Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Is It a Robin Or a Chicken

I'm sitting at the computer by the dining room window. In hindsight putting the computer there may have been a mistake. With most of the lawn showing, I keep glancing out to see if I might spot a robin or at least a rabbit. I know it's too early by the calendar, but I can hope. The dense fog makes it hard to see, but I think the only animals prowling in my yard are not rabbits but cats and the birds not robins but chickens. All this window gazing makes it hard to concentrate on business. The Amish book I'm working on is coming along but slower than I'd like, and that is mostly my fault.

Have you ever gotten wrapped up in a book's characters until you feel as if you know them especially in a series where you read about the same ones again and again? I hear comments like that all the time from my readers about the characters in my books. Somehow, when I'm writing a book I feel like I'm in the characters heads as the story flows. Except with this one, I outlined the story to have a sad ending for one of the characters. I for one am not fond of sad endings like the ones that Nicholas Sparks uses. However, his endings are very effective and a surprising shock. Having said that, I'm a fan of Mr. Sparks works and pay close attention to how he writes his books to see why his writing style makes him popular.

Now I'm starting the sad part near the end of the book and watching for a robin/rabbit in procrastination. I wound up rooting for one of the characters, wishing she could keep her new way of life with a future ahead of her, and all the time I knew what I had to do. As the author, her fate is in my hands. So I compromised with myself. I will write the sad chapter, and after that write one more chapter with a funny feel better outlook to show that life does go on no matter what. My hope is to leave the readers laughing instead of sad at the end of the book and again wanting another book. In a recent email from one reader, she writes she hopes I keep writing my Nurse Hal Among The Amish series until Nurse Hal has grandchildren. That might take awhile. Nurse Hal just had her first baby in this book which is the fourth in the series. It won't be long until I'm ready to publish then I'll wait to find out how the readers liked this story titled "As Her Name Is So Is Redbird".

My twitter follower count has picked up over the last few months. I stock pile the twitter emails for a week or two and answer them all at once with follows and messages. That brings me more followers. It certainly is a good way for me to advertise my Amish and Mystery series. My challenge is trying to get in titles and sales places with the limited amount of characters. I'm getting followers in England now. Amazon opened up Kindle to England last year and several other countries since then. My books are selling in the UK. Maybe that's why they hunt for me on twitter. MyEnter.Net follows me on twitter. If anyone else wants to follow me my address is
http://www.twitter.com/booksbyfay

I'm still working on my author site at http://www.writersownwords.com/booksbyfay
I see that Google search is picking up some of my entries from the writersownwords site. I didn't think it would hurt if I take my time entering summaries for the book list. That way I'm stringing the advertising out. Take a look at my picture if you have time on the home page. It's actually two pictures I put together and did a little painting in Photo shop to blend the two. One is southern Missouri north of Cabool, Missouri in a fall rain, and the other with the Amish buggy is in southern Iowa on highway 63.

Okay now I best get back to work before I actually do see a robin. That might be a good excuse to take the rest of the day off and celebrate spring way ahead of everyone else. Enjoy this wonderful winter and have a Happy Valentine Day.

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