Optimism

Sadly, our ash trees at the cottage are infected with the ash borer. The insects destroy the trees.  Most of the trees in our backyard out there were ash. Watching the trees die, one after another broke my heart. We have a few more that are too close to the cottage and will have to come down this summer. But nature is optimistic.  I was out working at the cottage yesterday and as I walked through the woods, I noticed a ton of new maples sprouting up.  Nature is optimistic.  The woods will adapt.

I like the lesson in that.  Crap happens.  We can moan, or we can pick ourselves up and optimistically begin looking for something new.

I didn't snap a picture, but our Gettysburg Oak (my FIL started it from a Gettysburg acorn) that was struck by lightening a few years back is coming back.  It's got to be about ten feet high now. I like that despite its injury, it believed in itself and came back. It found its inner-optimism.

I try to write characters who are optimistic. Even when they go through something awful and can't see it, they have some small kernel of optimism. It might be buried deeply, but it finds its way to the surface. Books like Just One Thing, or These Three Words (it's on sale for $.99 right now) I think portray that.

Optimism is there in my comedies, too. In The Makeover, the heroine remains upbeat and optimistic (okay, sometimes it's a bit buried) despite a town secret, a bad makeover, a lovelorn bull...and a grumpy visiting reporter. 

Optimism.  It's part of my daily glee.  I find that glee in small things which helps me  believe that good things will happen, even if they're just a small thing. A hot cup of coffee, baby maple trees in the woods, a book that touches my heart. I try to encourage my characters to believe that as well! Even when bad things happen and I can't quite feel optimistic, I fake it until it becomes reality. LOL

I feel optimistic we'll all have a good, gleeful day!

Holly

PS Check out our newest Trippin' with Holly and Susan.  You can catch up with all of them at YouTube.

PPS. Check out my books!

Briar Hill Road

Between the Words

Able to Love Again

PTA Moms: the Collection

The Moments

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Arting

I talk about a lot of craft/art in Just One Thing. Yes, even pottery...before I ever took a class. Most of my character's arting (yes, I claim that as a word) has to do with weaving. My sister-in-law had a loom and I made a couple rugs on it. I will confess, I loved the rhythm of it. Up. Down. Up. Down. I loved that same rhythm when I was making baskets.

I learned a long time ago that I'm someone who enjoys a certain order to their life. With four kids, I can't be too rigid with it, but I do like knowing what comes next. I do like rhythm.  I think that's why basketmaking, weaving and now pottery appeals to me. They have a certain rhythm to them.  Heck, even my writing has a rhythm. Get up. Answer emails. Walk the dog. Write.

But back to Just One Thing and all the crafting and arting.  I will confess, I love that I mentioned pottery in it. It foreshadowed my passion for clay. Sometimes my writing touches on my experience...sometimes on my wishes!

I'll be at HER this weekend. If you're from the area and attend the formerly For Women Only Expo, stop in and say hi! I'm going to bring along a few of my pottery pieces!!

Holly

PS Our most recent Trippin' videos.

PPS.

Polished Off

Don't forget my new release Polished Off: A Maid in LA Mystery is out! Check out Quincy's newest adventure!

Then go back to school with three PTA Moms.  There's a bonus short story included! Check out the PTA Mom Collection!!

PTA Moms: the Collection

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As always, you can find my ebooks, paperbacks, hardbacks, audiobooks and available through Kindle Unlimited.  They're also available in a lot of other languages. I hope there's something for all of you!

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In Erie, you can find my books on the shelf at Werner Books! 

On Writing (and life): Perspective

per·spec·tive

noun

1. 1.

   the art of drawing solid objects on a two-dimensional surface so as to give the right impression of their height, width, depth, and position in relation to each other when viewed from a particular point.

   "a perspective drawing"
2. 2.

   a particular attitude toward or way of regarding something; a point of view.

Today I'm talking about the second part of perspective's definition...that idea of changing our way of looking at something.  That idea of changing our point-of-view, POV.

Writers spend a great deal of time thinking about POV. Each character we write has one that's distinctly their own.  When I'm writing that character, I try not to see the world through my eyes, but rather through their eyes.  

Maybe they've suffered a loss, like the heroine in Just One Thing...that will color how they see the world.  

Maybe they've cleaned a murder scene, like Quincy in the Maid in LA series.  That definitely colors her perspective. 

Perspective...it's something I spend a lot of my 'working' day thinking about.  I want each character to ring authentic in a story, so I have to think about it. 

And I think that first part of the definition really is applicable as well.  I'm trying to build a fully three-dimensional person on a two dimensional page and "give the right impression of their height, width, depth, and position in relation to each other when viewed from a particular point."

(I'm pretty pleased with that particular insight to be honest.  It will give me something to think about today as I write.)

But that idea of perspective is important in real life, too.  It's easy to get stuck in a rut.  To think or act in a particular way without thought.  That's when changing your perspective and looking at the world from a different angle makes sense.  

So some days, I change things up and work somewhere else.  Now that the weather is nice, I try to spend a day or two each week working at camp (there's a video of my view in a sec).  Sometimes I give myself a Day of Beauty to remind myself that not matter what's going on, the world is amazing.

But sometimes it's more than that.  Sometimes, as I try to understand someone, I try to put myself in their shoes.  I try to see the world through their POV and that...that can change my own.  

I think the world would be a better place—and filled with a lot more glee—if everyone took a moment to try to understand where someone else is coming from.  And even if we'll never agree with them (I don't agree with every character I write) we can understand them better. And once you understand someone, it's easier to accept them—accept them and love them.

That's why I write romance. Because that need to be loved and accepted is universal.  It's something that speaks to me as a writer, and hopefully speaks to you all as readers.

That's my thought on writing—and life—today!

And while I have you here, I want to thank everyone who took a moment to offer me and Ella condolences on losing Ethel. We both appreciate it more than you can know, and your concern gave us solace.

Holly

Here's my writing view at camp yesterday.  We're going to start the stone behind the woodstove soon!

PS.
My books are available as ebooks, paperbacks, hardbacks, audiobooks and available through Kindle Unlimited.  They're also available in a lot of other languages. I hope there's something for all of you!

Find my books at:

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In Erie, you can find my books on the shelf at Werner Books! Stop in, check them out and tell them I said hi!

On Writing: Partners

I'm heading to Philadelphia next weekend to do a workshop for the Valley Forge RWA.  It has me thinking about writing this week.

What does a writer want you to feel when you read their book?  What do they want you to take away from a story?  What was their point of telling that story?

If you've ever sat through an English Lit class, you've been asked questions like this.  And those questions have validity.  The author always had a point in telling the story.  Sometimes it's blatant and as a reader you know their take away. Good triumphs over evil.  Love wins out.  But sometimes their point is more obscure.  Maybe Love Wins Out is the point. But maybe there's something smaller and less tangible to the reader...something that drove the author to tell that story. 

When I wrote Briar Hill Road, Love Wins Out is easily my big theme...it's the theme that truly works for any book I've written.  But Briar Hill Road was also an exploration of what makes a family (most of my books are that, too).  Yet even more than that, for me as the writer, it was a cathartic book.  It was my way of saying goodbye to my mother-in-law.  

Here's the thing...you don't need to know that to read the book.  When I finish a book, when I've said what I wanted to say in it, I let it go.  My ownership of that story is done.  I hand it over to you...the reader.  And maybe you'll see the same thing in it that I saw as I wrote it.  Maybe you'll see that love always wins out.  Maybe you'll recognize that family isn't always born...sometimes it's discovered.  Maybe you'll realize, if only for a moment, that life is a journey and there are ups and downs.  Maybe you'll even see shades of my mother-in-law in Kathleen and think, I would have loved to be this character's friend.  (Trust me, you would have.)

Writing and reading...they are a codependent partnership.  I tell a story and then I set it free.  You get to pick it up and (hopefully) when you read it, you bring your own point-of-view, your own history to the story and you see it through a different lens than I wrote it.  You see it through your own personal lens.  Maybe you take away something I never imagined from it. And that's okay.  That's my hope.  That is my intent.  

Writer and reader are partners.  You and me...we're a team!

Holly

PS It's a sales palooza week.  (Publishers just send me notices...I have no control most of the time and just like to pass them on.)

Hold Her Heart
Just One Thing
Everything But...series
Fairly Human

Chickens in the Road

Chickens in the Road

I met Suzanne McMinn at one conference or another.  I can't remember which, but I do remember chatting with her.  We talked online as well.  Over the years I lost touch with her.  I read a lot of memoirs, and I will confess I find books like A Dirty Life and The Feast Nearby wonderful.  Strong women finding where they belong. Sometimes finding where they belong for right-now and having that lead them to where they belong in the future.  So when Amazon suggested Chickens in the Road and I saw Suzanne's name, I had to pick it up.  The book felt like I'd bumped into her at a conference and we were chatting again.  I loved that her adventure took to the mountains. I talked not long ago about my family's history there. (This is Me Part Two)  You can join Suzanne's adventures on her farm both in the book and on her blog, aptly named, Chickens in the Road as well.  

I'll confess, my love of the country life started with The Gift of the Deer years back.  Mom had a copy in her Readers Digest and I adored it.  

The Cottage in the snow

 I understand that sort of solitude in the country. Himself is a city boy who loves me enough to understand my need for the country quiet.  He bought me our camp years ago and we've added to it by bits and pieces over the years. The cottage went up in the 90's and was basically a wooden tent for decades. This last year was a big push.  It's small and cozy, but oh how I love it there.

The Cottage from the air

The Cottage Renovatons

I understand that love of country solitude and solace in my fiction, too. I wrote about it in Just One Thing and Christmas in Cupid Falls...both of which are set near my cottage in my mind.  And that idea of finding where you belong is an ongoing theme with my characters.  Briar Hill Road is a perfect example of that.  The heroine finds her true home just down the road...down Briar Hill Road.

Home.  Family.  Those are themes I write about again and again. They're themes that never grow stale and never get old because they're universal.  Everyone spends their lifetime looking for where they belong.  Lucky people find it!

Holly

PS To My Kids: reading this book is not a suggestion that I collect chickens...I don't.

Wording and Arting...maybe Crafting is the right word?—My Novel Freshman Experience

Words have power...that was the premise of my Everything But books.  I think it's true.  

I rarely refer to myself as an author. It feels too pretentious a word. I'm a writer.  As a working writer, I write for food not some higher purpose.  Okay, sometimes I write for a bit of a higher purpose, but mainly because my kids like to eat.

Basically, I play with words for a living.

For years I've joked that I'm not writing...I'm Wording.

So I guess that means, now that I've gone back to school, when I go to the studio I'm Arting.

I don't know, arting sounds too high falutin for what I do in ceramics class.  I'm a novice.  This term, I gave myself permission to simply experiment.  To see what I can do in clay.  But more than that, I'm experimenting with glazes.  They are such a mystery.  What they do on one project won't necessarily hold true for the next.  (Those pieces up above are for a "quilt" I'm making. It was a great way to play with a lot of glaze.)

I picked the theme Folk Art for the term.  No, we didn't have to pick a theme, but it really worked well for the things I'm arting...nope, that still doesn't seem to fit.  Crafting.  Yeah, I like that.  And it fits for both arting and wording.  I'm crafting art or stories.  

Crafting.  I think I might stick with that.

I have a friend on Facebook who calls  Renaissance Woman because I do a lot of weird things.  I'll confess, I do try a lot of stuff.  From splitting wood, to making beer and bread, to ceramics, to writing...

I've made baskets, quilts, afghans, and embroidered projects...

But here's the thing, I like trying new things.  I like figuring out how things work.  I like...crafting.

And I like knowing little bits about lots of stuff.  I really does help with my books.  Speaking of which, I'm working on a new idea that combines both wording-crafting and arting-crafting.  I'll share more on that later.  

Holly

PS. My love of crafting shows through in so many of my books.  Here's a few:
Spoons (I carved the spoons on the cover)
Just One Thing
Carry Her Heart
Once Upon a Valentine's

Book Stories: Just One Thing

I spent most of my career writing for publishers and their guidelines.  And I loved it.  Those guidelines gave me a roadmap.  I knew how far off-roading I could go.

But I had this story that nagged at me.  It was a story that wouldn't fit into the guidelines of my publishers.  It was a story that was definitely more of an off-roading story.  

So...

I wrote Just One Thing on my down-time over the course of a year.  A friend said she set aside Sundays for playing with writing, and I liked that...so I started calling it my Sunday Book. I didn't worry about what a publisher would say...I just wrote it for me.

When I was done, I sent it out to my agent and she loved it.  She sent it out to publishers and we kept getting back the nicest rejections.  They all said things like..."We loved it, BUT we don't know what to do with it."  LOL

Finally, a publisher took a chance with it.  And it turns out, readers don't always need to have a book that fits neatly into a category.  Just One Thing was one of my earliest Romance+ books...books that focus on a heroine's journey.  Her journey includes a romance, but romances isn't the reason for that trip and it's not her ultimate destination.

I'd written two other more emotional books that in hindsight were my first steps into Romance+ market, even though I didn't know it at the time.  Same Time Next Summer and Briar Hill Road set me off down that new path.  And I'm still traveling down it.

(On a side note, for those who follow me here or on Social Media, you know I'm taking a ceramic class.  You can see how much I wanted to try this art in Just One Thing...there's a wistful homage to it.  And now that I'm actually taking it, I realize that this is a case where my fiction really inspired my reality!)

If you haven't checked out Just One Thing, I hope you'll give it a try.  

Holly

PS If you like Just One Thing, my Romance+ story,
check out the rest:

Same Time Next Summer

Briar Hill Road

Words of the Heart Series:

Carry Her Heart

These Three Words

Hold Her Heart

New Perspective

I've talked a lot about going back to school in My Novel Freshman Experience posts here.  I've given my first workshop on Finding Your Sequel, talking about trying new things.

And I've sold my first article about trying something new.  If you're an RWA member, it's in the February issue.  If you're not, let me sum it up...try new stuff.  It will make your life better.
Yes, you can see why I'm a writer, right?  LOL

But that, in essence, is the theme of the article, the blog posts...and my enthusiasm for going back to school.  I've known for a while that I wanted to try pottery.  I have a nice collection of stoneware that I love.  I wrote about a potter in Just One Thing.  And I was inspired while I worked on some ceramic wooden spoons to write a short story, appropriately entitled, Spoons.  (Sign up for my newsletter and read it for free for Valentine's!)

I hope you find something new to try this year.  Something new that enriches your life.  Something that makes you see the world in a new light.  Something that gives you...well, glee!  

Holly

PS. Talk about going back to school...Check out my PTA Mom Trilogy.  Three Single Moms.  Three Holidays.  Three Love Stories!