Home Again

We spent all of last week working on our house in Tennessee and getting it listed with a real estate agent. I hate renting to someone and this one had a new twist to it.

After a week of ranting and raving, we are back home and so glad to see my little house. We are praying our house in Tennessee sales soon and we will only have one house.

While we were there, I re-read Laurie Alice Eakes, The Lady In The Mist. (I'm allergic to dust. Really, I have a horrible sinus infection right now, so I read a lot.) If you have not read it yet, it is a must. I don't know how she does it, but she makes the characters come alive. Dominick is my favorite character. She made him a man to die for. I loved it more the second time than the first, and I can't wait for the next in the Midwife Series.

So much needs to be done today. I'll have a busy day doing laundry and I know I won't get to write any. I hope I can have a whole week next week to write. This week will be spent in income taxes and getting ready for the rest of the week.

Have a wonderful day and I'll write more Friday.

Musings

My week has ended up pretty good. I wish it were better, but that's it. I haven't written as much this week as I had hoped to. Maybe next week will be better.

The knee is recovering very well. It's almost six months since my left knee was replaced, and two months since my right knee. It's going very well. I did do a little too much yesterday and I paid last night. It felt good to do some work. 

I think I am drawing one thing out too much in my book. One thing it will do is bring my two main characters closer together, but I know it can get boring. I need to put more description in my book.

 The WIP I'm working on right now is only a draft, so I can change that when I go back through. There is a hard rain and I want to describe the raindrops. We would say today they were "as big as a quarter," or something like that. Now I have to find out what small coins they had in the early 19th century. 

Is your book constantly on your mind? Well, I do let it rest at church, but other than that, it gets a lot of my thoughts. I'm sure that's the same as with most writers. I'm also fearful that it will never be published. That's my biggest fear. I'm afraid I'm not good enough. People will laugh at my attempts. I've had a few rejections but everyone has been kind. 

It's time to grow with my writing. It's time to get busy and write more, read more, and study the craft more. We all have to do that. It's hard, but to be successful, we have to manage.

Surrender the Night

MaryLu Tyndall has written another wonderful book. Second in the Surrender to Destiny Series is Surrender the Night. It's not a pirate book, and it is all written on dry and mostly wet ground. A wonderful exciting and packed with action book.

Rose McGuire is living with her aunt and uncle on a small farm outside of Baltimore. The year is 1814 and if you remember your history, the British were trying to take back America. She has a maid who has been widowed, but is a young woman and a big flirt. Rose is nearly ravished by a British Naval officer, when another officer, Alexander Reed, hears her screams. He saves her and kills the first Naval officer. Alex is shot in the leg.

Rose bandages his leg and hides him in their barn. She loves animals and has several pet chickens, a horse, a cow, and a pig. Alex is impressed by her kindness. She knows if he is found, she and her whole family will be tried and hung for treason.

In an awkward moment, she introduces him to Mr. Snyder, a man who wants to marry her, as her hired man.
Mr. Snyder wants to marry her to get her land. He also thinks she is beautiful. He tries every way that he can to make it know that Alex is a Naval officer, but fails. Rose cannot stand Mr. Snyder and refuses to marry him.

The story goes on to the burning of Washington, DC, which I found interesting. The book is filled with suspense and action. MaryLu gives good descriptions of the characters and the places. Rose is a beautiful blond lady and Alex, well as usual, he is a hunk. I hope you enjoy this book as much as I have.

What The Heart Sees

I may have mentioned before that I joined Booksneeze. It's from Thomas Nelson Publishing and if you have a blog, you may join. You have to put it on your blog, make a comment to Amazon, Christian Books, or one of the online book sellers, and then to Booksneeze. In return you pick a book to read next and report on it.

I had a non-fiction the first time and I saw a fiction on the list, so I marked it as my next book. What The Heart Sees is a combination of three books by Kathleen Fuller. I had never read any of her books before, but I did enjoy this book.

It is well written and interesting. She has a glossary of Amish words that was very helpful. She used some Amish words that I had never heard, so the glossary came in handy.

A Miracle for Miriam is the first book. Miriam is a quilter and works for a quilt shop. She had been in love with Seth Fisher since their school days. Seth was a show-off and had done something to embarrass her. She wore glasses and he made fun of her, but she still loved him. 

Seth had been in a car accident. His had lacerations to his face and a badly broken leg. He had almost become a recluse, walking with a cane and in pain every day. He believes no woman would want him with the scar running down the side of his face and his injured leg.

Miriam is forced to attend a singing at an Amish home. Seth has decided to go also. People stared at Seth's face and Miriam was a wallflower, holding up one side of the wall. Seth hobbles over to her and she realizes he is very nice to her, but she thinks he's either feeling sorry for her or wants to embarrass her again. This continues through the book, but it does have a happy ending.

The second book is A Place Of His Own. This story is about Amanda and Josiah. They had been close friends growing up, but Josiah and his father left in the night and Amanda had not seen him for fourteen years. He returns and begins to try to fix the house and barn so he can sell the property and leave the bad memories behind.

Amanda is so glad to see Josiah, but he acts like he wants to get away as soon as possible. She volunteers to help him clean the house. He doesn't want her too, because his feelings about her are returning and something in his life he wants to forget keeps haunting him. 

Josiah had remained Amish through the years. His secret kept him from being involved in the Amish community. He leaves a lantern burning in the barn and the barn catches on fire. He saves his horse, but everything in the barn is lost. The community builds him a new barn and his faith begins to gradually come back. It does have a happy ending.

A Place Of His Own was probably my favorite. This is about Ellie and Chris. There was a car accident. Ellie was blinded and Chris' finance, Carolyn, was killed. Chris left the Amish community and went English. He comes back in a car two weeks before his sister is to marry his once best friend. There is tension between Chris and his this friend. They seem to hate each other. 

Because he left the Amish faith, he was shunned. His father will not talk to him, but his mother wishes he would stay home. He has to ask for forgiveness from the Amish church before he can be able to stay.

He sees Ellie, but does not realize at first that she is blind. He falls in love with her because of her faith and forgiveness. He wants to be forgiven, but there were circumstances where he could not. 

This is a very sweet story with lots of comical things happening because Ellie is too stubborn to ask for help. I enjoyed all of the stories very much and recommend this book to anyone who wants to read a quiet, entertaining book.

My Blog List

I haven't worked very hard on my blog list, but I should add a few more things. These are my favorite blogs and they are people I know and love.
The first one is A Meek Prospective. My niece, Judy Meek, write this. It is always interesting and I enjoy reading it. It's always fresh. They have a small sheep farm and recently had quadruple lambs born to one of the ewes.
My baby is For Christian Girls. This is one that the church allowed me to get going. We opened it in February and we are getting good hits and comments. It is designed to encourage Christian teens. The newest article is From the Waist Up. What do you see from the waist up?
The next is one I have been involved in by my attendance for a year now. Freelance Writing Courses was designed by Teddy Levine and Janice Thompson. There are free sessions and some you have to buy. I have attended most of them and they are very good for writers. Janice has been a friend since soon after I started writing.
Janice Hanna Thompson, as I said is a friend of mine and I love her wit. Her books are great. She does a great job encouraging writers.
Sandi Rog, well what can I say. She is my dearest friend. She is so devoted to God, even through all this cancer. Her treatments are very hard on her, but she always comes out smiling. I love this girl as if she were one of my own. She is hoping to have a bone marrow transplant in April. It should rid her of cancer and MS that she has fought for years.
The Book Doctor is one of Sandi's creations. She has several authors who have stepped in during her illness and helped her keep it going. There is good sound advice for writers.
Turpin Tidbits is my daughter Diane's baby. Diane is a wonderful scrapbooker. We started scrapping eleven years ago with the computer. She continues to scrapbook and has had her pieces in several magazines. She sells what you need to make a page.
I thought you might be interested in my connection with these links.

Finally I'm Back

This whole knee thing has taken me away from so much. I have been reading, but just started writing again in earnest last week. It's been longer recovering from this knee surgery. My body is weaker from the previous surgery, but I am finally bouncing back.

Our new blog forchristiangirls.org is going well. I have spent a lot of time on it. We are getting very good response. If you haven't checked it out, do so. Even if you have, some new articles have been added lately. I need to think of something to put in today.

My second book in the series is 1/3 of the way through. This is a rough draft and I'll have to edit it before I let anyone see it. I know there are a lot of mistakes. I'm at a good point right now and I'm anxious to write more this week.

Something on writing that I saw in a book I've been reading. When you are writing, please make sure your time line is correct. This book I just read had the time in the spring, then after a couple of pages, it was in the fall, then back to the spring, and then back to the fall. That was so confusing and I lost interest in the book. The book was published by a major company.

When I was writing Callie's Mountain, I had a time with the time line. I think because I stopped and started so much, but with this one, my time line is much better. Things come into our lives that we have to stop and start, but I hope I can get this new book finished this month. I have a lot of research to do with the third book. It's going to take me a while to get it started. I love research and I'm able to walk more trails now than I was.

Have a blessed day.