Introducing the Boy in Blue

I recently self-published a very short novel (a novella, technically) titled The Boy in Blue.   It's only 78 pages long, the belated fulfillment of an idea I had for a story way back when I was a young girl.  (Way, way back! We're talking 50+ years ago!)  I wrote about it over at my flagship blog, String o' Pearls, if you want to check out that post.  

If you click on this link to the bookemon.com page where it's listed for sale, you can click on the "Read" or "Preview Book" button (to the right of the "Add to Cart" button) and "flip" through the pages of the book on your iPad or laptop without having to spend a penny.  

All the cool kids are reading this little book, as you can see.

(Full disclosure: this is not a random unbiased reader. It's my very own son #2, posing with the book so he could post this picture on the family text stream and claim to be my favorite, because he was the first of the brothers to get his hands on a copy and therefore the first one to read it...although I don't think he has actually read the whole thing yet!)

The Boy in Blue a is humble little work, but it's kind of sweet.  If you do read it, I'd love to know what you think!

An Archive of Reviews of Finding Grace and Erin's Ring

I am in the process of cleaning up and updating the sidebars of this blog and and my flagship blog, String o' Pearls.  I used to have an image of an old blogging/writing friend, Kari Burke (author of The Life I Dreamed) on the String o' Pearls sidebar, and if you clicked on it, you could read a review of Erin's Ring.  I also had an image of the cover of Kari's novel on there, and if you clicked on that, you could read a review of Finding Grace.  But I've decided to simplify the look of both home pages.  However, I do love and appreciate these lovely reviews so much, so I thought I'd post links to them here, for old times' sake:

Kari Burke's review of Finding Grace

Kari Burke's review of Erin's Ring

Another dear Catholic author friend from my early days of writing and publishing books was Therese Heckenkamp (author of Frozen Footprints).  I had one of her reviews posted on the sidebar here, and one over at String o' Pearls.  Now, I'll just list the links to that pair of generous reviews right here.

Therese Heckenkamp's review of Finding Grace

Therese Heckenkamp's review of Erin's Ring

 

I was able to "meet" and correspond with so many wonderful Catholic writers during those years (from about 2012-2015), and one of them was a sweet blogger named Tiffany Walsh, who was kind enough to write reviews for both books, and a blurb from one was printed on the back cover of Erin's Ring. (Tiffany's blog was called "Life of a Catholic Librarian," and one of the characters in Erin's Ring was a librarian, so it was a match made in Heaven!) 

Tiffany Walsh's review of Finding Grace

Tiffany Walsh's review of Erin's Ring

For ages now, I've had a review of Finding Grace on the sidebar over at String o’ Pearls, one written by a twenty-something young blogger with whom I used to correspond regularly.  My sweet friend posted her review on a site called "The Catholic Young Woman."

Review of Finding Grace at The Catholic Young Woman

A website called "Catholic Fiction" posted a review of Erin's Ring back in 2015, and I've had a link to that review on my String o' Pearls sidebar.  Here is the link to that one.

Catholic Fiction's review of Erin's Ring

There have been other reviews over the years, on Amazon and Goodreads and on other blogs; but these are the ones that I'm going to eliminate from my sidebars now, and I didn't want to forget how to access them.

P.S. I don't know if anyone outside my family and close ring of friends will ever read Marguerite's Diary; but if you do, and you feel compelled to write a little review,  I would love to read it!  (I promise my skin is thick enough to take it if you're not a fan!)

P.P.S. While I'm updating my sites, I should probably change that picture up there.  It was taken in 2012, and my hair is a good bit grayer now (my face a good bit saggier as well!) than it was back then, when I was a mere 54-year-old newbie author!

Final Links to the New Books

I have been all over the place the last few posts here, and I just wanted to say that I'm sorry for any confusion about the two new books I've recently self-published (Erin's Ring, 2nd Edition, and Marguerite's Diary).

I remember when Bezalel Books (a small Catholic company that no longer exists) put out Finding Grace and Erin's Ring more than a decade ago, I was a wreck about any possible typos or errors that might slip by unnoticed and wind up in the final printed copies.  The publisher there, Cheryl Dickow, tried to warn me that, "There is no such thing as perfection in the printed word."  And although I'm a big fan of perfection, of course there were errors!  Not awful enough to ruin the book, I hope, but errors nonetheless.  I was just about sick to my stomach for weeks after FG came out.  I still really can't bring myself to read it, for fear that I'll want to re-write the whole thing--which I guess is typical of many authors.

I have been reading a lot about this lately, about how no matter how "professionally" done your book is, even at big publishing houses that employ paid editors, copy editors, proofreaders, etc., there are just some errors that will slip by because human error is a thing.  Writers, especially, have trouble seeing their own mistakes sometimes, because they read a sentence the way they MEANT to write it, not necessarily how they typed it up.  One writer said in an interview that it's best to read over your manuscript when it's "cold," not right after you've written it.  Because the more distance you put between yourself and the book, the more likely you will be to catch the errors you've made.  With Marguerite's Diary, I was surprised by how many boo-boos went right past my eyes and my husband's, too; luckily, the first edition that I published turned out to be quite helpful, because between my four granddaughters and their mom, who read hard copies just after Christmas, a number of mistakes were found and fixed.  (BTW, I shouldn't have been surprised by how many errors I missed: I was kind of rushing to get that book written and published in time for Christmas; I was trying to write and proofread almost simultaneously, instead of waiting until I might get better perspective.)

I thought I'd gotten all the errors, finally, after my sweet girls, the best team of proofreaders ever, were through with it and I'd implemented the necessary changes...and the book got published again, this time with an official ISBN# and everything.  But before I ordered the [hopefully] new-and-improved copies to replace the flawed Christmas gifts, I wanted to see one for myself.  And sure enough, when my new copy of MD came, there was one problem with it that I hadn't caught: one page, page 159, had smaller type than all the other pages.  I had "stretched" the print a bit to make the font a tad larger and easier to read, but I'd somehow missed doing it for that one page!  My husband tried to tell me that it was no big deal, that it was still very readable; but it felt like a big deal to me.  The prices over at Bookemon, where the two new books I've published are listed, are rather high.  (And forget the Amazon prices.  They are ridiculous!)  If someone is going to pay that much, I want the product to be as perfect as possible.

My husband might be right...but it just bothers me that the print is smaller
on page 159!

I fixed the error on page 159 and republished the book; but the newer version is thought of as a whole new book and does not fall under the ISBN# I paid for.  Two versions of the book are therefore available: the one that is shared on Amazon with the ISBN#, and the newer one I re-edited, without an ISBN#.  If anyone is going to order a copy, I prefer the newer version, where page 159 looks like all the others.  So finally, I THINK I have everything worked out.  And I think I have links that I feel safe sharing.  Here are the Bookemon links: https://www.bookemon.com/book-profile/marguerite-diary/1000768, and https://www.bookemon.com/book-profile/erin%E2%80%99s-ring/1000746.  And the great thing about Bookemon is that it has the "look inside" feature and you can flip through the whole book without buying it. 

I am so obviously not a professional.  I'm just a Grammy who wants to leave something special for her grandkids and great-grandkids, if possible.  And to do whatever good I can in spreading the beauty of the Catholic Faith through my books, given my limited abilities!

However...

The writing is the fun part; the publishing is another story.  But overall, I do find much joy in the process.

Latest Book News

As of today, a second edition of Erin's Ring and a revised and edited final version of Marguerite's Diary have been published at bookemon.com.  My husband and I decided to buy the special Creative Author's Package this time to publish the books, so that they would both have ISBN #'s and would also be available in the much more reasonably priced eBook version (as well as being available for sale on Amazon).

Before the end of 2023, a paperback copy of Marguerite's Diary sold for $19.91 on Bookemon.  Today, I'm seeing that Amazon has it listed at $31.68.  That is just prohibitively (ridiculously!) expensive, and if it costs that much because I chose to get the CAP deal in order to get the ISBN # and have it available on Amazon, I kind of regret my decision to do it that way.  But actually, at Bookemon, a paperback copy sells for $20.91--which is still very expensive, but at least a better deal than you'll find on Amazon.  And now Bookemon also has the eBook version available for $7.99, which is a bonus for people who like to read books on Kindle. 

I want to thank my sweet and supportive reader, Donna, for ordering a copy of Marguerite's Diary from Bookemon in December--and also to apologize for the cost, and for the fact that it contains errors that I have since corrected!   I was in such a hurry to get copies made for my four oldest granddaughters for Christmas that I didn't go over it with as fine-toothed a comb as I should have before I pushed the "publish" button. The four girls and their mom read the book while we were out visiting them in WI at the end of December/beginning of January, and they found some boo-boos and typos that my husband and I had missed.  (I even mistakenly used the name O'Brien, which is from the previous novel, Erin's Ring, a couple of times when I meant to say O'Keefe!) I have been working hard to clean it up and make it as perfect as I can, and finally felt I was ready to re-publish it today.

Donna, I'm sorry you got the not-so-great version; email me (there is a "contact me" button on my other blog, String 'o Pearls), and I can gift you a PDF version of the revised copy, if you're interested.

While I was out in WI, I was joking with my granddaughters about the next adventure Molly and Theresa could go on, the next piece of history they could learn about.  But I don't know, dear readers...I think this might be it for me.  This recent post by an old eFriend of mine, a sweet and talented Catholic novelist with whom I've corresponded over the years, definitely hit home.  Writing is hard, and publishing/marketing books is even harder.  I really write for my kids and grandkids, not for the public at large, so I'm trying not to put any pressure on myself about these books.  The only reason I made an updated version of Erin's Ring was because the original (which contained a few errors that always bothered me) was out of print, and I wanted to make a nice matching set for my girls (and I thought if anyone hadn't read Erin's Ring yet and wanted to read that before Marguerite's Diary, this way it would be available).

Anyhoo--

That's it from here.   For the foreseeable future, I'm going to be reading more than writing!!  So if you have any good book recommendations for me, leave me a comment.  Thanks!

**This post was originally published on January 16, but I came back to update it on February 5, with new book links added from the Bookemon site.  Since the 16th,  the books are now available on Amazon--but I don't recommend buying them there because they are prohibitively expensive.  It's better to buy them through bookemon.com.

Also, I have decided to revise the books (there was a slight formatting error on one page in MD and a small spacing error in ER), and now the new links to the books at Bookemon are here and here. 

A Final Version of Marguerite's Diary is Completed!

In my last post here, I wrote that Marguerite's Diary, the sequel to Erin's Ring that I've been working on for the past year or so (per special request of four of my granddaughters), was finished.  I published in on a site called Bookemon on December 8, thrilled that the date coincided with one of Mary's special days.

I quickly ordered enough paperback copies for my granddaughters (and myself, plus a few extras), so that I could wrap them up as presents and bring them out to Wisconsin with us when we go to visit our oldest son's gang next week for a belated Christmas.

I've always had trouble reading my own books once they get into print.  It makes me so nervous.  But I spent yesterday and today slowly reading through one of the copies, and sure enough, despite my great efforts to catch all errors, I found some. AAAGGGHHH!!!  Typos are my nemesis.

My husband (my beta reader) caught some typos for me before I sent it to print and his help was invaluable (because an author sometimes looks at a sentence that she's rewritten, leaving in one of the words that was supposed to be deleted, and sees what she MEANT to say, not what's there on the page).  But we both missed a few boo-boos.  I even spelled a character's name wrong once (it was supposed to be the French name Georges, and I called him George!). 

Aside from a couple of typos that we'd missed, I found one instance where I was too repetitive in my phrasing and needed to do a little rewording, and also some formatting issues that didn't really hamper the enjoyment of the story but made the book look less neat and professional.  I have exhaustively gone over the manuscript to make it cleaner and more perfect (I'm pretty sure 100% perfect is hard, if not impossible, for me to accomplish!).  Now I am ready to push the publish button on the book once more.  And this time, I may actually pay the fee that will give it an ISBN number and make it available on Amazon in both hard copy and ebook form.

I hope no one out there ordered a copy of this book yet--not only because I think it's way too expensive, but also because it was not in its most perfect condition yet.  I think there will be an affordable ebook version if I decide to publish it with an ISBN.  I plan to make a decision very soon. I'll let you know!

The Sequel is Finished!

On December 8, 2023, I finished the sequel to Erin’s Ring and published it through Bookemon.com.  It is titled Marguerite's Diary.   Seeing as how this historical novel includes approved Marian apparitions and also a Marian miracle, I thought it was apropos that its publication date would be one of Mary's special days, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

For the cover, I used an old still life painting I'd done in college in the late 70's,
to which I added some flames and a Rosary, so it would fit the subject matter.

I exhaustively pored over the book's 20 chapters myself, looking for typos and grammatical errors, and then had my husband read through it, too.  He caught a few boo-boo's I'd missed.  (You'd be amazed by how many typos an author's eyes don't see, because she knows what she meant to say, and so that's how she reads the words!) However, I fear that even with all of that care and attention in an effort to produce as clean a manuscript as possible, there will be errors.  Cheryl Dickow, the publisher at Bezalel Books (where both Finding Grace and Erin's Ring were published, but which is now out of business), liked to remind me that there was no such thing as perfection in the printed word.  I guess I'll have to take her word for it, and try not to panic if I see any errors in the printed books...

...which are due to arrive today!

I ordered ten copies to start out, because I've promised them as Christmas gifts for our oldest son's four oldest daughters (the avid readers!  The ones who really wanted me to write this book!).  Then there's one for us, and one for each of our five sons.  I didn't want to order too many to start out, because they're a tad pricey on the site where I had them published, at almost $20 a copy, and I want to make sure that they turned out nicely.

My husband is wondering if I should republish on Amazon, using their KDP services. I think the copies would be much cheaper to purchase if I did that, and the book would be legit, with an ISBN number...

We shall see!  In the meantime, it feels good to be done, and to have copies in time for Christmas!

Feeling Encouraged

I have been working on a sequel to Erin's Ring for about a year or so now.  I'm calling it Marguerite's Diary. I've started a big push to finish it by Christmas, which will be hard but not impossible.  (I was going to finish it LAST Christmas, but I missed that deadline by a mile, obviously!)  I dream of being able to wrap up copies to give to my four oldest granddaughters as gifts this year.  Wish me luck!  (Better yet, pray for me!)

I found a site called Bookemon (where I had my My Little ABC Book published) that is user-friendly and where you can get copies of your book on a print-by-demand basis.  They aren't cheap, but the quality is very good--as good as any publishing house has to offer, if you ask me.  You can also set up your Bookemon account to have your titles listed for sale on Amazon...but I've been-there-done-that already, and both books that used to sell on Amazon are out of print now.  I'm not in the "author" business anymore.  I don't think I really have the heart for that.  This book is mostly for my grandchildren, and for my personal use--to have copies made as gifts or whatever.  I'm trying to get all the joy out of the writing, without the stress of wondering whether anyone will read or like what I've written.  I know the audience for whom I'm writing this book will be pleased no matter what.

Anyway, out of the blue lately there have been little surprises that have made me feel very encouraged and excited to keep on writing. 

While we were away for a couple of weeks recently, visiting our two boys who don't live near us in VA, I got a sweet text from my daughter-in-law Braveheart (wife of son #4).  She is the mother of triplets who are in kindergarten, and son #3's daughter is in kindergarten at the same Catholic school.  One of the triplet boys is with his sister in one homeroom, but the other is classmates with his cousin.  Braveheart had gone in to school that day as a volunteer, to read to the class that has the two cousins in it.  Afterward, she sent me this: 

When I asked her if they liked it, she said they loved it--and so did their teacher.  In fact, the teacher wanted a copy!  So I'm ordering a copy to donate to the kindergarten library.  (Braveheart is ordering one as well.)

What an incredibly nice, unexpected blessing, hearing that my humble little picture book had been a hit at our grandkids' school.  Blessings like those are not a dime a dozen.

But then the very same night, amazingly, I got a text from one of our twenty-something nieces on the Pearl side, saying she wanted to let me know that she had ordered my first novel Finding Grace on Amazon (where copies are sometimes available through other sellers, often used).  She was too young to read it when it came out, she said, but she was trying to get into reading and thought it was time to do so.  I was so touched by this!

(I'm not crying; you're crying!)

I can't believe my darling niece paid this for a copy of Finding Grace!  I sure hope she likes it.*

Wow...just wow.  Two messages like that in one day was almost more than I could handle.  I have been a full-time homemaker (a wife, mother, and Grammy, without a career outside the home; a woman who has not made enough money in her lifetime to qualify for a monthly Social Security check like most folks my age), and writing was just something I got to do for a few years, between the time my boys were growing up and moving away and when the grandchildren started coming along at a furious pace.  I didn't have a writing "career," per se.  I don't think of myself as a "writer," really.  But on October 17, my loved ones were sure making me feel like one.

As if my cup hadn't already runneth over, the very next day, a nice reader named Ellen left me this comment on a recent post at String o' Pearls: "Hi Laura, somehow I missed that your books are actually available for purchase.  I thought they were for family only.   I bought them both from Thriftbooks and have been enjoying Erin's Ring.  Your writing is lovely!"

Somebody pinch me!  

Okay then, now I should get back to writing that sequel, shouldn't I?  With my confidence bolstered by all this love and encouragement, I can and I must.

*BTW, I sent a reply telling my niece to cancel the order if it wasn't too late, because the price on the used copy was so high and I still have a number of copies that I bought years ago (for book signings, few of which ever happened!), and I could send her one of those.  But she didn't take me up on it; then when her copy came in the mail yesterday, she texted to say that it was okay, and that she loved getting to support me and my book.  (Okay, maybe this time I AM crying.)

Fiction Imitates Life

Here is a blog post called Fiction Imitates Life, which was published over at String o’ Pearls today.  I thought I ought to share it here, as it has to do with the book I'm working on.  (After all, this blog is supposed to be the one where I talk about writing!)

For the most part, I'm making good progress on Marguerite's Diary, a granddaughter-requested sequel to Erin's Ring.  But I'm about to get to a part of the story--the action-packed, dramatic climax--that intimidates me, and I worry about coming down with a severe case of writer's block.

Pray for me, won't you?

And St. Francis de Sales  (patron saint of Catholic writers!), pray for me, too!

A Finding Grace Sighting

A number of years ago, I donated some copies of Finding Grace and Erin's Ring to the library of the Catholic school in our old hometown.

When my husband and I were young, there were multiple parochial schools in town: the K-8 co-ed grade school attached to my parish, where I went up until high school; the K-12 co-ed school attached to his parish across town, where he went; an all-boys high school for both local and boarding students; and another K-8 school attached to a third Catholic parish. (A quick aside: we met in 9th grade at the school where he had been a student since kindergarten, and by the summer after our freshman year we were dating.) All of these schools merged into one K-12 Catholic school a long time ago.  And now, all three once-thriving parishes have merged into one as well.  

One of my husband's sisters moved back about a year ago, after years of living far from where she'd grown up; she now has two kids at the Catholic school and has taken the job of track coach.  This sister-in-law posted this picture on the Pearl sibling text stream a few days ago: 

She spied this copy of Finding Grace on a shelf in the school's library.  She said that some of the kids on the track team had told her it was good book and she should read it (not realizing that she was related to the author by marriage 🤣).

I’m humbled and amazed…there are high school students out there reading this book.  Published in 2012, it has been out of print for a while, so it wasn’t a success by the world’s standards.  But it may be doing some good yet!

#dreamsdocometrue

Two of our grown sons (#3 and #5) recently moved their families into new houses, and they’re still in the process of getting settled. 

In both of their new office spaces, I spied copes of their mom’s books.  I can’t think of anyplace I would rather find them than on the shelves of my boys’ homes.

#dreamsdocometrue  

I got to be a wife, then a mom, and now a grandmother—everything I ever wanted to be.  And more.  A a bonus, I even got to write books. It’s been a blessed life for sure.  Thank you, God, for giving me a life that I certainly don’t deserve but love so much.  

A Second Edition of Erin's Ring

I mentioned in my last post here that I was working on a new edition of Erin's Ring, which was originally published by Bezalel Books over eight years ago.   I have finished, and this updated edition is now available here, at a print-on-demand publishing site called bookemon.com. 

Bezalel, the wonderful small Catholic company that published not only Erin's Ring in 2014, but also my first novel, Finding Grace, in 2012, has gone the way of the dinosaurs, I'm afraid--along with the Amazon-available editions of the novels it produced.  Extinct.  Not to be found anymore.  (Although before it was too late, back when my books were still in circulation I did purchase a number of copies of both novels to have on hand for book signings or to give away in the future as gifts.  But new copies are no longer being printed.)

Now I'm about to get back to work on Marguerite's Diary, the sequel to Erin's Ring, which my favorite readers (four of my precious granddaughters, the book-loving oldest children of our oldest son), have asked for.  This special request is one I feel I cannot deny; otherwise, I don't think I'd ever be inspired to try to write another book.

Getting one novel written and published was a childhood dream, miraculously fulfilled.

Two of them--well, that was never, ever going to happen (because the dream was one book, and that bucket list item had been checked off already)...until it did.

And if two was never going to happen, you can imagine how surreal three seems.  

I pray that I am able to finish this sequel, not only because it would make such an extraordinarily special gift for my sweet granddaughters; but also because through it, I hope to bring glory and honor to Our Blessed Mother, as well as Her Son and the Catholic Faith He came to establish.  I loved bringing the endearing Irish immigrant characters to life for Erin's Ring; the sequel is also based on true historical events, but this time my people are Belgian immigrants, and I am growing to love them, too.  But the story is a big one, a really big one...and it overwhelms me at times, trying to figure out how best to tell it.

Wish me luck!  (Better yet, pray for me!) 

The Sequel is Coming Along

So in my last post here, I mentioned that my firstborn son's four oldest daughters have been clamoring for a sequel to Erin's Ring.  I am thrilled to say that I'm already eight chapters in, and probably getting close to half-way finished.

These "finished" chapters may need future work if the story goes in a direction I'm not aware of at this point (that definitely happens, in my experience); but I feel like they are close to the final edit phase. I rewrite and polish up constantly as I go along; I'm just not wired to write up a whole first rough draft of a book and then go back and edit it later.

I wrote the first chapter years ago, and then abandoned the project.  But I've tweaked that chapter a bit (and made it two chapters, actually), and I've added six more.  I think I'm going to be able to have the rest done, with perhaps 10 or 11 more chapters, by this spring or summer.  In my dreams, this book was going to be a Christmas present for the girls a few weeks from now; but I don't seem to have the free hours to devote to writing that you would think I would have as a 64-year-old empty-nester. #imabusybusygrammy  #verybusy

I am planning to self-publish this sequel through Bookemon, the site where I published My Little ABC Book.  I have no ambitious plans for marketing it far and wide, no delusions of bestselling author grandeur.  That, I am quite sure, is not part of the path I was meant to take on this earth.  But I will be able to order print-on-demand copies for family members.

As long as I was writing a sequel, I decided to make a slightly edited second edition of Erin's Ring to go with it.  It's always bothered me that in Chapter 16, I called a character "Erin" when I meant to call her "Cara."  (A bright 4th-grader--whose teacher was a beloved niece of mine--pointed this out to me when I visited her school in 2015; this was a mistake that the publisher and several beta-readers, myself included, missed!) Also, I found a few other problems: I'd had a character named Seamus Finnegan dying in 1855, which was way off; 1833 was more like it.  I'd had characters calling out, "Here, here!" after a toast, when the correct spelling would have been, "Hear, hear!" And I'd called the Catholic feast day that falls on New Year's the "Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God," when at that time in history it would have been called the "Octave of the Nativity."  So making this new edition has enabled me to fix some errors that were in the original book.  

Also, I got the opportunity to design a new cover!

That cover artwork inside the frame is Winslow Homer's "Bobbin Girl," which I think is absolutely perfect for a story about some 19th-century Irish immigrant girls who came to Dover, NH to work at the cotton mill called the Cocheco Manufacturing Co. When I look at this vintage ink drawing, I think of the main character, Ann O'Brien!

I actually had one paperback copy of this new edition printed by Bookemon already; but unfortunately, I made poor choices as far as the font and the font size and it was practically unreadable.  So I'm in the process of fixing those issues now.  I plan to order copies of both books as a sort of matching set for my granddaughters--that is, if (when!) I can ever get the sequel completed!

I'm not ready to share the cover (or the subject matter) of the sequel, Marguerite's Diary, yet; in fact, I probably won't until it's finished.  But please pray for me that I can do the story I'm working on justice, because it tells about a miraculous event involving Our Blessed Mother.  And I don't want to disappoint Her.

Hoo Boy...I Think I'm Writing Another Book!

Now there’s something I never really thought I’d say!

But I have some granddaughters (son #1’s four oldest, aged 7 to 11) who have requested a sequel to Erin’s Ring, which they’ve all read more than once.  Every author dreams of having enthusiastic readers of their books like these girls, I’ll tell you!

So I’m going to give it a shot—more as a gift from Grammy than anything else.   I’ll self-publish and have copies printed off for my book-loving girls.  If I can get this project done by Christmas 2022, it will be practically miraculous.  

I've actually had the idea for this book floating around in my head for about seven years now, but I never got beyond doing a little research and writing a rough draft of Chapter One (however, that was before I had granddaughters encouraging me to write a sequel!).  It's been years since I worked on it.

All I’ll say for now is that it's going to be another foray into historical fiction, and that the working title is Marguerite’s Diary.  Wish me luck!

My Writing Phase

Recently, my aunt--my father's only sibling and a voracious reader/former high school English teacher--asked me if I was doing any writing these days.

I guess it was a valid question, because I have three published books to my name.  (The illustrated My Little ABC Book was entirely self-published a couple of years ago via one of those "vanity presses," mostly to print as gifts for friends and family; but I'll still count it.)

My response to my aunt's question was, "No, I don't really write anymore.  I think that was a phase."  

That really is how it seems to me: it was not a writing career; it was a writing phase.

Between 2007 (when the youngest of our five sons started his freshman year of high school) and 2014 (when he was in college and his four older brothers had all gotten married and were starting their families), I admit that I did a lot of writing, a lot of thinking about writing, a lot of writing about writing, a lot of Internet corresponding with other writers.  Writing consumed a good deal of my thoughts and energies, to put it mildly. But that was a different time: when I started writing Finding Grace in 2007, all four of our oldest sons were either in college or beginning careers far from where they grew up in NH, and our youngest son was off at school every day after five years of being homeschooled.  I was often alone in an empty house. So it's not surprising that I suddenly found myself with many free hours during my days to devote to writing, something I'd always dreamed of doing--especially since my airline pilot husband would often be away on trips for three or four days at a time.  I had hours to fill and I filled them at my computer, writing the one novel I ever thought I would write, positively giddy with the process of bringing characters to life and seeing where they would lead me. I grew to just love Grace and Tom and Sully and their families and friends, and I missed them when the five-year process of getting FG to print was over.

After Erin's Ring (the second novel I never thought I'd write) was published in 2014, I kicked around the idea of a third novel, an historical fiction sequel to ER about an amazing Marian apparition that is not well known.  I did some research, read a book about the event, printed off some online articles about it...I even wrote a first chapter for a story wherein the same characters from ER would once again find their lives interwoven with those of an earlier era.  But that project never really got off the ground.  As the number of grandchildren we were given to love quickly multiplied, my motivation to do writing of any sort kind of faded into the sunset.  I just didn't have the impetus to do it anymore.

So much has changed since 2014!  Thanks to our move to VA in 2017, we live close to our four oldest boys and their families now (including all 17 of our grandchildren!), except during the summers, which we spend in NY; we have a very full and busy grandchild-centered life. Family takes up the bulk of our time again, just as it did when we were raising our boys.  So the idea of putting that kind of energy and time into writing a novel now?  It's hard to imagine. 

As I said, it must have been a phase.

Does that make me a bit pathetic?  I don't think so. Could I be more ambitious, more driven?  Sure.  But I believe we are all meant for different things, and I was not meant to be a professional writer. 

Will I ever write another novel?  I highly doubt it, but who knows?  I was never going to write a second one, and then Erin's Ring happened.  God works in mysterious ways.  If He wants me to write another book, then maybe I will.  

But at present, He seems to be telling me that I'm in a different phase these days, one that doesn't include writing books.  It does, however, include lots and lots of THIS:

It's a good phase.  A very good phase.

Real Life IS Better Than Fiction!

When I started working on Finding Grace in August of 2007, I seriously didn't expect it to ever become a book.  I mean, my goal was to write a full-length novel, sure; but I never really believed it would get into print and become an honest-to-goodness BOOK--as in the published variety, with a front and back cover and professionally printed pages and everything.

My girlhood dreams involved imagining that I might someday produce one "great American novel" (just one!  That's not too much to hope for, is it?), inspired by my early favorite authors, Harper Lee and Margaret Mitchell. Lee had stopped at To Kill a Mockingbird and Mitchell at Gone with the Wind--two of my all-time favorite books; I figured I could stop when I'd written my one novel, too.  (I also loved the romantically brooding works of those talented Bronte sisters, but I was looking for inspiration on this side of the pond, in modern times.)

I tucked away this dream while I was busy raising my boys.  By the time I felt ready to try my hand at novel-writing, when my youngest boy (whom we'd been homeschooling from 4th through 8th grade) was about to start high school, a new dream had emerged for me: to write a novel that would never make me rich or famous, but that would be an antidote to the dangerous secular humanist values and messages with which most modern popular fiction was replete (and this situation seemed to be getting exponentially worse as the years had gone by).

When I set out to tackle that book, with absolutely zero writing experience to my name--unless you count the papers I did as a college English major decades earlier--I did hope that I would have the patience and drive to see the project through and tell the story I wanted to tell (even though over the course of the four and a half years I spent writing it, the original story I'd imagined went in directions that I hadn't planned at the outset; it's funny how that happens).  Because you see, Finding Grace was more than anything a labor of love for my family, something that I thought I could leave behind, something that would be around long after I was gone.  Even if all it turned out to be was a manuscript printed off at home, with hole-punched pages in a binder, I wanted to get this done to pass down to any book-loving grandchildren I might one day have.  I wanted to create a novel that espoused the beautiful teachings and traditions of our Catholic Faith, one that was filled with endearing characters whose lives were enriched in countless ways by living according to that Faith.  As the years were going by, I was becoming more and more worried that by the time my future grandchildren were reading, there would be nothing of Truth or beauty left in print--at least in popular mainstream fiction; so I wanted to take matters into my own hands.

What she said.

When I started out my later-in-life "career" as a writer, none of my boys were even married yet.  By the time Finding Grace was published in 2012, our oldest son was married and he had given us identical twin granddaughters.  (I had written identical twin girls into Finding Grace several years before they were born.  I had also given my title character, Grace Kelly, a father who was a dentist--and that was our first daughter-in-law's dad's profession.  Totally by accident, art had imitated life!)

Fast forward to 2020, and I've now got 16-going-on-17 grandchildren.  And to prove that dreams do come true, one of those twins I mentioned earlier, who is now 9, recently read her Grammy's second YA novel, Erin's Ring (she's still a bit too young for the more mature-themed Finding Grace).  Her mom sent me this text when she was reading it.

Umm...I believe that is the only endorsement I need.  Better than a 5-star Amazon review, in my opinion.  This is exactly the audience I hoped to affect with my writing: future generations of Pearls!

My middle son also recently texted me a few cute pictures of the oldest of his three girls, who's 4, holding a copy of Finding Grace.  She and her older brother (5) think it's a story about her. ;)

In about 9 or 10 years, I hope she'll read it.  And I hope I'm alive to hear what she thinks!

Life is SO BEAUTIFUL, even in the age of Covid-19.  It is better than any story I could ever think up.  Better than any fiction, for sure.  I am enjoying all the undeserved blessings I've been given, because I know that life can change on a dime, when we least expect it.

Thank you, God, for helping me to see my dreams come true: not one, but TWO published novels; and better yet by far, so many beloved grandchildren to read them.  I am humbled and grateful!

Reminiscing about My Second-born (Book)

Sometimes I wish I'd known the best way to promote/market my YA historical novel, Erin's Ring, when doing so might have made it a successful book.

Six years after publication, it has died a quiet death, without eulogy, without mourning.  I think it was last year that my publisher at Bezalel Books, Cheryl Dickow, informed me that she would not be able to carry the title anymore for distribution, because it had not sold well enough.  New and used copies of the paperback are still available from other sellers on Amazon; I also have a number of copies that I bought myself, back when I thought I might need to have them on hand for book signings and the like, and I have sold those here and there over the years.  But now I kind of regret not having made Erin's Ring available in the Kindle format at the outset, which might have helped sales (although who knows?).

Marketing books does not come naturally to a shy and introverted person who loves to write them (almost as much as she loves to read them) but can't imagine a scarier scenario than being center stage or trying to call attention to herself.  When I used to confess my discomfort about getting out there and doing what seemed to be "tooting my own horn," Cheryl would always remind me that it was the work I was promoting--work that gave glory to God and the Catholic Faith--and not the author of that work.

I would remind myself all the time that this was true; and yet I struggled.

But here I am, six years later, with a promotional post about a book that never really found its audience, even though it received two Book Awards from the Catholic Press Association and it seemed to have so much potential--especially in the Catholic homeschool community, perhaps.

If you go to this page of the Bezalel website and scroll down to the cover of Erin's Ring, you'll get an idea what this novel is all about. 

Also, here is a generous blurb that appears on the back cover of the book, written by Nancy Carabio Belanger, a well-known author of Catholic YA fiction:

"Highly recommended for Catholic classrooms, Erin's Ring is a Catholic novel that weaves Irish-American history with the present. This wholesome novel had me shed tears of sadness and joy, and these brave young Irish-Catholic women from different generations drew me in. Lovingly and tenderly written, Erin's Ring is a story of true friendship, sacrificial love, and above all, the God Who is never bound by time or space."   --Nancy Carabio Belanger, author of The Gate First Place Winner, 2014 Catholic Press Awards for Novels

Talk about shedding tears: that exceedingly kind endorsement by an author I greatly admire makes my eyes glisten with tears of gratitude.  

God has a plan, I firmly believe that.  There was a reason that I wrote Erin's Ring, a reason that it made it into print, and even a reason that it didn't sell.  In spite of its lack of material success, I can only be happy when I think about that book.  I will always remember the complete joy that infused my very being every single time I sat down at my computer to write, during the six months that I worked on it.  It was truly a labor of love.  And just as I said of my first not-very-successful novel, Finding Grace,  I feel that if even one soul was touched in a positive way by the story, it will have fulfilled its purpose.

Why did I write this post today?  I guess just as mamas like to reminisce about the lives of their precious babies, long after they're grown, maybe authors like to reminisce about the lives of their books?  Sure, let's go with that.

Happy reading, dear readers!  

August 2020 Book Club "Meeting": The Story of a Late-Blooming Author

Remember when I used to have those "book club" meetings on Tuesdays (because "Tuesday's child is full of Grace") over at String of Pearls?  (Remember when I used to blog regularly?  Ha ha!  Those were the days!)

It's Wednesday, so I'm a day late and a dollar short; but I thought it might be fun to do this again.  I'm going to begin by telling you a little story.

August, 2007 is where this story begins.

Once upon a time, there was an older gal who decided to fulfill a childhood dream and write a novel.  It didn't have to be the "great American novel," but she hoped that some reader--even one reader, just one--somewhere would be moved or inspired by it, like she had been by so many of the works of fiction that she'd devoured over the course of her lifetime.

This mom of five boys, who were now college- and high school-aged, began working on the one-and-only novel she ever planned to write (after all, penning only one had been good enough for Harper Lee and Margaret Mitchell) at the late-blooming age of 49, mostly for herself, her children, and her future grandchildren, never believing it would actually become an honest-to-goodness book.  But that did indeed happen: against all odds, it became a book!  And at 54, she found herself the published author of a work of fiction that she hoped told a fun story about some engaging characters while at the same time illustrating the beauty and Truth of the Catholic Faith.  This novel, this baby of hers, earned the Catholic Writers Guild Seal of Approval and was a finalist for the Guild's CALA (Catholic Arts and Letters Award) in the category of YA Fiction.  This novel was Finding Grace.

The author discovered this blurb during a random Google search. 
She loves this description of her novel.

The author's middle son, who's always been a great cheerleader--
and a"mama's boy," but in the best, most healthy way.

By the time Finding Grace was published, the author's oldest son had gotten married and she now had two grandchildren, identical twin girls.

Fast forward two years, to the summer of 2014.  Two more sons had married and another grandchild had been born...and she was offered the opportunity to write a second novel, by the same small Catholic publishing house that had published Finding Grace (Bezalel Books). She almost turned down this incredible offer out of fear of failure (after all, she had another grandchild on the way, another son getting married in a few months, and she seemed to spend all her time on the road, traveling to visit her far-flung grown children--when would she have time to write?!), she accepted.  Six months later, that manuscript (much shorter than her first book and appropriate for even younger readers) was published.  An historical fiction novel about some plucky 19th-century Irish immigrants, mill workers who were instrumental in having a Catholic church built in their largely Protestant NH town (a church that became the home of the oldest continuously operating parish in the state!), this second novel was called Erin's Ring and it went on to win two Book Awards from the Catholic Press Association.

This little girl (the daughter of my middle son) is now 4; I hope when she's
a little older she'll actually read Grammy's book!

By the time Erin's Ring was published, the author had four married sons and four grandchildren...with many, many more to join the string of Pearls in the coming years!

It has now been 13 years since the author began her late-in-life "career" of writing novels, and 8 years since her first book went into print.  Here's how the story ends: her books have not sold well; they have not made her a household name or made her bank account any fatter.  In fact, her publisher has sadly had to remove them from distribution because they have not been financially successful enough to justify carrying them.

She sometimes thinks about writing another book, just for the joy of the process; but she doesn't seem to have the time or the desire for that kind of commitment these days.  All five sons have married lovely girls who share their Faith, and her brood of grandchildren has grown to 16-going-on-17.  She and her husband have made a big move, far from the town where she raised her family (the town that gave Erin's Ring its setting), to be close to where all these precious little people live, so that she can be a hands-on Grammy.  She is inordinately blessed in every way that matters to her.  She had never really wanted to be anything but a wife and mother; being an author--well, that was just the gravy on top, the crazy pipe dream that probably wasn't ever going to happen.

Remember what I said at the beginning of this story?  Remember when I said that this author wanted to touch just one reader, she wanted to inspire just one needy soul?  Well, I believe God has given her the greatest gift of all by letting her know that the years spent writing were not all in vain...because here is the proof, which came to her recently via a text from one of her husband's sisters, whose daughter was valedictorian of her high school class and is now a freshman at Notre Dame.

Wow, the author-turned-Grammy knew that this niece had read Finding Grace in 8th grade and had done a report on it; but she surely didn't know this!

The moral of the story is that no effort that you make--if it is done for the greater glory of God and for the good of souls, especially your own--is ever in vain.  And sometimes, dreams really do come true...but success often looks a lot different than the world will tell you it's supposed to look.

The End

Did you ever dream of writing a book?  Do you think you're too old/too busy/too inexperienced to make it happen?  I am here to tell you that it's amazing how possible it is, if you put it all in God's hands.  If it's meant to be, it will happen.

Okay, meeting adjourned!
P.S. "The author" would love to answer any questions you have!  Leave me a comment--I love to hear from you!

INSTAGRAM GIVEAWAY: A Signed Copy of Erin's Ring

I have been neglecting this blog even more than my first baby, String of Pearls.  I'm pretty much choking on the dust here at The Write Stuff...

...so I thought maybe this would be a good time to jump back in and give this site a little attention!

I am currently running a giveaway on Instagram.  On July 25, I will randomly choose the winner of a signed copy of my YA novel, Erin's Ring.  Here are all the details, in today's SoP post.

I will try to come back here before the dust builds up again!  In the meantime, enter the contest!  This might be your lucky day!

Grace-filled Tuesdays (Book Club "Meeting" #33): Erin's Ring Gets a Couple of Shout-outs

A couple of days ago, the Grace-filled Tuesdays Book Club met over at String of Pearls.  In case you didn't have a chance to join us, here is the beginning of the discussion that day:


It's Tuesday, isn't it?  (Although it's getting late, and if I don't get this posted soon, it will be Wednesday!)

Well, Tuesday's child is full of grace, and my novels tell stories of God's grace (and one of them is even about a character whose name is Grace)...so I think that means it's time to call a meeting of the book club.  (While it's still Tuesday!)

Welcome, book enthusiasts!

Okay, so in case you've never been here before, I use this club to discuss my two Catholic novels with you, dear readers.  I never imagined or expected that the titles of my books would become well-known, or that I would become a household name, or that I'd make a fortune as an author.  But I always did hope that my humble works of fiction would do some good in the world.  I wrote them praying that they would be for God's greater glory and for the good of souls, including my own.  Obviously, God did not want them to be widely read, or to earn lots of money or accolades.  But there are no accidents.  Everything happens for a reason; and I still think there's a reason that I wrote these books and that they actually found their way into print.

It's been a long time since I had a book published.  Finding Grace came out in 2012, followed by Erin's Ring in 2014.  I can't believe it's been four years already since the younger of my two "babies" was born.  Time does indeed fly, doesn't it?  Four years.  Wow!

And just when I think that I lost my shot at marketing and promoting those books the way I should have, in order to ensure that I gave them the best possible chance of finding their way into the hands of young (or old) readers who might enjoy and/or be edified by them, I am made aware that there are generous folks out there who have been helping me--and I didn't even know they were doing it!

If you're interested in reading on to see who helped me out (here's a hint: she's a generous fellow author of Catholic YA fiction) and how, click here  for the full post.  

As always, thanks for stopping by!