Starting Over ~ Home Sweet Home

Posted on September 17, 2013 by Linda Barrett

TIME ZONES…

My five week sojourn up north is over, and I’m happy to be back home with fingers on the keyboard. Hopefully, my brain is engaged as well. My visit to family and friends was a change of pace and often a delight, but it was not a vacation in the traditional sense of the word. No hotels. No maids. No wait staff. Here are some excerpts from real life, and you can judge for yourself:

My four-year old grandson and I are playing Uno. I’m down to my last card and call, Uno! He looks at me, twinkle in his eye, grin on his face and says, “Fifteen kisses if you show me the card.” We both know how this goes. I open my arms and relish his slight weight against me, his little boy kisses on my cheek and his high laughter in my ears. He is delicious. I must have put in about twenty hours of Uno.

“Let me help with the dishes,” I say to my daughter-in-law. She waves me away. “I’m fine. I’m fine.” She’s confident, capable and a delight. A wonderful mom to my grandchildren. But she doesn’t need my help–so I spend more time with the kids, and everyone is happy. Including me! I think my d-i-l is very clever 🙂 At the same time, my son is with his dad inspecting the outside of the house. They work together because that’s what fathers and sons do. This young couple, whom I love so much, are following in their parents’ footsteps. Marriage, babies, noise and family. And their doors are wide open to grandparents. Amen.

Happy grandparents with their Florida and New England kiddos. All in one place. Yay!

“The house is quiet,” says my empty-nester cousin who’s my age. My northern friends says the same thing. “The kids visit, but maybe we’ll buy something smaller.” I nod. Empty bedrooms cost money to heat and cool. The houses we lived in have so many stairs…. Hadn’t my golfer guy and I moved to Florida and something smaller? We listen to an update on their children’s doings — college graduations, marriages, new careers– albeit sometimes stalled careers, but new beginnings for the younger generation. And I think…Wait a minute! We’re all experiencing new beginnings, new experiences. The adventure continues for my friends and me as well.

We visit my mother-in-law two or three times a week. She is 95 years old and cannot be left alone. An aide lives with her. The aide is very competent but she’s not family. We settle for competent. Always petite, my mother-in-law is now a shadow of her former self. With little strength, she walks with mincing steps to the bathroom. Then she points at my golfer guy. “That’s my son!” Right. And she knows her daughter. But she needs a lot of coaching to identify her grandchildren and other relatives in photos which are kept handy. Like her vitality, her memory is a thing of the past. Mostly, she recalls her own mother.

My sojourn north lasted a month. I crossed many time zones–sometimes all in one day–while never leaving the east coast.

I’m ready to stay home for awhile.

As always, thank you so much for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed meeting the authors and learning about the anthology CELEBRATE! in the blog series I posted in August. Looking forward to seeing you next time at Starting Over.

WE HAVE A WINNER! The winner of the August contest is: Sharon! Sharon will be receiving a $25 gift certificate and a boxed set of books. I appreciate every visitor to the blog. Thank you, Sharon, for participating.

NEW CONTEST IN OCTOBER TO CELEBRATE THE RELEASE OF TWO NEW BOOKS. STAY TUNED…

Available October 3rd

Available October 17th

Starting Over ~ CELEBRATE!

Posted on September 12, 2013 by Linda Barrett

Hi everyone – I just got back from vacation and discovered that I screwed up the schedule and never published the following blog so you’d know I’d be away until today. The blog was originally supposed to appear on August 29th. Oy. I am so sorry. I thought I’d figured everything out and was so organized… So now, if you’ll indulge me, I’d appreciate catching up. As a little extra today, here comes the cover reveal–you are the very first to see this. It’s not even been on Facebook yet!

The front cover

We’d recently talked about first lines of famous books. I introduced you to four author friends who are joining me in releasing an anthology of stories based on holidays. The book is coming out in mid-October. You’ve gotten a taste of everyone’s story except mine! So here’s what I had prepared for August 29th:

CELEBRATE! — A five story anthology plus a novella about holidays we celebrate throughout the year. All written by award-winning authors of On Fire Fiction.

The month has flown by, and today is the last of the posts about holidays, short stories and the anthology CELEBRATE! of which I’m so proud to be a part. True confession: this is my very first time contributing to a group project. In the past, I just didn’t have the opportunity. But now, as an indie pubbed author, I’ve got the freedom to create opportunities simply by finding other writers who might be interested, and then–just doing it!

If you’re familiar with my work, you know that my romance novels contain lots of families. It seems I enjoy working with “a cast of thousands” rather than with a lone hero and heroine. But the families in my books are hurting and must struggle to find their happy endings. I find this set-up strange because I grew up in a very solid and happy family. So maybe I want everyone to have what I had. My short story is no different. Two lonely adults with two recalcitrant kids are challenged to find their way to love and laughter.

I chose to combine MOTHER’S DAY and FATHER’S DAY as my holidays to celebrate. It’s tough to separate them when the theme of the story is second chances for everyone–the adults and their children. Although this story has never been published before, it has been seen by other eyes. I entered the shorter version into a national short story contest when I first wrote it some years ago, and it placed in the top ten entries out of almost 2000. That achievement gave me the confidence to keep writing, to keep trying for a professional career. And here I am!

STORY TITLE: Man of the House

FIRST LINES: This can’t be good news. The readout on Nancy Wyatt’s desk phone said Pulitzer Middle School, and her stomach knotted as tightly as a fishing line around bait.

Uh-oh. Doesn’t every mom’s stomach hurt when her kid’s school calls in the middle of the day? Poor Nancy. What’s in store for her after she picks up that receiver.

I hope this peaked your interest as a first line. Maybe not in the class of “Call me Ishmael,” but in its own class of contemporary fiction. As a reminder, my women’s fiction novel, FAMILY INTERRUPTED is available at all the usual places that sell electronic books. But it’s also available in paperback at Amazon or CreateSpace. Here’s a pic of me holding it in my hot little hands.:

The PRINT edition is here!

I still get a kick out of seeing it!

As always, thank you so much for stopping by. I hope you’ve enjoyed this series of blogs about the authors of CELEBRATE! And I hope you add the book to your collection.

Announcement: I’ll be on vacation next week. Hope to see you for the next edition of Starting Over on Thursday, September 12th. Thanks for being loyal visitors. I appreciate each and every one of you!

Thanks for letting me share the background of this story a little later than I had in mind. Next Tuesday, we’ll be back to regular blogs about Starting Over.

CONTINUING THE AUGUST CONTEST AND WILL POST A WINNER ON TUESDAY. JUST MAKE A COMMENT AND YOUR NAME WILL BE ENTERED. THE PRIZES ARE A CHOICE OF ONE THE SELECTIONS BELOW AS WELL AS A $25 GIFT CERTIFICATE TO AMAZON OR BN. YOUR CHOICE 🙂

Starting Over ~ Meet the Authors of CELEBRATE!

Posted on August 27, 2013 by Linda Barrett

CELEBRATE! – A five story anthology plus a novella about holidays we celebrate throughout the year. All written by authors of On Fire Fiction.

I feel like I’m hosting a party, introducing people who I know will turn out to enjoy each other’s company. At least in the world of books. Wonderful authors matched with enthisastic readers. That’s what I call a party. Of course, it used to be called a book signing…but I think that’s evolved to its electronic versions–blogs and other social media. To me, it’s all good as long as writers and readers connect.

It’s time to connect with Dee Davis who’s favorite genre is romantic suspense. She’s written lots of them. Has won awards for them. Somehow, she figured out how to combine a thriller with holiday good times. With a little inspiration from one of her favorite movies, Die Hard, she managed to combine loss and hope…and a killer. Dee is the author of our stand-alone holiday novella, Still of the Night..

In another life, Dee would choose to be a rock singer, an actress or a winery owner. Hmm..is there a theme here. Maybe creativity? She loves anthologies because she usually gets to know authors who are new to her, stories she can read in an hour or so. “I’ve found amazing hew authors and worked to find copies of old anthologies with stories from authors I already loved.”

I agree with Dee. I view an anthology as a schmorgasbord of stories and authors. You can taste a little from everyone at the party. Dee Davis is part of the On Fire Fiction group of authors, but her holiday story stands on it’s own as a separate publication. Here’s a taste of Dee’s novella:

STORY TITLE: Still of the Night

FIRST LINE: “I’ll be home for Christmas…” Judy Garland crooned in surround-sound, and Jenny Fitzgerald resisted the urge to throw something.

Oh-oh. I think Jenny’s world is upside down. That’s a huge reaction to the words home and Christmas, the opposite emotions of what those words usually generate. Maybe she’s getting divorced. Maybe she lost her job. Maybe…maybe…maybe… Maybe she’d being blackmailed. I want to know more! A good first line.

We’re going to wind up this series next time with my own contribution to CELEBRATE!. As always, thank you so much for stopping by. I hope to see you for the next edition of Starting Over.

POST A COMMENT AND YOUR NAME WILL BE ENTERED INTO MY AUGUST CONTEST. THE PRIZES ARE A CHOICE OF ONE OF THE SELECTIONS BELOW AS WELL AS A $25 GIFT CERTIFICATE AT EITHER AMAZON OR BN. YOUR CHOICE!