games and eating, eating, eating.






We ate about 17 pies that weekend! Personally, I think I managed two all by myself.




Back home to New Mexico again!



Back to drafting. My goal of Labor Day is long gone. My goal of Halloween, pfft. My goal of Thanksgiving lost in the dust. Why is this book taking SO long to draft? I'm now past my original estimation of 60,000 words. We're in the 70's and nearing 80. I must be really good at blah, blah, blah.



HELP! HELP! HELP!!!



This is where I got to in the dark tunnel of drafting, drafting and wondering if I'll ever be done with this book.



A light! Is it true? Dare I hope? Dare I dream? Am I on the last chapter??? Really???



Official announcement: I wrote THE END at 9:15 p.m. Saturday, December 5, 2009.

Word count clocked in at 77,706 words and 286 manuscript pages. I DID IT!



Today I do laundry, figure out my Christmas List, finish reading somebody ELSE'S novel, and start revisions!

Maybe I'll get in one of these:



La, La, La, La!!!!

Home From Louisiana!

We just got home late last night and it was FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hubby and I had such a great time we didn't want to come back. (It's been years since we've had a trip for just the two of us and our home life has been pretty crazy chaos the past two years.)

We went dancing with Miss Olive and Mister Elward Stephens on Front Street in Morgan City - a couple in their 80s that I met last April who are absolutely awesome, practically live off the bayou and swamp right out their back door, and act about 30 years younger. Aren't they cute?



We ate barbecue at Gros Marina eight miles down Four Mile Bayou (a local joke), went to an outdoor Cajun boucharie (pig roast complete with cracklin's being cooked over an open fire in a black cauldron) and hubby was offered moonshine to drink!!! We also ate tons of shrimp, crabs, gumbo, and jambalaya.

We rowed a canoe for 3 hours in the bayous where A FISH LITERALLY JUMPED INTO OUR BOAT!!!! A mullet flopped and danced in the bottom of our boat until we could scoop him out. It was wild. And we saw tons of turtles and birds and gators. We were the only ones out there and it was so peaceful I didn't want it to end. Mullets jumped all over the place. We could see them everywhere as the afternoon deepened. They jump about three feet in the air. Amazing. The weather was perfect all week, too. Sunshine every day and 75 degrees.

We met SO MANY PEOPLE and talked about traiteurs and their personal experiences with traiteurs and my upcoming books, and I have a whole new *fan* base, ha ha!

Hope y'all are well - not sure I'm going to have a chance to read back through 10 days of journals. Not when I gotta finish my first draft by Thanksgiving . . . but I'm waving and sending love!

I have landed . . .

I'm back! I'm home! I'm safe!

But it feels so strange to be home again - like I just returned from Mars or something instead of Louisiana, just a hop, skip and a jump from New Mexico. After you get through 980 miles of Texas that is!

16 days of 5 hours sleep a night, non-stop gabbing with one of my best friends, traveling 3,000 miles, and meeting AMAAAAAAAZING people and staying in AMAAAAAAZING places.

LOVED IT!!!

Pictures and stories coming over the next few weeks . . . but first I am in desperate need of about thirty hours of sleep. And groceries. And clean clothes.

And I gotta call my mom.

Au Revior, Shar!

The day has finally come! I'm off to Louisiana for my road trip, research trip, and two week gab session with one of my best girlfriends. (We're both researching books, hers more historical than mine but some of our research overlaps.)

Internet will be sparse, but I will have email via my nifty Blackberry so email if you need something - please! Or if you miss me! Or have good news!

I hope I don't miss too much good stuff here with my blogging friends - but then again, I'm sure YOU are hoping for majorly, fantastic, out-of-this-world news - and I hope you get it, too!

Laissez les bon temps rouler!

Whew!

Wow, I just spent the last three days finishing up the major over-haul on MURDERING THE DEAD. I wrote from about 3:30 p.m. Saturday afternoon to nearly 11:00 p.m. Can anyone say EXHAUSTION?

Yesterday I spent about 4 hours making some BIG CHANGES to the last chapter that I think will be more surprising, more of a twist, and more emotional. I feel drained, but pleased that I got to the end of this 400 page tome before I leave Friday for my trip to Louisiana. YAY!!!

I'm going to celebrate with some delicious beignets and crawfish etoufee and tour the swamp and see alligators and have a healing done by a traiteuse. CAN NOT WAIT!!!






I'm traveling with a friend who grew up in Louisiana and Alabama and so this is also a girlfriend road-trip. We're going to spend two weeks TALKING non-stop! No cooking, no cleaning, no babysitting. Lots of gabbing and beautiful countryside and meeting lots of cool people.

AND what's more - I contacted Cote Blanche Production Company that put out a documentary 10 years ago GOOD FOR WHAT AILS YOU, that was very helpful in locating some folk treaters for me - and yesterday I heard from the head writer and wife of the producer/director suggesting we have a meet-up for coffee while I'm there!!! Yahoo! I get to meet more movie people!!! They are super nice and their movies and documentary's all focus on Louisiana.

I'm feeling very blessed. And excited! Bet you can't tell . . .