Down with umbrellas

We've had a ton of rain lately, thank God. Atlanta's drought is officially over.

I was pushing my shopping cart out of the grocery store the other day in the middle of a downpour. I don't own an umbrella. There was no sense in trying to hide from the rain, so I kept my head up--and a huge flock of starlings swooped down from the sky and into a bare-limbed tree and off again, all in perfect synch with each other.

Okay, they were only starlings, but they were beautiful. If I'd had my head buried under an umbrella, I would have missed the show.

The hermit emerges, dusty books in hand

I feel like a hermit emerging from a cave, blinking at the sunlight. Hmm, it appears to be spring. Of a different year.

It has been a very long time since I touched this blog or any others. My sabbatical from blogs must have started about the time my laptop died, taking all my bookmarks with it. But I'm back.

Now, the ever-present question: Read any good books lately?

As a matter of fact, I have. I just finished Michael Snyder's My Name Is Russell Fink. Russell is a neurotic copier salesman with one too many women in his life. I don't know how I missed reading it when it first came out, but I'll be a lot faster to snatch up his second one. I believe it's coming out this summer, from Zondervan.

Besides reading a tall stack of nonfiction as research for my next project, I'm plowing through a pile of Life, Saturday Evening Post, and Ladies' Home Journals from 1940 and 1941. They're like time capsules. Great fun.

A game for bookish folks

My friend Amy Wallace has dragged me out of lurkdom by tagging me to play this little game. I'm not going to tag anybody, but if you feel like playing along, please tell us where to find your answers. You can read responses from Amy and some of her friends at her blog.

Here are the questions and my answers:

1. What's the one book or writing project you haven't yet written but still hope to?

I would love to write a story set in a fictional version of the town where I grew up, in the wine country of California's Central Coast. (Nope, not Napa. Farther south than that.) I don't have a plot yet. Just some very interesting characters who want to get out of my head someday.

2. If you had one entire day in which to do nothing but read, what book would you start with?

If we're talking about this week, it would be the Spring 2007 version of Relief Journal, which I still haven't had time to finish reading. Okay, so it's not exactly a book, but it's good stuff.

3. What was your first writing "instrument" (besides pen and paper)?

A very old computer that some friends lent me because they knew I had started writing, using only pen and paper. I didn't even know how to turn on a computer, and I was terribly afraid I would break the thing. I churned out my first and worst novel on that clunky computer. (That's one book that will never see the light of day.)

4. What's your best guess as to how many books you read in a month?

Depends on the month. Some months, I walk out of the library with a stack of books and read 'em all in a week. This month, I've hardly read anything because my muse has gone into overdrive and I have to keep up with her. (Or him. I've never figured out if my muse is a guy or a girl.)

5. What's your favorite writing "machine" you've ever owned?

So far, that would be the VAIO laptop that I'm typing on right now.

6. Think historical fiction: what's your favorite time period in which to read?

Anything from around 1900 all the way into the thirties and forties.

7. What's the one book you remember most clearly from your youth (childhood or teens)?

Probably To Kill a Mockingbird. I had never been outside of California, but that story transported me to the South. Years later, living in Alabama and Georgia, I felt as if I had already met the people and the land. I still re-read it once in a while.

Okay, there you have it. Thanks for inviting me to play, Amy!

Sherrie and Dee, hats and chats

Some of my friends have heard me speak of Sherrie Lord, who mentored me when I was first trying to figure out how on earth to write a novel. Sherrie and I attended the Colorado Christian Writers Conference last month, had a blast, and came away stoked to write new projects. She's a fabulous brainstormer and a great roommate. She wears beautiful hats, too. Everybody kept stopping her to say they loved her hats.

Sherrie launched her new blog today, complete with photos, so you can run over and say hi. Tell her I sent you.

And Deeanne Gist has launched a chat room where her friends and fans can gather. It's a hoot. Among other topics, she's collecting oddball names to use in future novels.

As for me, I've been neglecting my blog and my friends' blogs, but it's for a good cause. I'm writing a new novel while I wait to hear news of a couple of others that are still out there in Editorland, awaiting verdicts.

Off to Colorado

I'm off to the Colorado Christian Writers Conference this morning. (Yeah, so why am I blogging?)

I've got a book by Adam Sexton for airport reading (Master Class in Fiction Writing or something like that; not sure of the title) and comfortable shoes. I'm looking forward to a reunion with my good friend Sherrie Lord, who put me up to going.

If I have internet access there, I might find time to check in, now and then. Or not. See you sometime soon!

Rejoicing with my friends

The last couple of weeks have been chock-full of good news for some friends of mine. In no particular order....

Amy Wallace's debut novel, Ransomed Dreams, has been released. It's an action-packed, suspenseful story of a young woman who lost her family but dares to dream again, with the help of an agent with the F.B.I. Crimes Against Children unit. Check it out here.

Mary E. DeMuth's Wishing on Dandelions has been nominated for a Retailer's Choice Award. It's a lovely story, a sequel to Watching the Tree Limbs.

Deeanne Gist's latest novel, Courting Trouble, is hitting the shelves. The heroine, Essie, is original, funny, and brave. Read some of Dee's thoughts about the book here.

Suzan Robertson, Mark Bertrand, and Mike Duran have each received word that they're having short stories published in Coach's Midnight Diner, which is affiliated with Relief Journal.

Mark Bertrand's nonfiction book, Rethinking Worldview, is up on Amazon. Read some of his thoughts about it here.

Deborah Gyapong's novel, The Defilers, is a finalist in two categories for awards sponsored by The Word Guild: the mystery/suspense category, and the contemporary novel category.

Congratulations to all! And I hope I didn't miss anybody....

Eight random facts including Beowabbit

My friend Suzan Robertson is kindly kicking me back into the world of blogging by means of this "eight random facts about yourself" game.

I haven't blogged in ages. On the other hand, I dug into one of my novels that needed a total rewrite. I rewrote it in three months, then started a new one, so I don't feel too guilty about neglecting my blog. Is anybody still out there, though?

On to the game. But never fear, friends. I won't tag you. Tagging is the chain letter of blogdom. (Yes, Suzan, you're forgiven. I should thank you for making me blog.)

Fact 1: I have the world's best recipe for refrigerator bread & butter pickles. No canning required. Easy and delicious. If you want it, I'll share. You'll need a gallon-sized glass jar.

Fact 2: Seamus Heaney's translation of "Beowulf" is one of my all-time favorite books, but I also enjoy the "Beowabbit" version. I'm afraid to know what that says about me.

Fact 3: I once wrote a novel in three weeks. Yes, it was crappy. Don't worry, it's gone forever.

Fact 4: I love bad translations. I found an online recipe recently that translated "eight large peeled potatoes" to "eight great bare Popes." It made my day.

Fact 5: I used to play guitar and write songs. Dozens of songs. Maybe hundreds. I'm not kidding. I sang them in Christian coffeeshops in the Jesus Movement days in California. Yes, I'm dating myself.

Fact 6: I'm a Detroit Red Wings fan because we used to live near Detroit. The Wings are the only team I follow in any sport. They'll play the Ducks next. (Wings, Ducks....hockey's for the birds, eh?)

Fact 7: I drink my coffee black, unless it's nasty coffee.

Fact 8: I'm going to the Colorado Christian Writers' Conference next week, so I really should be stressing out about memorizing pitches for my novels. Or frantically writing one more chapter for my WIP. Or at least worrying about what to wear. But I'm just looking forward to having a reunion with my friend Sherrie, who put me up to going.

This means, of course, that I'll be too busy next week to do much blogging, so Suzan will have to give me another nudge in a week or two. Right, Suzan?

Going to the birds

Sometime during Feb. 16-19, I'm going to participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count. This is a simple activity and doesn't take much time. You count birds, and you enter your counts online. The results are used to guesstimate the well being of various types of birds and how general patterns of bird populations vary from year to year. It's not entirely scientific, but it gives ornithologists some useful data.

We have several feeders and suet holders in our back yard, and we've attracted a good variety of birds. Woodpeckers: hairy, downy, red-bellied, and red-headed. Cardinals, goldfinches, purple finches, house finches, pine siskins, blue jays, Carolina chickadees, nuthatches, tufted titmice, rufous-sided towhees, and even one beautiful hawk who strolled across the deck, looking for dinner. He was either a Cooper's hawk or a sharp-shinned. He flew away too soon, before I could nail down the slight differences.

We also see lots of sparrows, including house sparrows. My husband loathes house sparrows because they sometimes kill baby bluebirds and take over the bluebird houses. We also have other sparrows, but I can't tell what kind they are. They're all LBJs to me. Little Brown Jobs.

Since I decided to do the G.B.B.C., I've been paying more attention to the birds, trying to nail down some of the more confusing varieties so my data will be more accurate. Sometimes, a tiny "field mark" like an eyestripe or a wingbar is a clue. But the little buggers often fly away before I've had a chance to really look at them. I'm learning to look fast and hard then remember the details as I frantically flip through the pages of the bird book. It's good training in paying close attention.

And it makes me wonder about a few things. For instance, why don't pigeons have more consistent coloring? With rare exceptions, a chickadee will always look like the next chickadee, but pigeons show a wide variety of coloration. Why did God design them that way? Does anybody have a theory? And is anybody else going to try the G.B.B.C.? It would be fun to compare notes.