Winning

Thank you to the 660 people who signed up for an opportunity to win an autographed copy of my most recent novel in The Tales of Uhrlin, Duffy Barkley: the Third Charm. The Goodreads Giveaway ended on 4/16/16 with three winners.

Mary from Maryland
Chelene from Ohio
Benoit from Quebec

It is gratifying to see so many people express an interest in one of my books, and while I wish I could give that many away, of course I can't. Still, I hope that some of you who did not win are intrigued enough to buy a copy, and if, like me, cash is too tight, I hope sometime in the future you remember my hero and his ability to have adventures and make friends in spite of what others would consider his handicapping condition. After having a chance to live without it for awhile, of course, Duffy now knows he isn't strong in spite of having cp, but he is strong and who he is, because of having cp. like Duffy, I have learned to embrace all the things that make me who I am, even those I fought against for years.

Again, thanks for your time and attention.

Joy and beauty to all of you.

Camp NaNo and Trying for Lucky 7 while marketing my 6th book

On February 5th, the third Duffy Barkley adventure in Uhrlin, Duffy Barkley: the Third Charm, was published. Now it is being offered on Goodreads with a chance to win one of three autographed paperbacks.

https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/177180-duffy-barkley-the-third-charm-tales-of-uhrlin-3?utm_medium=email&utm_source=giveaway_approved

If you are interested in the other books in the series, they are available on Amazon, or can be ordered by your local bookstore. http://www.amazon.com/Dixie-Dawn-Miller-Goode/e/B004458ES2/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1457742536&sr=1-1

21st Annual Gold Beach Writer's Conference

Now that my children are grown, and Holidays are more about their homes than mine, my favorite holiday has switched and become one I indulge in purely for me.  It is always President's Day weekend, which usually coincides with Valentine's Day, but it isn't because of either of those that I love it.  Valentine's is great, but Ive been with my husband since 1982, and he loves me every day, and he is a music teacher who is often off delivering "Valen-tunes" with his choir students, or like last year, traveling to a music festival with them.

So, No.  I love this weekend because it is about WRITING.  Just an hour north of my home is a lovely, but very tiny town nestled right on the beach, and they host the South Coast Writer's Conference and have for 21 years now.

Sometimes the beach is very different from year to year, storms move the sand and logs a lot, but it is beautiful under the sun or in a storm.  This year, I got lucky.  Just outside my motel room, a mere block from the fairgrounds where the conference began, was a deliciously warm beach filled with drifts of seafoam.

and this year, I had just published the third book in my Duffy Barkley series only 9 days before, so I had a lot to share at the conference.  There is the coolest bookstore there in town too, huge and friendly and besides books, filled with local art and a yummy bakery.

http://www.amazon.com/Dixie-Dawn-Miller-Goode/e/B004458ES2/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1456952437&sr=1-2-ent

Peter Brown Hoffmeister, author of The Intentional Art of Failure

https://peterbrownhoffmeister.wordpress.com

 The Friday offers longer, more in depth classes and then an evening with a keynote speaker and shorter speeches from all the presenters.  Saturday gives us two classes in the morning, two more in the evening, then book sales, and finally a writer's critique circle.  I was lucky enough to get to meet some people in person from a facebook writers group based 90 miles south of me. Previously I had only interacted with them on-line.

Anne Osterlund presenting "Sweat The Small Stuff"

http://www.amazon.com/Anne-Osterlund/e/B001JRRLW8/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1456952892&sr=1-1

Anne says, "92% of submissions are full of grammar and spelling mistakes - so if you are not doing that you are already in the top 8%."

it was fun to see that the pile of my books for sale at the bookstore was a lot smaller than the last time I dropped in.

Heidi Schulz, author of Hook's Revenge

 http://www.amazon.com/Heidi-Schulz/e/B00IHRY05O/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1456952574&sr=1-1

 Heidi write middle grade humor and has a really good sense of her audience and a word of caution.  "Surprise and an exchange of power are the keys to humor. Be careful of the kind of humor that takes power from the powerless.  It can be an act of bravery to not laugh when everyone else is."  Punch up, not at those smaller than you.  Humor ca engender sympathy. We laugh with Groot and Rocket and then later we care about them.  Her best piece of writing advice, "be brave."

thinking back at all the solid advice I got, the simplest, easiest stuff was the best to remember.

Jason Brick said, "The jerk trying to force you to buy a used car is not a salesman. Being so loudly geeky about something you love that you make other people love it too.  That's sales."  

My friend and fellow author R. R. Virdi is a master , plus I honestly love his book, Grave Beginnings.

http://www.amazon.com/R.R-Virdi/e/B00J9PZ1YW/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1456952822&sr=1-1

Jason also had concrete sales advice, "have facebook and 1 more social media place you interact.  3 times a day, share something awesome and share somebody else, because nobody cares about you but they start caring about you when you start talking about them. Then comment intelligently or at least hilariously on at least one thread, ask a question or pick a fight.  Post at least 21 times a week, but only mention a blog post and your book 1 time each week, unless you are doing a special promo."

http://www.amazon.com/Jason-Brick/e/B00H4INFBM/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1456952635&sr=1-2-ent

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,

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1014233402?book_show_action=false

http://www.amazon.com/gp/review/R2G6YHCX1G5SXD/ref=cm_cr_pr_rvw_ttl?ASIN=B00K3Y08P0

 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.

Sometimes my Heart Recognizes a Story it could only love

     I can't remember where I first heard of this book, but I found it on my own Amazon page wish list and had obviously thought about it at one of those times when even a kindle book was outside my price range.  But I got an Amazon gift card as a birthday present recently, and right before I went to buy a copy of Two Loves Found, a sequel to a book I had just read by Sandy Graham - I found a copy of that book arriving in my mailbox as an unexpected gift.











my review of that here https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/976807623?book_show_action=false





 So anyway, I actually had book $$ and nothing in mind to spend it on, and found that I had saved The Ruby Brooch to my wish list - So on a whim, I ordered it.  I didn't even check to see what it was about, trusting my own taste even though I could obviously no longer trust my memory.

http://www.amazon.com/Brooch-Travel-Romance-Celtic-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B007QMSONK/ref=la_B007QP1I12_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1407433619&sr=1-1

I have never been more grateful that I had waited to get a book.  Yes, I enjoyed it a lot, and yes it was a blend of many of my favorite things, but it really was way too close to my own middle grade novel, Double Time On The Oregon Trail, for me to have been comfortable having to say I had read it before I wrote my own.  In fact, I'm pretty sure I never could have written my book if I had read this first, how would I ever have know for sure that my ideas were not lifted from this story?

So what we have here is a young woman, in 2012 who has recently lost her family in a horrible way, and then finds a letter telling her, that they are not her birth family, but that she was a baby, found on a doorstep, wrapped in a bloody, monogrammed shawl with a ruby brooch that, by the way, transports people and things through time.  When she learns this, she understands why her Dad has raised her with a ton of outdoor skills, and taken her on Oregon trail reenactments. She makes her plans to find out who she is, and uses the brooch to place herself at the start of the Oregon Trail in 1852.

I love time travel and the Oregon Trail, which is why I had a girl from 2002 communicating with a girl from 1850 in my novel - and traveling the highways that retrace the trail now it is always fun to compare my swimming pools and air conditioning to their dust and drought and campfires but Ms. Logan has so many different comparisons to think about that I was immediately hooked into her novel and couldn't put it down.  It was also interesting to see that even in the ten years between my modern 2002 and her 2012, there were changes such as my girl had a phone card, but her woman had a iPod, mine had printed pictures but hers had a digital camera.  I did have to wonder about one thing, I get that she could use a solar charger and charge the iPod, and show saved information on it back in 1852, but I'm wondering how they managed to get hooked in to see you-tube videos?

I'm not usually one to read romances, but her novel also had a few wonderful characters who felt real, and when I realized that her next book has one of them involved in a romance, non time travel, I still had enough of a balance on my card that I bought this sequel as well. I really wanted to know that this person was ok after seeing where The Ruby Brooch left him at the end.  I guess caring about the characters so much means that yes, I am recommending this book.

http://www.amazon.com/Double-Time-Dixie-Miller-Goode-ebook/dp/B008G3JZB8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1407433466&sr=8-1&keywords=double+time+on+the+Oregon+trail

and just above is the link to my own.

Thanks for reading.

Author Presentation Pays Off Big

 In my last post, I told you that I had been invited to do a presentation as an author to Pine Grove School.  My biggest message that I wanted to get across to these kids was't that they should buy my books, or be impressed with me, or even that they should want to be a writer.  I told them that they should look at me, someone who has dreamed of being a writer since I was their age, and know that if I could make that happen, that they could make their own dreams come true as well.  I admitted that following those dreams might need to be supplemented by something that gives them an income, but that, the thing that makes them most fully them, like writing does for me - should never be abandoned just because it is hard work for little financial gain.

 And after I talked to three groups of students, and ate at their wonderful banquet, I left and went back to work as a substitute teacher at another school.  But unknown to me, the kids were paying me for the message I had given them, and on the last day of school, I found my mailbox stuffed with the reward.

 Here are the Oohrah at the village off Oohline from my novels

 Dear Mrs. Goode, Thank you for teaching us about authoring and writing."

"Thank you for telling us to fallow our dremes"

"I'm writing my own book called, "The Mystery on Ridge Street", I'm on chapter 5, The Mist."

 "I want to be an author too.
sisirily,"


""I imagine it was hard making  book with waht evar you named yer book.
Sinserly,"

"My favorite book was your second book that you made for us to read."

 "Thank you for coming to Spring Arts Day. We learned a lot about writing a book. We would all love to buy your book."

"I think that you taught us a lot of tuff about how to make books. I have one of your books that you made."

"Thank you for telling my class and I about your books. In fact, one of my class mates bought your book."

"It is cool how you made your books and I would really want to read your books."

"I make better illustrations because I listened to you."

 "I think you did a good job on the book you read to us. It's so cool that I can know someone that wires books. It is just amazing how long they take to make."

"I really enjoy your novels, I am going to save up my alowance so I can buy your novels. The idea of a flying tiger is so creative. When I grow up maybe I can make a movie about your book if that's ok with you."

 "Thank you for telling us about your book you made. It also impressed my friend Kaleb. You told about some of it to us. I decided to buy one. I bought number one and two. They are really good so far. I enjoyed it when you were telling us part of it.  I told my little brother about yo and he wants to write books too."

"I would love to read your books and I want to be a singer."

 "Dear Mrs. Goode,
  Thank you for coming to Spring Arts Day.  I allways whonted to be an illustrator and now I know how hard it is to be a illustrator. "

 "Dear Mrs. Goode,

I think your the best substitute teacher in the world.! I mean, we're both writers so I love hearing about your books and reading them! Oh, and I have great news for you!  remember, "Duffy Barkley is not a Dog"?  Well, I'm writing a story with the same Oz/Narnia concept.  It's called "the Adventures of Nina and Lilly 1# Portal in the Mountain side"  It's basically about talking mountain lion named Nina, and her hymn best friendLilly going on all these adventures but something always goes wrong. Happy Book Making!"

and the one last, but not least from a student who made me smile


"Dear Mrs. Goode,

I had a majestic time with you. I've never herd any stories like yours'.  You're Oregon Trail Story is like fiction in descise, (disguise) You have a really good amagination.'