Dispatches from the Road

I'm guest blogging today over at A Good Blog is Hard to Find. Come on over, ya'll...


These days, a book tour is real...and virtual.
As an author, I've learned publicity goes with the job description. Book touring, blog touring, book clubbing, Facebooking, Tweeting, Skyping, e-newsletters, contests...I'm game. But I've also learned that the publicity part takes a whole different set of muscles from toiling in isolation at your desk with your gin & tonic.

For six weeks now, I've been on the Bootylicious Book Tour for SECRET KEEPERS, my second novel. I've visited brick-and-mortar indie bookstores--where I left boot planters behind to be raffled off or displayed. I hit the virtual road with a WOW-sponsored blog tour-- guest posting or being interviewed at dozens of blogs for the month of June. Topics for my guest posts have covered not just writing and books, but the importance of book covers, photography as a stress-reliever, travel, to-do and to-be lists, and how to certify your yard as a wildlife habitat. In a word--whew! CONTINUE READING

Today's Blog Stop & Seedy Character Contest

My purple coneflowers insist on growing in the crack between the front steps. They're stubborn that way. The bed of rich soil just above them is apparently too tame. BORING. They prefer some challenge to their days, and seeded themselves on rocky terrain. Oh, well. Apparently the challenge of rooting through leaf mold and cement seems to agree with them just fine.

Today's Bootylicious Blog Tour stops at SoABlondeWalksIntoaReview.com where my guest post is, "To Do List? Make That a To Be List." AND-- you can win a free signed copy of SECRET KEEPERS, along with a "seedy character" package [a selection of my favorite flower seeds] just by leaving a comment there. Visit SoABlondeWalksIntoaReview.com for details on how to enter today's contest.

Here's an excerpt from today's post:

...it helps to start small if you don't want to sweat the small stuff. And noticing just how often your mind chatters--planning, fretting, remembering, scheming-- is the first step. "To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else." Emily Dickinson wrote, which always reminds me to pay attention to the smells, sights, and sounds around me right now, no matter where I am. CONTINUE READING.

What I Like About You

I have a sunny, soil-enriched spot in my heart for William Wordsworth. He of the daffodil poem fame. It's hard not to like the Romantics--the English poets from the eighteenth century I mean, not the band from the 80's, they of the "What I Like About You" fame--although, come to think of it, that song rocks.

So....words of wisdom today, courtesy of Wordsworth [illustrated with two photos of my front yard]: "Laying out grounds may be considered a liberal art, in some sort like poetry and painting."-- William Wordsworth

Oh, and picture this:
Bootylicious blog tour stop today is at Self-Help Daily, where I talk about how taking photographs in the garden keeps me "grounded."