But we know it was only a teaser and much more will be coming soon. I have an appointment to get the winter tires put on my car next week. A recently retired single friend who lives alone in her childhood home mentioned a couple weeks ago, “In the summer I mow grass, in the winter I shovel snow. Lots of grass and lots of snow!” And so it is for us rural folks. We love our wide open spaces and pay for it with plenty of hard work.
My big news is I finally finished the first draft of my fourth novel. My husband is proofing it for me now for medical accuracy. This is the one my writing mentor believes will be my breakout novel, of course I’d love to see that happen! Time will tell. It is a Christmas novel with universal appeal and in my dreams it will become a Christmas classic.
Last weekend I was interviewed for Story Corps, a national oral history program, collecting stories of average Americans for their archives. They work in conjunction with NPR stations. My oldest granddaughter interviewed me, she has a degree in Communications so it was a good fit. I don’t feel that old BUT I can remember when my parents had our first telephone installed…a big wooden crank phone and we had to go through an operator to make calls on our party line of ten. All phone calls for each family on the party line rang into each home. So when the phone rang, we had to listen for our two shorts and a long. Each family had their own combination of rings to differentiate their calls from their neghbors. We never used those early phones for visiting. Each call was brief and to the point, it was considerate a selfish act to tie up the party line for trivial matters. And long distance calls…those were only for dire emergencies. I didn’t go into so much detail during the interview so she ask me on the way home…”Grandma, what is a party line?” She shook her head in disbelief when I explained it to her. Absolutely shocking for a girl who has had her own unlimited cell phone since she was fourteen!
And I remembered when Dad brought the first TV home…limited programming and a total change for family life. certainly not all for the better, especially when one considers the poor quality of so many of the choices on TV today. Not to mention the fact that we used to write letters, real letters. Computers didn’t exist…times have definitley changed.
I even persuaded my eigihty nine year old WW2 veteran father to do a Story Corps interview. It became very emotional and the cd of that interview will be something everyone in our family will treasure for the rest of our lives.
I also did a Bookmark book review of Christmas with Tucker by Greg Kincaid for our local NPR station, (WPSU) to be aired sometime in December. The producer, Emily Reddy and her sound assistant, Russ ,were so professional, kind and accomdating.
I have been very busy submitting short stories to national contests as well as my third novel …so please wish me luck in these endeavors. Women Writing on Family:Tips on Writing,Teaching and Publishing will be released in January by Key Pubishing of Toronto, Canada. I have a chapter on Marketing included in that book and it was truly an honor to be included.
Till next time… keep reading and enjoy!