Kalona Iowa trip

Yesterday was a beautiful summer day in early spring. Just a fluke it seems since today is thirty degrees cooler and rainy. Not that I'm complaining. We need the rain because optimists that we are, we already have quite a bit of veggies planted in our garden and five tomatoes set out. The ground is cold but dry and needed the moisture. Today the apricot tree is a mass of pink, tulips and hyacinths are in bloom and the bush cherries are snow white. Now that makes me an optimist because I know warm weather is not far behind.
We had our pick of Friday or Saturday to go to Kalona to see the quilt show and tour the Amish grocery stores, antique shops and countryside. Hoping that the weather man was right about Friday, we went yesterday and were real pleased with the day. There is something surreal about parking next to a horse and rockaway or eating in a booth with an Amish man waiting for his food in the next booth and an Amish woman serving us. Though Amish driven horses with rockaways and springboards were out and about, the fields were being prepared by tractor (with steel wheels) driven equipment. I've read the Amish are fifty years behind the modern times. To them, their tractors must be quite an improvement over horses.
Gotta go
booksbyfay
booksbyfay@yahoo to order my books
www.amazon.com to buy my books
Lemstone Christian Bookstore in Cedar Rapids to buy my two Alzheimer's books.

It's a good day in the neighborhood

It's a good day when I've done something that helps other people. I just came from doing two presentations at the local high school Alzheimer's. The short time those health classes spend doing clinicals at the nursing home is so short they can't really get a sense of how hard it is for the residents who are suffering with Alzheimer's. I spent fifteen and a half years taking care of those residents and my father before that. I told those teenagers I made lemonade out of the lemons life handed me. First taking care of my father for ten years then my mother after that and working at the nursing home taught me so much. I wrote two books and joined the Alzheimer's Association as a volunteer, had a Alzheimer's support group for eight years. The experiences have been great, but nothing is better than talking to those young people that are just starting out and need to learn about this dreadful disease that is going to take the life away from so many elderly Americans in the next few decades if we don't find a cure.
Anyone need to learn more about this disease my books "Open A Window" a training education for all caregivers and my experiences with my father "Hello Alzheimer's Good Bye Dad" can be purchased through me at booksbyfay@yahoo or through the Lemstone Christian Bookstore in Cedar Rapids, Iowa or Amazon
Gotta Go
Booksbyfay
Fay Risner

Website for promotion of book

I've got a list of websites. Author Den www.authorden is one that I like. I put the first chapters of my books on the site and get comments from readers about how they liked the stories. It's good to get feed back especially if the review is a good one.
Have company coming.
Gotta go
booksbyfay
Fay Risner
www.booksbyfay.tripod.com
booksbyfay@yahoo to buy my books from me
www.amazon to buy any of my books

Happy Easter

Happy Easter. Yesterday was cool and cloudy, but not bad as far as Easters go. Today is much colder and rainy. Two days ago I set out a tomato plant with a milk jug over it. Tonight is going to get down to freezing. That might put an end to my experiment. We'll see.
Today has been a day to stay on the computer doing research. So many websites to look through, I get bleary eyed just trying to digest all that I find. I printed some of the information off and put in a folder. Some day I might be able to use it.
Gotta go
Booksbyfay
Fay Risner
booksbyfay@yahoo to buy my books
www.amazon.com to buy my books

Spring fever and aches

Spring fever has set in. I worked in my flowers beds all afternoon yesterday and can barely move in an upright position today. Now I know why I didn't get a job doing manual labor with a shovel. In fact the fever is so bad, my husband tilled up the garden. I suppose he did it just to loosen the top soil, but I took that tilling as serious business and carried my seed potatoes to the garden. He told me it wasn't Good Friday yet. I said that was only a day away. In Iowa, not much grows until after the first of May. Potatoes may get bit back but they come right back up. I'm thinking about setting out one of the tomato plants I started in the house with a milk jug on top and see what happens. The earliest is about May 10th for Iowa, but I have plenty of plants. Around Kalona, Iowa, the Amish had rows of milk jugs in their gardens. That's just an hour south of me. Can't be that much difference in the temperature. Why not go for it.
Gotta go. The garden is calling me.
booksbyfay
www.booksbyfay.tripod.com
www.amazon to buy my books
booksbyfay@yahoo to buy my books from me

Roadtrip to Kalona

Yesterday was a beautiful day. Windy as usual but sunny. We drove an hour away to the biggest Amish settlement west of the Mississippi River or so the handouts told us. We looked at some antique stores and marveled at a showroom full of Amish quilts. I love to quilt but I never will ever be able to make the tiny stitches used in those quilts. We ate at a grocery store/deli ran by Amish. We had planned to go to an Amish store that had bulk items out in the country but the woman at the Visitor's center said we picked the wrong day. Wouldn't you know! Well a week from now on Saturday is a quilt show that I have heard about for years in the Kalona Community Building. I want to go back. We drove in the country and saw buggies coming and going. The Amish wanted to be out and about as bad as we did. Most farms had a wash blowing on the line of white and pastel clothes. On the porch swaying in the breeze were black dresses on hangers hung from the porch ceiling. I suppose the lady of the house didn't trust her good dresses to the Iowa breeze. Now until this morning, I had not tried hanging out clothes. I thought about how fresh those Amish clothes would smell and how soft the cotton material would feel after whipping all day. Every time I started for the door my husband would say it was too windy outside. I only saw one garment on the ground out of all that laundry. So this time I sneaked past my husband and out the door. I've checked several times and so far the clothes are on the line. Now it's time to bring them in so I can smell fresh, soft clothes. While I was in Amish Country I took note of how farms looked and bought two books on the Amish. More research right at the source.
Gotta go fill the laundry basket,
Fay Risner
booksbyfay
www.booksbyfay.tripod.com
booksbyfay@yahoo to contact me about buy my books
www.amazon to buy any of my books

Antique Roadshow

How many of you watch the Antique Roadshow? It comes on in my area on Monday nights and I try never to miss it. I like hearing about antiques, but not just because I think my Great Great Aunt Agnes is going to leave her married highboy from 1798. Anyone that writes historical fiction stories need descriptions to add to an object or piece of furniture. That's hard to do if you don't know what these pieces are suppose to look like. So you do research. I just included Antique Roadshow in my research. Seeing those odd shaped pieces of pottery or brightly painted vases and dishes or elegant silver service make it a lot easier for me to describe.
Gotta Go
booksbyfay
www.booksbyfay.tripod.com
booksbyfay@yahoo to buy my books from me
www.amazon to buy my books
Lemstone Christian Bookstore Cedar Rapids, Iowa to buy my two caregiver books about Alzheimer's

When is the story completed

When is the story completed? The author can't think of anything else. Gives the manuscript to the editor. The story flows well enough to suit the editor. Suddenly I became nervous. Is there more I can add? A word, a sentence a paragraph that might make the story flow easier and make the story more entertaining. So over the weekend I did just that. Went over the story and reworked a few spots. Now I will let the manuscript rest then go over it at least once more when my mind is take on reading the whole manuscript again. I imagine that every author goes through the same type of anxiety. There comes a time to say to yourself, "It's time to stop writing." My creation needs to be published in book form. I keep telling myself that. I'll let you know when the event happens.
Gotta go,
booksbyfay
Fay Risner
www.booksbyfay.tripod.com to see more about my books and writing
booksbyfay@yahoo to order one of my books
Lemstone Christian Bookstore in Cedar Rapids, Iowa to buy my two educational books for caregivers about Alzheimer's
www.bushwhackermuseum to order my civil war book "Ella Mayfield's Pawpaw Militia"
www.amazon.com to order any of my fifteen books

Blizzard, maybe not

My husband jokingly asked me awhile ago if I'd like him to tie a rope from the house to the barn when I went to feed my bottle babies. It has been making a half hearted attempt at sleeting and snowing all afternoon and melting as fast as it falls except in the grass. We are to get two inches before morning. Next week is to be warm so I don't expect this storm to amount to much here although I know some areas have had a blizzard and more snow than we do. Something about winter weather makes it easy for me to write and write. Guess it's because I don't feel like I have much else to do. Do I have a touch of spring fever? You bet I do every time I water my forty tomato plants that are about 6 inches high. Every time I make a pass by my flower beds to see what new flower has peeked out I can hardly wait to see blooms and put in other flowers to make summer colors. In the meantime, I am getting very close to having my manuscript ready to send to the publisher and excited about seeing another one of my creations in print.
Gotta go,
booksbyfay
Fay Risner
www.booksbyfay.tripod.com
booksbyfay@yahoo to buy one of my books
Lemstone Bookstore in Cedar Rapids, Iowa to buy my two books on caring for people with Alzheimer's
www.bushwhackermuseum to buy my Civil War book
www.amazon to buy any of my books

Critiques are useful

I received two critiques about the next book that I am releasing soon. One reviewer told me what I needed to edit and watch out for as far as mistakes go in the first five chapters. Too late of course. I had an editor go over the book and have already remedied the errors. The other reviewer didn't say a thing about mistakes. That one said the five chapters made the reader want to read more to see what happened. Both reviewers thought the premise of the book was original. Maybe I have hit on something that hasn't been done when telling the story about the Amish. If readers like my book, I think it would be great to make a series about the characters.
No matter who edits a book, I have seen errors in published books. It is so easy to see those errors when you read if you are looking for them in another person's work. When it is something you wrote, your brain skips over the mistakes. That is just the unfortunate way it is. So because I self publish there might be a slight editing error in a place or two. When I've asked buyers about this, I get told they love my stories so much that they are so anxious to read on that they don't pay attention to errors. That doesn't detract from the story for the readers. Now that makes me feel good. Do I want a perfect book? You bet I do. Am I ever going to have one? only time will tell. Sent for my ISBN number and Library of Congress application today so have at least that long to go over my story. joined www.allvoices.com/journalism on the advice of a person who has read this blog. Thanks for the kind words from that person.
Gotta go
booksbyfay
Fay Risner
www.booksbyfay.tripod.com
booksbyfay@yahoo to buy my books from me
www.amazon.com to buy my books
Lemstone Christian Bookstore in Cedar Rapids, Iowa to buy my two non fiction Alzheimer's books for caregivers "Open A Window" and "Hello Alzheimer's Good Bye Dad"
www.camppope to buy my Civil War fiction book
www.bushwhackermuseum to buy my Civil War fiction book "Ella Mayfield's Pawpaw Militia"
www.bookorphanage to buy my mystery book "Neighbor Watchers"

Which Came First Me or The Computer

I wonder sometimes if I'm just that dumb or does the computer just make me feel that way. I'm self taught where the computer is concerned except from my younger brother who teaches computer classes. Now that I've been entering a lot of websites to promote my books, I find nothing comes easy. I wind up emailing the support system to get help to finish enrolling. After that using the site is a breeze. I guess the moral here is never give up and have patience. When you least expect it, one of the website enrollments will go smoothly.

For once I left the computer alone and went shopping yesterday. The main objective was to take books to the Lemstone Christian Bookstore in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It's always a thrill to have a bookstore help sell your books. In most cases for a self publisher, I imagine you have to know the bookstore owners or be quite a salesman as a local author to get the bookstore to take you on during a book signing. In my case, I went to school with the couple who own the bookstore. Did that help? Maybe, but if my books hadn't passed their book qualifications, I wouldn't have had the opportunity.
Gotta Go
Booksbyfay
Fay Risner
Keystone, Iowa
www.booksbyfay.tripod.com
booksbyfay@yahoo to buy my books from me
Lemstone Christian Bookstore in Cedar Rapids, Ia for my two books on Alzheimer's. It's time to learn more about that disease. My books are educational and train caregivers.