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

Shady R&R

I'm winding up--or winding down?-- the Bootylicious Book Tour this week--virtual and real, blogs and brick-and-mortar. A few of you won over the last two weeks-- through the WOW blog tour stops-- free signed copies of SECRET KEEPERS and "seedy character" packages of my favorite seeds. Those will be sent to you this week. Congrats!

And for the Dear Reader Seedy Character contest--I'll be announcing FIVE winners here on July 1, and contacting you each via email. Thank you all for entering...and stay tuned.

I'm grateful to everyone who entered, and/or who read this blog...and I'd like to thank those of you who purchased/read/shared SECRET KEEPERS. [I'd like to thank the Academy, too. Some day.] Thank you!

Okay-- so, deep breath. Ready for a moment of zen? I am.

Our back-yard shade garden: a patch of peacefulness. Think serenity. Think gratitude. And, uh, no shady character jokes...

"The mind is everything. What you think you become." --Buddha

Ironweed, Beautiful Ironweed

The Ironweed in my garden, blooming purple today, is sturdy, tall, rich in nectar. A butterfly magnet, especially for Monarchs who can't resist it in the fall, when they flutter back down Mexico way. If anyone tells you it's a "weed" don't believe it. Or, believe it, but be glad that weeds are easy to grow and to seed and to share. Ironweed is indigenous--which, you know, is just a high falutin' term for native. It can grow over six feet. I read that people used to use the stems to make kites. Native Americans used Ironweed to ease post-childbirth pain.

Another reason to love Ironweed? It's the title of one of my favorite books: the Pulitzer-prize winning novel by William Kennedy about the drifter Francis Phelan's search for redemption. A novel that has one of the best opening lines ever:
"Riding up the winding road of Saint Agnes Cemetery in the back of the rattling old truck, Francis Phelan became aware that the dead, even more than the living, settled down in neighborhoods."

And here's the definition of Tall Ironweed that opens the novel--and reveals a lot about Francis, really--adapted from The Audubon Society's Field Gide to North American Wildflowers:

Tall Ironweed is a member of the Sunflower Family (Asteraceae). It has a tall erect stem and bears deep purple-blue flower heads in loose terminal clusters. Its leaves are long and thin and pointed, their lower surfaces downy. Its fruit is seed-like, with a double set of purplish bristles. It flowers form August to October in damp, rich soil from New York south to Georgia, west to Louisiana, north to Missouri, Illinois and Michigan. The name refers to the toughness of the stem.

That last line? The toughness of the stem? Perfect.

Going Wild & Green...

Moms gone wild?
After you turn 30 or so, "wildlife" has a whole new connotation..My front yard, pictured here, is a certified wildlife habitat.I'm guest posting today over at Fatal Foodies on the 6 steps to establishing a wildlife habitat in your yard--or balcony or patch of dirt....
Here's an excerpt:

There's been a sign posted in my front yard for three years. It's no "Keep off the Grass" warning--I haven't had a lawn in years. It's an official "Certified Wildlife Habitat™." sign, one of the easiest, green, fun and transforming things you can do to your yard-- and for the earth...CONTINUE READING


And here's a piece on dusting off your travelin' shoes...which is something Emma, the protagonist in SECRET KEEPERS, yearns to do. My guest blog at WritetoTravel on how childhood travel can influence your writing:

For me, what's so powerful about travel, besides being the ultimate form of escape, is the way it changes your view of the world, even after you return home. ESPECIALLY after you return home. 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."

Not to be missed: Tim Gautreaux's short story, "Idols," in this week's New Yorker. Hear the echoes--sense the smirk-- of Flannery O'Connor-- in Gautreaux's darkly comic, southern gothic tale.

"The lawn was a weave of waist-high weeds and fallen limbs punctuated by the otherworldy pink domes of thistle blooms..."

Otherworldy. Pretty much a perfect description of thistle.


Today's SECRET KEEPERS Bootylicious Booktour Blogstop is over at Misadventures with Andi. Here's an excerpt from the interview:

[MWA] If you got your one whiff of a secret keeper, what do you think it would be?

[MF] Oh, that's a good question. For me a whiff of a secret keeper would smell like...[continue reading]

On Writing: My Interview at WordHustlerInk

Today's Bootylicious Blog Tour Stop is an interview over at WordhustlerInk.

And here is a picture of my garden this week, which after all this rain, is more weed-choked than plant-choked :)

A Southern Writer Never Kisses and Tells: An Interview with Mindy Friddle
Somewhere in a plant-choked garden in South Carolina, journalist-turned-novelist Mindy Friddle is planting some succulents in an old, broken-down cowboy boot. She’s also thinking about characters and scenes for her next novel, giving them space to roam around in her head. Mindy Friddle is the real deal, folks: a bona fide Southern lady and a talented writer to boot (pun completely intended).
WordHustler sat down with Mindy to get a feel for her writing experiences, her personal writing style, and why you have to talk to everyone about your project...

Read the complete interview here.

Guest Blog: Setting--warped a little

Over at The Bookcase, I'm guest blogging today on why SECRET KEEPERS is set in Palmetto, loosely based on my hometown and its overlay of New South over Old South. Sometimes it helps to have a lousy sense of direction-- you can just, you know, make things up. Or warp them. Take liberties. Earn your poetic license.

For example, I changed the cemetery name from Springwood to Springforth. I thought Springforth was a better name for a cemetery, anyway. And that outdated Confederate Monument--you see them in just about every southern town-- I tweaked that, too.

Sometimes I find inspiration right in my front yard. The pitcher plants, Love-Lies-Bleeding, and moonflower vine in my garden prompted some poetic license. Amaranth, a seedy, neglected estate in Secret Keepers, has a secret garden. When the Blooming Idiots gardeners stumble upon its bounty of botanicals, they find a few other-worldly flowers as well: secret keepers are flowers with a potent aroma that trigger a powerful memory of love in a person’s life.

Read the entire post here.

Family Secrets, Video Interview

That's Otto's new friend, encountered on yesterday's walk. He can't bear to leave him.

I'm guest blogging today at PaperBack Swap on family secrets:

Since I came across the letter from J. Edgar Hoover in my grandmother’s trunk, I’ve been thinking a lot about family secrets. Continue Reading>>

I am lucky to be the inaugural author for a monthly author interview series over at Start Up Live TV. Here's the video interview of me thinking aloud about writing, SECRET KEEPERS, reading... on Start Up Live TV.

And here's trumpet vine: wild, beckoning hummingbirds.

Pottie Pitcher Plants

From the Really Cool Weird Plants file:
Here are my pitcher plants, thriving from generous spring rains. I admit I dote on them. They look like they're having a fine old time, those tricky little carnivores! Mouths wide open...all they need are googly eyes.

In SECRET KEEPERS, thanks to poetic license, the pitcher plants are "big as lampshades."

It never occurred to me they could be potties.


From today's NYT science section about the tropical pitcher plant Nepenthes lowii, "a pitcher plant found in Borneo...gets its nutrition not from insects but from tree shrews, which use the plant as a toilet."

Ultimate composting toilet. You can't greener than that.


photo of tree shrew by Ch'ien C. Lee

On daylilies, signed copies of SECRET KEEPERS & Whole Latte LIfe

Your Moment of Zen: It's day lily time-- here, to the left, is yesterday's treasure...sigh...already gone today. The impermanence of forms! Plenty of buds, though :)

News: Now you can get a signed copy of SECRET KEEPERS, no matter where you live! Fiction Addiction, a local bookstore in my town, will now be offering this service. And I think it's really cool...sort of like I having a jetpack and a magic robot hand that can sign books all over the globe. When you go to the Fiction Addiction link to order, indicate you'd like a signed copy of either [or both!] of my books--and any inscription or "secret" message you'd like-- in the comments section on the checkout page. Ta da-- you'll have your books signed, sealed and delivered.

Today: blog post at Whole Latte Life with lots of intriguing questions on writing and heart-warming comments. One commenter will be chosen to win a signed copy of SECRET KEEEPERS, along with a seedy character package.

Oh, and speaking of contest: a quick note to my Dear Reader emailers: the Dear Reader SECRET KEEPERS/seedy character contest is fantastic--I've received close to 200 emails, and the day is young. Not to mention the week. So I am entering all your names in the drawing, and working hard to answer every one of your emails-- which I LOVE to read. But it may take me a few days to answer you. Hold tight, I'm getting there!