Los Angeles Times | Festival of Books
April 22-23, 2017
Stop by Booth 35 and get an excerpt of “Desert Town Angels”
I can’t believe it’s been almost a year since my last post.
I want to wish you all Happy Holidays!
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
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
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
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
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
Still time to get the one you love something not solely from a drugstore 😉
my resolution: finish that darn Christmas novel!
R. A. Lee
Hello readers,
Free download of my short story on KDP select Saturday, Oct. 12!
