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Sometimes You Win…
Category: QuickJAB
When the Wind Blows…
Everybody knows that trees shouldn’t be planted too close to a house. When a particularly vicious storm roared through our area this summer, the wind took down a gigantic oak tree that was in the woods behind our house.
The good news is that the gigantic oak tree fell away from the house. Even though the tree was in the woods, the root ball was so large that it took our chain link fence with it! An interesting fact is that people who lived in the county south of us didn’t know anything about our severe storm, so I’m positive you didn’t either.
We lived in New Mexico for a number of years where everybody knows about dust storms and tumbleweeds, but I didn’t know about the severe dust storms that plagued Arizona until part of our family moved there a few years ago.
Our oak tree and the dust storms in Arizona reminded me that there are things that only “the locals” know, especially when it comes to weather. I know about hurricanes because we lived in Florida and tornados because we lived in Texas. I also know about blizzards because we lived in Minnesota, but I’m hoping I don’t ever have a blizzard in any of the books I write because I’d get too cold. I have a very active imagination, but you knew that!
My latest novel takes place in Arizona, and my main character is from Georgia, so I knew she wouldn’t know about a ‘haboob,’ which is a word frequently used for the miles long, towering Arizona dust storms with sand and debris. Thank goodness one of the locals told her, or it would have been my shortest novel ever!
What is it that “everybody knows” where you live that a newcomer wouldn’t know? I’m always looking for a weather story I can use in a book!
Interested in reading a book that takes place in Arizona?
Wren’s new writing assignment, a haunted campground in Arizona, is perfect except for the killer who wants her dead.
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or Buy the new book HERE if you have a favorite retailer.
You keep reading; I’ll keep writing!
Where is the Best Place to Start?
In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis G. Carroll, we read, “Begin at the beginning,” the King said, very gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”
Sounds logical enough, 
but how do we know when we’ve reached The End?
I’ve been like most writers, a great story pops into my head, and I start writing. Midway in the story, usually at the 40,000 word point, I realize I probably need a title, a cover, and a description of sorts. Let the scrambling begin!
With my latest new book, I started with the cover! And not just A Cover, but covers for all the books in the new series. After I had the cover and the title, the description was easy.
I’m just past the 40,000 word mark, and I don’t miss the scrambling. Starting at THE END has made the book easier (notice I didn’t say easy) to write. I think I even know how the series might end – rare for me!
Wren’s new writing assignment, a haunted campground in Arizona, is perfect except for the killer who wants her dead.
BLOODSHED IN THE BADLANDS Release Date: August 21.
Tap to Preorder NOW from Barrett Book Shop
or Tap to select your preferred Retail Book Seller.
You keep reading; I’ll keep writing!
Current Affairs
Readers tell me that the events in the GRID DOWN SURVIVAL stories seem close to real life but are actually encouraging because of the hope and strength in the exciting stories of Major, Aimee Louise, Stuart, and the rest of their friends and family.
I published my first Grid Down book, DANGER IN THE CLOUDS, in 2019. I wrote it for my resident FarmerMan because he’d read all the books in all the post-apoc series that he liked.
He asked me to write a book for him, and I did. He liked it, and so did a few other people. When he asked me to write the next book, I did, and more people liked the stories, so I kept going from there. I’ve published at least one book a year since the first book.
Book 7, DANGER ON THE RISE, was released a little over a week ago. Interesting trivia, at least to me and three other people: Five of the seven books were published in May, June, or July. The other two were published in December or January.
This might be a stretch, but it’s hot outside in Georgia, and maybe where you are too, and we deserve a break! It’s time to celebrate the Series that hatches mostly in the summer! (told you it was a stretch)
If you’re interested in becoming immersed in the exciting adventures of a small family that joins with their neighbors in overcoming adversity, start with DANGER IN THE CLOUDS.
If you’re intrigued AND love a bargain, buy two or more GRID DOWN SURVIVAL SERIES books between now and July 17. The bargain? Use the discount code GRID16 for 16% off two or more of the books in the series.
Tap HERE for the GRID DOWN SURVIVAL SERIES and use your GRID16 discount code!
Have you already read all the GRID DOWN SURVIVAL SERIES, or would you like to see what other books might interest you more? (I have more series and bargains to entice you to try a new series!)
Tap HERE for BARRETT BOOK SHOP to browse for other bargains or on the Barrett Book Shop logo that doubles as a button.
You keep reading; I’ll keep writing!
Small Town, Big Heart for Reading
In May, we packed up books and dogs and took our camper trailer to Ellaville, Georgia, population 1,500 (not a typo), for an Arts and Crafts event sponsored by the town’s Chamber of Commerce who named their event Luau in the ‘Ville. Kind of snappy, don’t you think?
I wore my flowered shirt, which is my version of appropriate luau attire (my grass skirt is at the dry cleaners), for the occasion, and if you carefully examine my tent, you’ll see my new “ceiling fan” is in place to keep us cool.
My new friends from the Wine Festival who told me about the Ellaville event were two booths away from me with their son who was selling his debut novel. We were too busy to chat very much, but I told them about the arts and crafts event that is close to me: Elevate Artisans; I hope to see them in October.
The most amazing sales wizard I’ve ever had the pleasure to witness was next to me in the purple tent. She sold jewelry, T-shirts, drink cups, and stickers, and she knew how to work a crowd. She maintained a constant, almost musical patter, and people were drawn to her booth.
- Mother’s Day is coming up; do you think she’d like earrings or a T-shirt?
- That’s our best-selling T-shirt, feel how soft it is. We have your size.
- What’s your mom’s favorite color?
- You need to get yourself a Mother’s Day present. You deserve it.
- You’re ears aren’t pierced? These earrings make great charms.
- You need a Georgia Bulldogs drink cup to go with that shirt.
- You’re from Alabama? We still love you. Here’s an Auburn drink cup: you won’t see another one here.
Her charming delivery made her aggressive-sounding style a magnet as she magically became everyone’s favorite friend, including me.
It was another scorcher of a day in the afternoon in Georgia. Remember my fan? It was great until it wasn’t. We forgot to pack the charger, so we weren’t able to charge it fully the night before the Luau. It fizzled out around two, and I baked in the heat until five when the party was over. I have a new addition to my packing list: the charger for the fan.
Because all of the ebooks for each one of my series are included on my online Barrett Book Shop, I was fully prepared for anyone who said they didn’t read paperbacks. I asked everyone who stopped (or kind of slowed down) by my booth, if they read paperbacks or ebooks. The readers of Ellaville and the surrounding towns surprised me when they almost 100% said, “Paperbacks.”
I was even more surprised when many of them bought one or two of my books or an entire series. While all of my First in Series books sold, the number one favorite was TAGGED BY DEATH. I sold out before the end of the day. In terms of sales, Ellaville far surpassed any other event that I’ve ever attended. You’ll find me in Ellaville next spring trying to figure out how to get next to the sales wizard’s booth.
Pro tip: Readers are Everywhere.
You keep reading; I’ll keep writing!
Fences in My World
FarmerMan has fenced in our peach trees. Do you see that the left side of the tree is bare? There is another peach tree next to it, and it looks just the same.
We had apple trees growing in the same two spots for the last few years, and they were always bare on that east side, just like this peach tree. We thought we had a strange weather environment in just that small spot because the rest of our fruit trees were fine. Or maybe there was a type of bug that ate only part of the tree because they were too lazy to fly or crawl to the other side.
We had two fig trees that were west of the two suffering apple trees that also finally died after all their fruit that was almost ripe disappeared and their leaves were stripped. We pulled up the dead trees, so they wouldn’t spread their strange virus to the rest of our trees.
When we planted the peach trees this year, FarmerMan fed and fertilized them and double-checked their irrigation. All was good until it wasn’t, and we were perplexed.
Our son visits regularly; FarmerMan showed him our troubling trees.
“Deer,” he said.
FarmerMan used what we had on hand, and the fences went up around all the peach trees. The green tape gives a little more height to the fence. We’re hoping to slow the all-you-can-eat free buffet for our deer neighbors.
Have you heard the old saying, “good fences make good neighbors”? I’m hoping our hungry neighbors decide to move on for their night time snack. I’d like to rewrite the old saying: “Good fences make absent neighbors.”
TJ and Toby, however, don’t share in our fondness for fences. They’d much prefer no fences or at least an open gate, so they could visit their friends who live half a mile away and find new friends that might be two or three miles from the farm.
Ella Fitzgerald sings TJ and Toby’s theme song: Don’t Fence Me In
My world revolves around what’s happening outside. What is your world?
Looking for a great book to read to be immersed in an exciting world?
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Go for the Burn
The past year has been rough on our trees: windstorms, heavy rain, a tropical storm, a hurricane, and two tornados have taken their toll.
We’ve waited for the downed trees and branches to dry out, then we waited for a relatively wind-free day to Go for the Burn.
Do you see the helpers who showed up? There’s a fire witch and a fire ghoul who brought their cannon to the fire. If the fire hadn’t been roaring so loudly, we would have heard the fire ghoul signaling, “Ready? Aim! FIRE!”
If you don’t see them, it’s okay. I don’t write horror, so you won’t see them later in a book, which is why we don’t know their names.
This was a cameo appearance of the fire apparitions to encourage me to Go for the Burn while I’m writing, and I am! I’m on a roll and ready to announce the PreOrder of the new GRID DOWN SURVIVAL Series, Book 7.
Ready?
FIRE IN THE HOLE!
Here’s the cover!
Preorder Now!
Use the Barrett Book Shop link for a 15% discount off any Grid Down Survival Series novel (through May 31)
Release Date: June 29, 2023
Road Trip
We decided our new camper needed more than one shakedown weekend: our latest excuse for a road trip!
FarmerMan found an all-day Arts and Crafts festival for me and an all-day agriculture class for him that were on the same day and within a 45-minute driving time of each other. I made our four-day reservation at the Americus KOA, which was an absolutely perfect campground for us, TJ, and Toby.
We arrived at the Wolf Creek Plantation Winery in Americus, Georgia, for their Spring Festival at seven thirty on Saturday morning to put up my canopy tent and set out the tables, then FarmerMan left for his class.
After I arranged my tablecloths, banner, books, and signs on the tables, I asked my new early-bird neighbor if she’d take a photo of me with my booth. See the newly planted grapevines behind me? The winery has acres and acres of grapevines, and there was plenty of room for the 95 vendors who had signed up to hawk their wares.
I’ve loved our local fall and Christmas arts and crafts festivals that I attend every year, so one in the spring was a new adventure for me, and one without FarmerMan’s assistance was definitely a new and scarier adventure.
The morning was a bit chilly to sit and wait, but I was busy answering questions when the rest of the vendors arrived. The most common question: where is number fill-in-the-blank; I was in #36. I had printed the map the winery sent us, so I was the resident expert at pointing. “It’s that way!”
By noon, the visitors parking lot was overflowing, and cars were parked on both sides of the road. I enjoyed talking to so many interesting people while I made new friends. Shout out to the sweet woman that stuck by my side while I fumbled then finally figured out how to accept her credit card payment for the signed book she bought from me. My first book sale of the day!
There was a bounce house for children that was very close to where I was, so I had extra entertainment. Have you ever heard of playing Marco-Polo in a bounce house? I hadn’t, but they did!
My book sales were great, and I was an old pro with taking credit cards by early afternoon. FarmerMan gave me his solar charger to use for my cell phone, and that definitely made a difference in being able to accept credit cards. My phone would have run out of steam by one o’clock without it! It’s my solar charger now, but you knew that.
In the late afternoon, the weather turned hot. My booth faced the west, and the day turned into a scorcher; I overheated. My booth neighbor on my other side watched my booth while I hurried into the air-conditioned event center that was nearby. I washed my face with cool water then used damp paper towels on the back of my neck. Heat stroke averted!
When I returned, my neighbor told me about another vendor who had a ceiling fan in her tent. Her mother watched both our booths while we went to ask nosy questions. The ceiling fan made the vendor’s tent very comfortable. Guess what I bought after we returned home? You got it!
Remember it was hot? People who went past my booth had slushies. I had water to drink, but those slushies looked really refreshing. Two young women with slushies stopped by my booth to chat, and I asked them about their drinks. They urged me to get one at the event center because they said my cheeks were really red from the heat; they kindly offered to watch my booth for me.
I bought a strawberry-mango slushy; it was a little pricey, but I was certain it would be as tasty as it was cooling. Are you already ahead of me on this? I took a huge slurp from my straw.
Pro Tip: If you buy a slushy from a winery, it may likely be a Wine Slushy.
I drank another bottle of water and quietly set my Wine Slushy aside to melt into a sadly watered down drink that I threw away before we left.
In spite of my minor slushy faux pas, it was a great success, and I’ll keep an eye on the Wolf Creek Plantation for their next event!
Time Out for Toby
Our front and back yards and the field from the house to the road are completely fenced. The fence around the house is chain link, and field fence completely encloses the front field. The purpose of our fence is to keep the neighbors’ dogs out and our dogs in. It was a brilliant plan in theory.
Last week, I realized TJ was patrolling the front field alone. I whistled and called for Toby, then finally TJ and I walked to the road. Still no Toby. We keep our gate closed, so we aren’t overrun by wandering canines, but sometimes Toby gets it into his head to go visiting, and he jumps the four-foot fence.
TJ and I climbed into my Doggie Van, which other people might call a minivan, and I drove a mile down the road then turned around and drove two miles in the other direction, but the only dogs we saw were two old dogs that were enjoying the warmth of the sun. When TJ and I returned home, Toby was waiting for us on the front porch with his tail tucked.
He followed me into the house and spent the rest of the morning under the barstool. Evidently, Toby put himself in self-imposed Doggie Time Out, which was fine with me since I was still mad and wasn’t speaking to him.
Toby stayed in time out until FarmerMan came home and asked him if he was okay, which must have lifted the time out curse because Toby wagged and grinned with delight as he came out from behind the bars.
How’s that for a twist to the old standard, wait until your father gets home?
New Spring Projects
We had an old fire ring that we’d almost forgotten about because it had been overrun by several years worth of weeds and brush on the edge of our woods. After FarmerMan cleared away the dead weeds and brush, he rescued the fire ring, the few stones that hadn’t been repurposed for other projects, and the concrete benches that had surrounded the fire pit for the past ten years.
We walked around our property while we discussed the best site for our “new” fire pit. After we considered several spots, we decided on a location in the backyard that was relatively flat; we also decided that our folding camping chairs would be more comfortable than the concrete benches and would make mowing around the fire pit easier. We relocated our concrete benches to be near near the chicken coop, so we would have somewhere to sit while we watched the chickens and their latest antics.
We had a beautiful Bottlebrush tree next to our driveway. In case you’ve never seen a Bottlebrush tree, this is an example of its flowers from the University of Florida Extension Service.
The Bottlebrush attracts hummingbirds and butterflies and has bright red flower spikes that are reminiscient of a bottle washer. The Bottlebrush plant is frequently sold as a shrub, but it can grow as a tree up to 25 feet in height. Our tree was probably only 15 or so feet tall, but it was beautiful.
Our weeklong hard freeze this past winter took its toll on our beautiful Bottlebrush tree. In a last ditch effort to revive our tree, FarmerMan severely cut back the branches in the hopes there was still life in its roots…
…and there was.
In January 2023, I made a career shift as an author and a publisher and moved all of my e-books from being exclusive with a single US/UK-concentrated retail distributor to the additional top four retail distributors, and dozens more smaller distributors, that are now delivering my e-books world-wide. I expected a drop in royalties because the single retail distributor sales were based on the readers purchasing an annual subscription to read “free” books. Authors were paid royalties of a fraction of a penny for each page read.
While my gross income dropped, my net income has dipped only slightly because my marketing costs have drastically dropped; because more people (including libraries!) are willing to buy a book they want to read, more of my stories are flying off the pages and being read world-wide!
Would you like to pick a book to read? Tap HERE to pick one out! (With the magic of invisible electrons, when you select a book, the webs will deliver your book to your favorite ebook reader.)
You keep reading; I’ll keep writing!
