Mountains in the Rearview

I recently returned from a trip to Colorado, and ever since then, I've noticed something different. Mostly about myself: I'm calmer. I'm not so scattered or anxious. Why is this?

First of all, let me highly recommend a trip to Colorado whenever you get a chance. There is so much variety in that state, there are so many things to do, that you will always find something there to enjoy.

My personal favorite is Rocky Mountain National Park. You start with sweeping meadows ringed by pine trees. Then you drive up Trail Ridge Road along switchbacks and past craggy rocks. Finally you emerge above the treeline to another world: the alpine world. Here everything is short and tough, designed to withstand the high winds and cold temperatures. And the views are breath-taking, everywhere you look. "Purple mountains' majesty" starts to make sense.

Throughout the park, there is abundant wildlife to be seen: elk, moose, deer, marmots, chipmunks, ground squirrels, untold species of birds, and much more.

Among all of this, however, I have found one thing that I enjoy more than anything else: the mountain stream.

When I was a child, I loved to throw rocks or sticks into the stream: rocks for the satisfying 'sploosh' and sticks because I could run alongside and track where the current took them.

Now, however, I'm content to sit beside the stream and listen to what it has to tell me.

Then something happens: when I listen to the stream, my head goes silent. All those random thoughts, all those worries, all the planning and plotting that fills my head—it all goes away. I'm left with only the sound of water tumbling over rocks ... and a peace that is rare for me.

I sat beside such streams several times during my trip. Each time, there was only the stream and nothing else mattered. It was the ultimate form of meditation.

Don't get me wrong: I drank in the mountain views, the wildlife and the wildflowers, which were everywhere. I cried when I had to leave ... and I stared at the rearview mirror for as long as the mountains were visible there.

But now I feel a stillness that I couldn't achieve before this trip.

I don't know how long it will last, but for now I'm holding onto it. I like the calmness, the peace, the feeling that things will be all right.

I'm trying to keep the mountain stream in my heart.

Stream at Hidden Valley, Rocky Mountain National Park

Update on The Other Side

Rewriting The Other Side has taken a lot of time, as you can tell by looking at the calendar. This is the latest I've ever gone without releasing a novel, but I feel I need to take as long as necessary to get it right. I'm sorry for the delay.

Right now, though, I'm formatting. That's good news because it means the rewriting is mostly finished. Yea!

The initial formatting is done because I put together a binder with instructions on how to do it and that really helped. There are a lot of steps involved with margins, gutters, headers, drop caps, etc. and my brain doesn't like to remember all of that after a year so it's nice to have a reference.

That means I'm at the hard part: making it look good. I think I've written about this before. Sometimes when I'm scrolling through the document, I'll see a sentence that has a paragraph at the end of one page and a single word of that paragraph on the next page. It looks terrible!

For example, I found this on one page: Lamont turned on the radio. “This is Captain Ben Lamont asking you to cease fire. Who are you and what

On the next page I have this: do you want?"

That's not the worst example I've seen, but it makes the reading a little awkward. I'll have to check the first page to see if I can remove a word or two so the last part of his question can go with the rest of it.

It's amazing how hard that is sometimes. I've written it the way I want ... and now I have to change it! I'm trying to add words on some pages and remove words on others. It can be frustrating.

I'm hoping to get the bulk of it done this weekend, however. After that I'll get an ISBN and we can move forward!

If you want to review the teasers I've given about the novel, here they are: Teasers

Please remember to spread the word to your friends and family (and complete strangers) about the Penumbra series. Word of mouth is the best way to let people know about it!

Also, if you happened to buy a copy of any of my novels on Amazon, thank you and please consider writing a review there.

Thank you! I'll keep you posted.

Crystal Bridges

Yesterday we got one of those fall days where everything seems to be perfect: the temperature, the breeze, the sunshine, the colors. Amazingly enough, it was a day when we'd decided to travel, which usually brings extreme heat or snow, so I don't know how we managed to choose such a day.

We drove down to Bentonville, Arkansas, to visit Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. We'd never heard of it until one of my co-workers recommended it ... and I'm glad she did!

Crystal Bridges, November 2015

The museum itself is unlike any I've seen before. When you approach it, you see rolling copper and glass buildings with rounded roofs and windows everywhere. The walls curve and wind, leading you from gallery to gallery, with a few side rooms that seem to appear out of nowhere as you explore. The exhibits lead you from Colonial and early 19th-century art through the 21st century. We saw works by Mary Cassatt, John Singer Sargent, Georgia O'Keeffe, Norman Rockwell, Roy Lichtenstein, Winslow Homer and many more.

That's not all there is to experience, however. The museum is located in a forest, with natural springs and native plants. There are several trails that give breathtaking views and also offer more art.

Tortoise and Hare by Nancy Schon

We had a lot of fun wandering around the grounds on the Art Trail, spotting a Frank Lloyd Wright house and several sculptures, some medium-sized and some very large. The leaves were turning colors and some of them were bigger than my hand! There were streams and squirrels, bridges and benches. It was a great afternoon.

If you're ever in northwest Arkansas, I recommend a trip to this museum. There's something there for almost everyone!

Lunar Eclipse Tonight

What are you planning to do this evening? If you don't have any particular plans, I'd like to suggest that you go outside and stare at the sky.

Okay, I'll be a little more specific. Tonight we'll get both a "supermoon" and the fourth of a lunar tetrad, which will lead to a "blood moon."

A supermoon happens when the moon is full at the time when it's closest to Earth. You won't see the moon filling the sky or anything like that, but it will be a little bigger than usual.

The lunar tetrad is a series of four consecutive total lunar eclipses, which is pretty rare. The blood moon happens when the moon is fully eclipsed and turns a sort of reddish-orange color.

Take a look at this website: timeanddate.com It shows a cool animation of what to expect when you're looking up at the eclipse (no special glasses or shields are necessary for a lunar eclipse). It also gives you a lot of information about where and when you can see it.

I recommend giving it a try. The so-called "blood moon" is a fascinating sight, and it's also interesting to track the path of the eclipse as the moon first darkens (in Earth's penumbra) and then turns color (in Earth's umbra).

As you might guess, I have a certain fondness for anything involving a Penumbra.

I hope you'll give it a try. I plan to be out there, once again baffling the neighbors by standing there with my head thrown back while I stare upward. Maybe they're used to it by now and won't even notice!

Work continues on The Other Side. There's still a lot to be done, but I'll keep working on it. Thanks for following my blog!

Browsing for Books

Today I had a fun experience that I hadn't enjoyed for a while: I went into a bookstore and browsed.

I've always loved to read, but I'm afraid I haven't done as much of it as I should have for the past several years, mostly because I've been spending a lot of time writing, editing and trying to get noticed. I still enjoy scanning a shelf, though, letting my eyes guide me to something interesting, so it was nice to have the opportunity again, thanks to my local bookstore, Spellbound. (And yes, I walked out of there with three books.)

Some people don't have a local bookstore, sadly, and this is becoming more common. So what should you do if this is the case? You can try a site like amazon.com, but you kind of have to know what you want there. Most of the time, book shopping isn't a matter of knowing what you want in advance.

Thanks to Facebook, I have found a website that can help. If you like to browse through books without exactly knowing what you want, this is the place: iAuthor
(It's based in the U.K. but has authors from the U.S. as well.)

The fun thing about this site is that you can search for books by either genre or theme. There is an amazing variety of themes, too: Fiction written in the first person singular, Books with a fiendishly clever twist, Female Protagonist, Funny Mysteries & Crime Fiction, etc. When you select a theme, you will see a whole page of book covers (and you can click on 'More" at the bottom). When you hover over a cover (wow, look at that fun phrase!), you can see a blurb on most of them. If you click on the cover, you can see all sorts of information about the book, the author, how to buy it, how many people liked the cover or the blurb, and how many people have recommended it. You can also learn more about the author.

I'm afraid I could get lost in there, but that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. Give it a try sometime.

In case you're interested, you can find my novels in the themes Character-Driven Sci-Fi, Science Fiction and Space. I'll probably add them to more themes when I can. It's another way I hope to get my novels discovered.

I hope you'll take a look. Who knows? You might find your next favorite book!

Another In The Shadows Update

Good news! I finally finished the blurb for In the Shadows, which means I was able to submit the whole book to CreateSpace.com for review. After waiting 24 hours, I got the word: it's good to go!

I've now ordered a proof copy that's supposed to arrive around January 5. (It's hard to wait!) Then I'll finally be able to hold my latest novel in my hands. What a feeling that is. (And it lasts until I start proofreading and find the inevitable mistake. Oh, well, that's part of the process.) I'll let you know how it goes.

Meanwhile, believe it or not, I've starting working on the next one! (It already has a rough draft.) This one will need A LOT of work: it doesn't have a title and it isn't even broken into chapters yet! (I think I have a good title in mind, though. I'll give it some thought and let you know once I'm sure.)

Remember to tell all of your friends and family members about the first two novels. They'd better hurry and read them before the third one is out, right?

I hope you had a peaceful holiday and will have a wonderful New Year. Look for the beauty that's around you, sometimes where you least expect it.


From Photography Workshop, November 2014

Thanks, as always, for your support.

Happy (Warm) New Year

If you're reading this in the United States, I wish you warmth because most Americans are facing some bitter cold this weekend. I hope you'll all be safe. Here in southeast Kansas, we're in a Winter Weather Advisory and we have a Wind Chill Warning for tomorrow night, so I can empathize with those of you in the deep freeze. 2014 is a challenge, but I keep reminding myself that the days are getting longer...

The cold weather has had one good result, however: it's kept me inside and I've actually had time to do a little reading. If you want something that is fun to read with a terrific main character, I highly recommend Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files series. This is some serious fun!  Harry Dresden ("the only openly practicing professional wizard in the country") is one of the most complex characters I've discovered for a while and I'm ready to make my way through all 15 or so novels.  So far, I've read two of them, but I have a total of six in my possession. Those other four look mighty tempting right now... Maybe this storm will be good for something after all!  If you get a chance and you like fantasy/mystery/noir/adventure, give this series a try. Storm Front is the first in the series. That seems appropriate for this weekend, doesn't it?

Remember that Another Shot is now available and please keep spreading the word about the Penumbra series. I appreciate your support!