Friday, November 7, 2014

Isn't it fun to Nano?








Many moons age, I think back in 2008, when I first discovered the concept of writing a novel in the 30 days of November, it sounded crazy.  But I did it, and then repeated it some more.  Now I love writing that quick and unedited 50,000 words. I know the book is a long way from finished by then. I know it has taken me at the very least, a year, to add enough more to the story, cut the things that don't work, check that I spell characters names the same all the way through, make sure my story actually follows the map, edit the spelling and punctuation and design a cover.  Still the freedom of just sitting down and telling a story, is what I love the most.


This month I am not starting from scratch, but starting at a point where I have two novels I've been working on, and adding a total of 50,000 new words to them.  I am hoping to find out why Duffy and his Aunt and sister have been thrown into the midst of storms and battles and a plague and why I have at least 7 threads going that don't seem to have a resolution yet.  I feel like my characters know more at this point than I do and are all standing around begging for my attention to their story.  Ay least seven voices in my head saying, "Pay attention, This is what happens next!"


That still isn't crazy.

Crazy are those people doing the novel in a day challenge.  50,000 words in 24 hours?

NEVER


but they keep doing it

Monday, October 13, 2014

Goodereads Giveaway Winners announced



If you signed up for a chance to win one of my picture books through the Goodreads Giveaway program, Thank You.  I was offering 4 copies each of both picture books and I was overwhelmed by how many people thought they looked interesting enough to go through the hoops required to sign up. 1727 people total. Unfortunately there could be only 8 winners.  I wish I could afford to share more now, as I think of each copy out there in the worlds a hard working ambassador, teaching kids to love books and telling the world to look at what else I have written.


 For the Rainbows Around Us book of colors

The Winners are

Kathryn D. of Merseyside GB
Wheeler C. of Espanola NM
Arvinder S. of West Midlands, BG
and
Jan B. of Everett, WA






And the winners for Moonrise are

Alan B. of West Sussex GB
Kkritika V. of Haryana India
Greg D. of West Midlands GB
and
Christina D. of Hamilton, New York

Again, Thanks to all who participated and spread the word.  Now hoping for at least a couple book reviews posted.  Fingers Crossed.

Friday, September 19, 2014

Book Giveaway still on until October 9

Mid September and I almost typed, mid August, Lol.  Life moves faster than I do a lot but I keep reminding myself to slow down and enjoy the little things. I love the moments holding my granddaughter and picking the apples and blackberries and walnuts. I love writing books but struggle to move beyond a "level three"  I wish I had bookmarked the article that told of five possible outcomes of self publishing.  I didn't read it all in detail but the description of the results of what was called a "level 3 success" described me pretty closely.  It said this author doesn't make a living and isn't a big seller, but is recognized as a writer among peers and sells a lot to their own community and has a small but wonderful group of fans.  This author is glad to have followed her dreams and made some success but is still searching for how to promote her books to the wider world.  Yes. Pretty much.

so as an incentive to get people to look at my newest books and to possibly get a few 4 or 5 star reviews on Amazon or Goodreads 

I am giving 4 copies away of each book, through Goodreads giveaway program and both links are below. 

If you want to see about al 5 of my books then I am also including the link to my Amazon author page


 https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/106796-moonrise?utm_medium=email&utm_source=giveaway_approved






I am also busy going to the local schools and I carry my books with me and the experience of reading them to the classes is really fun. I have the fun of seeing the things kids notice as I read and of interacting with the pictures and words in a playful way that isn't possible alone at my computer.






 both my cat and my artist friend here are victims of having me read the picture books out loud to them.  Yes even the cat, as it is easier to hear how the books read out lout and i worry less about how  I sound out loud with any kind of audience than with my voice echoing in an empty room.

So if you are interested in books to read to infants and preschool and kindergarten children, sign up for the giveaway, and if you are interested on fantasy or historical fiction check out my novels as well on Amazon.  Thank you

Friday, September 5, 2014

Two New Book Giveaways Via Goodreads, Children's books this time

 I love words and pictures, and have before this ventured to put my novels out into the world but hesitated over my paintings and photographic collections.
 Then at the end of August I published two kids picture books, and yesterday my first tangible copies of the books arrived in a brown box left on the front stoop.  I usually say porch, but Grandma called it a stoop, and she feels tied to these successes because she read picture books to me all through my childhood.

 I am giving 4 copies away of each book, through Goodreads giveaway program and both links are below. Hopefully that will get me a few book reviews but I won't hold my breath, because book reviews are hard to get, even when people read and love your books.  Not all readers want to write anything.

If you want to see about al 5 of my books then I am also including the link to my Amazon author page


 https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/106796-moonrise?utm_medium=email&utm_source=giveaway_approved






Rainbows Around Us: A Celebration of Color

Authored by Dixie Dawn Miller Goode

List Price: $15.00
8.5" x 8.5" (21.59 x 21.59 cm)
Full Color on White paper
62 pages
ISBN-13: 978-1500991944 (CreateSpace-Assigned)
ISBN-10: 1500991945
BISAC: Juvenile Nonfiction / Art / General

This book includes photographs and words to help children celebrate the beauty of the world around them. It is designed to be read aloud to a young child just learning their colors, and read by older children as they gain independence. There are a few brief definitions of more complex color theories including, shade and tint and monochrome pictures.


Rainbows Around Us Kindle



Moonrise: A Love Song For My Babies

Authored by Dixie Dawn Miller Goode
 
List Price: $12.00
8.5" x 8.5" (21.59 x 21.59 cm)
Full Color on White paper
26 pages
ISBN-13: 978-1501000201 (CreateSpace-Assigned)
ISBN-10: 1501000209
BISAC: Juvenile Fiction / Bedtime & Dreams

A lullaby and finger paintings for my sons, and granddaughter, and the children you love.






This looks like more than 5 but there are covers to books still in progress as well as the ones I have in print and kindle.

Friday, August 29, 2014

Of Colors and Lullabies and Dreams

One of my goals this summer was to finally publish two of the picture books I have been working on since my sons were babies. Well, as you know, now my sons are in their 20's and I am a grandmother.  The summer will be winding down with this next weekend and Labor Day brings school around here.

So I struggled through the learning curve and figured out what I ended to do with formatting and took a big breath and decided that I love these two story/poems and the pictures I created, and even if some people don't love them, I need to be brave enough to give them a chance.

I am introducing these books here, because I need to stop keeping them a secret,

Rainbows Around Us: A Celebration of Color

Authored by Dixie Dawn Miller Goode

List Price: $15.00
8.5" x 8.5" (21.59 x 21.59 cm)
Full Color on White paper
62 pages
ISBN-13: 978-1500991944 (CreateSpace-Assigned)
ISBN-10: 1500991945
BISAC: Juvenile Nonfiction / Art / General

This book includes photographs and words to help children celebrate the beauty of the world around them. It is designed to be read aloud to a young child just learning their colors, and read by older children as they gain independence. There are a few brief definitions of more complex color theories including, shade and tint and monochrome pictures.

Rainbows Around Us Kindle


Moonrise: A Love Song For My Babies

Authored by Dixie Dawn Miller Goode

List Price: $12.00
8.5" x 8.5" (21.59 x 21.59 cm)
Full Color on White paper
26 pages
ISBN-13: 978-1501000201 (CreateSpace-Assigned)
ISBN-10: 1501000209
BISAC: Juvenile Fiction / Bedtime & Dreams

A lullaby and finger paintings for my sons, and granddaughter, and the children you love.







an introduction to My Love Song to my Babies

Moonrise


back cover
front cover


seagull
Tonight, my love, the moon shall rise
the sandman come to dust your eyes.

His sand has heard the dream gull's cries
beside a sea 'neath silver skies.



The pillow cool beneath your head,

all star lit is your feather bed 
which glides the moonbeams like a
sled, above towns which glitter blue and red.


and my second picture book is an introduction to Colors and a celebration of their beauty
 to be read aloud 
and then read independently and studied.

Presenting  

Rainbows Around Us
on kindle and paperback
                                           
back cover



front cover

Complimentary Colors

Rainbows

Red

 If I could tell you about Red

I would sing to you of fire
Sweet like cherries
Burning like cinnamon
Smelling like a rose in the sun


Again, thank you for reading, and have a wonderful Autumn

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Doing what I do, every Fall

I have been reading and writing book reviews.

I have been conversing with other authors and with some of my own readers.  I have been walking on the beach and baking blackberry custard pies.

I have been sweeping my floors, and then not mopping them - which is good right, because California is in a drought and all the spare water we might have had has been being used in the ice bucket challenge.

Nothing against the Ice Bucket Challenge.  Two of my friends lost spouses to that nightmare disease, and an old High school class mate just lost her aunt to it days ago. I'm glad that ALS research is getting attention - and I'm laughing at the videos, or getting teary eyed.

What I am not doing is writing. My Novels that is.

One of the authors whose books I have been reading is Michael Angel and after I read and reviewed two of his Fantasy and Forensics books,




 he sent me a message thanking me and trying to entice me into reading a book from another series. It is tempting. I enjoyed his books but there is Duffy's third book waiting, or the next Double Time book stuck between Pompeii and Mt. St. Helens.  My books, patiently waiting my attention.

Mr. Angel tells me, "Oh, c'mon, what could a chapter or two hurt? And a third of the way through the book you get to meet a cute pegasus colt named 'Thunderbolt the Wondercolt!'"

Which prompted me to reply, "Yeah, but if I get back into Duffy's world I get to hang with a sea Monster and a Unicorn/centaur cross with attitude. I get to play with micro monkeys on a bouncing forest floor and referee a war between two sides of an Island shipwreck. Why am I resisting? Oh, yeah, because I'm at 60,000 words in book 3 and no road map of where I'm supposed to be weaving all these threads together!"

The Truth is, I do love my own books - but Fall throws me out of my game every year.  After summer with my teacher husband around, and being untethered from clocks, the start of school and alarm clocks and big empty stretches of time suddenly alone, waiting for a call to substitute teach from teachers who are not yet established enough to be comfortable being ill for a day. I feel restless and bored, depressed and excited, like I should have made more out of summer but I have this wonderful new beginning so I should make resolutions and be better at everything this new year.

This book is waiting for me to finish it!

The truth is, there is a new set of students to read my books to, and to convince that they want to be writers, and there are two books getting close to done. There is also an amazing 4 month old granddaughter to snuggle. 
 Life is Good.

Thursday, August 21, 2014

writing today

 When I was a kid, I found a pack of labels designed to join the message space on a postcard. I don't know who wrote them but I memorized them and they said,

Can't think, brain numb,
inspiration won't come,
No ink, bum pen,
best wishes
Amen


even then I was learning the curse of writer's block, the longing to write and the abundance of ideas,
until faced with a blank paper
or a keyboard
and then nothing
doodled and watercolored and added photo faces to
add my boys to their favorite book as a poster

giving my own books the spotlight

playing with book covers
and my Betty Award for Duffy

but I am still writing, grocery lists, or postcards or scribbled poems, or facebook posts or book reviews or blogs, and while I do, the ideas and characters in the two books I am working on keep demanding their room in my mind.  And the stories are percolating and taking shape.  Today I wrote on a a snippet from Duffy Barkley: The Third Charm  This book is taking it's time but did some growth today.  I haven't edited it or figured out where the story ends but there are two groups on an Island, at the brink of war because both groups are uncertain how they got there and one group is trying to attract the attention of a passing ship but the other group is terrified of attracting the attention of whomever dumped them all on the Island in the first place
To Boldly Go


So Anyway,
Today's effort . . .



There are so many things that could still happen here,” Peg said. “There are a multitude of choices, you could erupt into war, which is sure to draw attention if someone is really looking for you. You could leave the Island together, and try to take up the life that was interrupted, maybe never finding out what happened here, or maybe finding yourself in the middle of something bigger than all this by far. Some could stay while others leave. You could continue trying to each live your own way, but that hasn't worked well and has only caused fear and resentment. You could decide to really make this your home and work together to build a new life you all approve of.
There are a multitude of choices here, and probably more than I am seeing now. Until you make one small change, then the fork in the road is behind you and the path seems to narrow and lead you in a new direction. Maybe you go to someplace better or someplace worse, but you find yourself in a new place even if you never leave the island.”
A few of the women gathered around her looked uncomfortable, and one of those spoke now, “but what if I can't choose? I don't want to make a choice.”
Izzy wondered how Peg would answer that. But she found herself speaking up before her great-aunt said a word, “Ignoring the options and refusing to choose; that's a choice too.”
Another woman spoke, so softly everyone quieted in an effort to hear her nervous voice, “but how can we know which is the right choice? I try to sleep and I can't stop thinking about the problems. My head fills with so many things that I hope for and then the things I'm afraid of chase them out of my mind.”
Peg smiled, “I know exactly what you mean. Sometimes when I want to work out the best choice among many which are overwhelming me, I have found a simple way to make my head clearer. When I am home, I take a walk where the direction of my feet leaves me no choices. So my mind is free to float where it wants to go and I find out which hopes are the ones I really want to see become reality.”
But if we tried walking like that here, without paying attention, we'd get lost or fall off a cliff or end up in enemy land.”
Well, I don't think they have to be enemies. That may be the first choice, to choose not to see them as enemies anymore.”
My farm has a lot of land, So I made a big path to walk. But it only goes in circles, in and out from a center. It is from an ancient pattern that many cultures in out world had even before recorded history. It starts and ends in the same place but flows through many turns. We call it a labyrinth. It is like a maze but a maze has wrong turns in it and false trails and is designed to get you lost. A labyrinth is designed to get you found.”
Peg picked up a stick and smoothed a circle in the sand and began to draw, winding back and forth through the circle in small wedges like the slice of a pie. She wandered in and our of the circle until the design blossomed in the sand like an abstract rose.
The women were intrigued and excited and began to expand on the idea until they decided to lay out their own labyrinth and chose a spot on a hill, far enough away that it had been ignored and unclaimed by both groups.
As the group trudged up the hill to check out the location, there was laughter and soft, excited chatter. Izzy placed her hand in Peg's and gave it a squeeze. Peg looked down at her, “How are you doing?”
I'm ok, but I wonder if this will matter at all if the rest of the people still want to kill each other off.”
Peg hugged her niece, “It might not make any difference at all, but it probably will. It is hard to ignore the voices of the Mom who raised you, and fed you and cared for you. It is hard to ignore the wife who welcomes you home and feeds you. In our world when men want to cause hatred and make people so angry and fearful that they are willing to die for the cause, they know they need to start telling their stories of hate young, and they know the ones whose voices are heard even more loudly than their own are the moms. That is why so many hate filled extremists, do not want the girls to be educated or the women to realize their own power. A good man is not afraid of a smart woman.”
You make it sound like all the war is started by men.”
No, and you know there are good men, and bad women. I don't mean to imply that Dads don't teach their children to be strong and kind, or that women can't be war mongers. I'm old enough that I think in the ways I was taught as a child, and the roles of men and women were more tightly defined then. You are lucky Izzy, you can be anything you want to be and people will judge how you do it. That I wanted to be a woman farmer even without a man around made some people judge me, even hate me, because If I didn't want to be a nurse or a teacher and then a wife and a mom, I must nor be a real woman.”
Then how did you get brave enough to follow your dream?”
I came here as a child, well not here to the Island, but to Uhrlin. And I had to be strong, and bull headed and no-one had the same prejudices as in earth in my time or knew me at all, so they waited to see what I did before judging me.”

But really, my point here is not what men or woman can do, but that a few small voices, men, women or children, speaking calmly, can show sense to the fearful and calm an angry mob.”