summer goals

People can debate back and forth forever  on writer’s block and if it is real, or how to cure it. One group of writers insists that if writing is approached like a job, and one writes every day, even if what they produce is garbage, that that “Shitty first draft” is infinitely better than having produced nothing. At least a bad draft can be improved on and polished. But even polished and fossilized shit is still just shit at the core is the counter argument.

I’m not sure it matters when after months of not writing, I have nothing but a lot of Facebook posts, and if I could have pushed through and written three books in that time is no longer relevant. I didn’t.

What might matter is the future. A school year is ending and the greater freedom of summer beckons with possibility. This year my husband is retiring as a music teacher after 29 years, and transferring to a year round, General ed. teacher at a huge penitentiary. So no family summer vacation plans. If I do as I hope to, I will discover if I am capable still of the drive needed to finish a novel. Yes, I’ve done it four times before, but this one is its own beast. Im not sure yet that I can tame it into submission while spending time digging out twenty years of clutter from the unused rooms of my house to accommodate play space for grandkids, and also playing with those grand grandkids. 

I just hope that when August comes, and a new granddaughter along with it, that I have figured out the many aches and pains of my rheumatoid arthritis and found a happy medium where I can be productive as a writer, and involved as a grandmother. 

WISH ME LUCK

Summer Reading Program

 I should have been writing this summer, but the last book I wrote was still my Redwoods book. Instead of writing, I have been traveling From the OR/CA Border Pacific Coast, to visit family in DC and then we had company visit us here and spent a lot of days playing in the Redwoods, exploring the lighthouse and the sea animals.

 Then I had to rip old, ugly carpeting out of my room, and while doing that, thin out the books crowding my bedroom library. The granddaughter thought I should keep all the books and just not put a bed back in. She assured me her dolly said the floor was comfortable to sleep on.

 but her grandpa assured me a bed was necessary so she was out-voted.

 I did keep the first books I ever wrote

 and I took the granddaughter to arts and crafts at our local library to convince both of us that we don't have to OWN every book to be able to enjoy them.

the books I got rid of

The Virdi Goode reading picnic

But of course I got new books. Three books by R. R. Virdi, with lots of super supernatural encounters, mystery, mayhem and adventure joined my own novels and picture books for a pleasant afternoon under the maple tree.

Reaching for the Redwoods

Once upon a time I began to live among Giants, ancient, long lived beings of another race entirely.

And then I began to photograph them and bring my friends and family to visit them and to rest in their shadow.

Many times I climbed upon their fallen and mourned a loss or stood astonished to discover a new life bursting forth from a fallen corpse.

My children and grandchildren became so accustomed to their size that only giants appeared nirmL in their eyes.  I still seek out their companionship when I grow weary and need peace. For awhile now I have not been writing much, but I'm back at it and sensing the completion of a picture book about redwoods happening in time for Christmas gifts.  

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

Duffy Barkley: the Third Charm

It gives me a lot of happiness to finally be able to announce that the Third book in the Tales of Uhrlin is available. This has been one long process, and I had fun working on it, but for awhile I felt like I was telling too many stories and had lost the p;ace where they could intersect. Sometimes I plan the story I tell, but this one seemed to be running ahead of me, telling me I was much too slow in following after and jotting down my notes.  Even once the story was completed, I kept making strange things happen in the book formatting so that I was being told it would need a minimum price of $72 !!! 

 Finally I got it to $15 for the paper book and $2.99 on kindle.  So this adventure begins without Duffy. He is 13 in this third book, and his sister Izzy and his Great-Aunt Peg go missing from Peg's farm. Many of the old friends show up again of course, and Uhrlin as always, has danger and adventure enough to make a tale worth telling, and worth reading.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BH38TWO?*Version*=1&*entries*=0

The paperback may not be live until February 8th, which is a good day for me, my Father-In-Law has been a second Father to me for 33 years now and it is his 87th birthday.

This map was the source of my pricing headaches, as trying to have a color map made the printer think the entire book needed to be priced as if the pages were all in full color. 

SeaBee meets a tiny Hippocampus

Another year, more writing and family

 I just signed up again to attend the South Coast Writers Conference in Gold Beach Oregon over Valentine's weekend.  http://writing.shawguides.com/SouthCoastWritersConference
Hopefully it will be a good weekend to focus on two of the most important parts of my life, my husband and my writing.  Last year when I attended it was wonderful for my writing, and motivated me to get back in and finish a book I'd been working on for a couple years now. It wasn't a great time for focusing on my husband however, as I was there, and he was flying up to Spokane Washington with the choir students who had qualified for All-Northwest.  For Valentine's Day we sent a few texts and a picture of the view from each Motel, and mine won hands down. But even with a gorgeous hot tub deck on the beach was still me, alone.  I did write a lot that weekend.

and blogged about it here http://duffybarkley.blogspot.com/2015/02/20th-annual-south-coast-writers.html

As always, I have been reading a lot, and as it is January, I completed my book a week reading challenge on Goodreads with 64 books read.  Looking back at my list, I see that I am a very unfocused reader.  I do read a lot of young adult and middle grade fiction, fantasy, stamping, Science Fiction and try to read a lot of books by other Indie Authors because I have found that there is much gold in that pile, often overlooked. I try to write reviews because reviews of my books matter a lot to me, but I refuse to write a 1 or 2 star review.  My reasoning there is that if the book isn't for me, I'm going to stop reading once I figure that out.  There are too many wonderful books which I will never be able to read, for me to give even one day to one that doesn't entertain or educate me.  Lately I have been getting emails asking me to read and review specific books, sometimes I say yes, but I'm not usually willing to take the time unless I am fascinated by the book description, and if I don't read it completely all I give is an email explaining why the book isn't for me.

I have also read mysteries, biographies, and children's books. My favorite books this year are probably the following ten. Not in any specific Order

The Rosie Effect by Graeme Samson
The Mancy Martial Artist (my Chocolate, the addicting series I can't begin to explain why I love) by     Richard Raley
Hi, Pizza Man (Picture book with my granddaughter is so much fun) by Virginia Walter
The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind by William Kamkwamba
Floor 21by Jason Luthor
Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen
The Severed Earth by Chris Presta-Valachovic
Grave Beginnings by R.R. Virdi
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Division by Lee S. Hawke

and then the books I read by Tana French, John Scalzi,

The cover of the book I'm editing at the moment, book 3 in the Tales of Uhrlin, about a boy with Cerebral Palsy,  9 year old Duffy Barkley (now 13) and his adventures after surviving a school shooting and ending up in a portal world.

Two of the real life wonders that make being me as important as writing right now.  I love my Granddaughter, and have a grandson on the way, and I adore my brothers, my sons and that husband I've been with for 34 years

and my kid's picture books

I hope 2016 is off and giving you much to enjoy, challenges and people to love.