Happy New Year: First Resolutions Achieved

Happy New Year

Actually, they were ongoing resolutions like to read A Christmas Carol and have figgy pudding.

So off I went to the internet and my local World Market. I found Christmas pudding, which when you type in figgy pudding this pops up, so I decided this was the closest I would get. It was not a pudding as we in the U.S. know it, which I learned, but like a mincemeat pie in fruitcake form. I like mincemeat pie, I like fruitcake (some of them) but not this hard cake.

Since figgy pudding and Christmas Pudding may be different, I now cannot formulate an opinion until I get figgy pudding from the source – I will have to go to Europe. Darn.

For Christmas I got a copy of the manuscript version of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol!

I couldn’t get over the first two sentences and I was in pure ecstasy. A comma out of place and other strange punctuation. This was how the writer originally turned it in.

It was glorious seeing all the photocopies of his original manuscript. I will read the entire book at some point, but as a writer, this version was so unexpectedly exciting.

Most people think when a book is published that it is exactly how it came from the author, that it was perfect and that the author was done with it once it was published.

Not so. I love seeing the editor marks on some of the most beloved and famous authors, how to them the story has this problem or that and they don’t ever consider it final. (Star Wars fans will understand this dilemma when the creator decides to go back and get to reconstruct what they wanted to do all along. Turns out that genius is not in what you wanted to create, but what was created and embraced by others as perfect.) The audience, the readers, they don’t know anything but what is on the paper and not what is in the author’s mind. The story never ceases for the author, otherwise there wouldn’t be sequels.

Those were my almost-resolved ongoing resolutions.

Good luck with your this New Year 2019

 

 

 

 

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Dickens and Self-Publishing

A note of inspiration for self-published authors:

I just saw “The Man Who Invented Christmas” on a streaming service.

Coming off the success of Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens had three flops and his publishers were not happy. Unwilling to produce what they wanted, in six weeks he wrote, commissioned art for, and set up distribution and marketing for his Christmas Carol book.

Of course, he was an established author of a best-seller, but it’s interesting that he produced that all himself, or at least that’s what this movie shows. That was what fascinated me the most. This classic story was a passion project. It could have been another flop and crushed his creativity forever. But for those of us with a story in our head, you don’t just stop, you can’t stop, just because of failure.

I am going to pick up a copy of A Christmas Carol and read it. I just realized I might never have actually read this classic, or maybe I have, it’s just such a part of Christmas that you don’t realize there was a time when this story epitomizing the season for everyone didn’t exist.

Happy Holidays To All

 

2018 Happy Holidays & Obooko.com

Happy Holidays!

If you haven’t had the opportunity yet, check out my contribution to the Obooko.com blog post “Why do authors give away free books?”

Been binging Hallmark Christmas movies. I would love to believe in Christmas miracles, but I tend to slant toward the more cynical side of life. Would really love to write a Christmas book, but afraid it would be sort of depressing. It’s not that I am depressed or lonely, I have many people I love in my life so I am never lonely, but I always seem to focus on the post-Christmas season, the time in life after all the wonder has faded.

Since I have three channels streaming Christmas movies almost 24-hours a day, in addition to three streaming services with even more obscure choices including those Krampas movies that are creepy well done, I will try to think about my motives and Christmas wishes while drinking hot cocoa and claiming it was eminent domain that decimated my gingerbread house community.

Side note: Binging on the Game of Thrones has been a good palate cleanser, but I needed that extra dose of sweet movies after … if you’ve seen it you will know what I am talking about. No, a character named Jon Snow has nothing to do with Christmas or the winter holidays, and ‘winter’s coming’ is not a holiday season tagline.

Kudos to Cost Plus World Market for saving me a trip to England to find out what the heck figgy pudding tastes like, or will taste like, on Christmas. They had European holiday treats like Christmas Pudding that may be a replacement for those who can’t get official figgy pudding or too cheap to pay the exorbitant online prices. I also got fruitcake from the UK. I love this stuff, but only once a year because it takes me that long to forget what it does to my stomach before I start to crave it again.

If your holiday joy is finding the presents before they’re put under the tree, check out Obooko.com because I have three free books posted on their website.

I wish everyone the happiest of holidays and the safest and most prosperous New Year!

 

 

 

 

LATimes Festival of Books – At Booth 35 – get an excerpt of “Desert Town Angels”

Los Angeles Times | Festival of Books

April 22-23, 2017

 Stop by Booth 35 and get an excerpt of “Desert Town Angels”

Happy Holidays

I can’t believe it’s been almost a year since my last post.

I want to wish you all Happy Holidays!

A New Year – The Journey Continues

Happy New Year!

A New Year is here and I look back on my goals and what I actually achieved.

I know where I want to be, it’s just that there is no clear path leading the way.

Every day I hack away at the weeds of monotony as I try to focus on my goal, just a hazy outline in the distance.

Then, the LOML reminds me, when I think this journey is never-ending, that I should look around and enjoy the trip.

In my spare time, before the first book was released, I decided to finally head toward that far off dream to one day be able to make enough from my books to start writing part-time. First ideas. Then researching. Then writing. Then researching how to publish. Then deciding to self-publish. Then figuring out how to produce ebooks. Producing 8 ebooks.

During this time, and still, I am working a paying job, taking time off here and there to write and publish.

At the end of last year, I sat down in the middle of the path, not doing anything toward my progress, complaining that it was going to take forever to reach my goal. The LOML stood, looked around and accessed the landscape.

I had turned my hobby into a skill, one that my employer found very useful.

This little rest stop wasn’t delaying my progress, only reminding me that it’s the journey that’s important, picking up little souvenirs along the way, adding another pin to the map.

I’m still looking off in the distance, with my co-navigator by my side helping me forge the path, but if we don’t actually get to where we’re headed … well, we’re still on the journey so let’s see where it takes us this year.

R.A. Lee

The Princess, On Her 21st Birthday – Smashwords, BN.com and iTunes (any moment now)

Hi everyone,

I am finally releasing  The Princess, On Her 21st Birthday (had only been through KDP Select).

Didn’t write anything this year as planned, but I am on track for another novella next year!

Free download of choice for anyone who lets me know they have reviewed any of my novels, “Fountain of Truth,” and “Beauty at the Bus Stop.” Feedback of any kind welcome, and no restrictions based on content of review.

Have fun as we head into the holidays and the New Year!

R.A. Lee

Goodsprings Turns 100

Hello Readers,

As many of you may know, I get my inspiration from places around me. The Desert Town Angels series started from two articles I read, one about the tamarisk plant sucking up all the water in the desert and an article about a town for sale in the desert.

A while back, I was reading in the paper about an old desert town turning 100. For $25 I could get a brick and a name on the wall in the courtyard, so I did. I love history and this was a chance to be a part of it.

If you don’t know where Goodsprings is, but you have driven to Vegas on Interstate 15 from California, you have passed it. It’s the Jean exit toward Sandy Valley where the Nevada Landing steamboat casino used to be. 

Goodsprings is where Clark Gable waited in the Pioneer Saloon for news of his beloved Carole Lombard who died in a plane crash not far from Vegas. The Ghost Bar is a favorite for ghost hunters.

There is a saloon and a gift shop and a new dining patio that lights up at night and I will be going there again for some salmon … when it’s not 110 degrees. 

Hope you have a chance to visit. Just bring plenty of water and watch out for flash floods when driving in the southwestern area this time of year. The desert is beautiful and dangerous at the same time, but if you’re prepared you can see some things you won’t see anywhere else in the world.

Like 100-year-old Western saloons. So cool.

R.A. Lee

KDP Select Free promotion “The Princess on Her 21st Birthday” July 8-12

Hi,

Check out my KDP Select Free promotion of “The Princess on Her 21st Birthday” July 8-12.

If you like the story, please leave a comment. It’s what keeps me writing.

Happy Fourth of July to all my U.S. Readers!

R. A. Lee

Mother’s Day in US next Sunday

Reminder! Still time to get something special!

Also, once again I promise myself to write three books by the end of the year.

Once again I know I will not meet my goal. I am too busy living life, astonished that although I have to create new people and places, that to some people I am their world.

I want to thank all you readers who comment on my ebooks. 

A friend of mine told me it was better to never have started a blog and twitter and fb page if I wasn’t going to be consistent in my posts.

As a writer, I am not a social person. I am a watcher, a perceiver of what is going on around me and when I have focus, have a lucid moment, some insight, then I sit down and share with others.

I live in many worlds – one with family – one at work – one on the internet – one in my mind. 

This is my insight – It’s more important to be actually loved than virtually loved. 

Even though I don’t clog the web with wasted words just to fill the void so that I don’t fall into oblivion, I appreciate all the readers around the world who validate my existence as a writer – and my mom, my biggest fan.

R.A. Lee