Tag: author

New Beaver Creek Novel Almost Here

Beaver Creek Road. Photo shows a gravel road leading into trees that hang over the road like a canopy. There's a long narrow shadow from a signpost.

PD is walking up Beaver Creek Road with her dog Rocky when he runs off into the trees. She splashes over the mud and across the creek calling for him, but the big, dopey golden retriever doesn’t come. She has never been in this part of the forest before and worries about getting lost. Then she hears singing. Singing out here? She follows the sound and finds her dog making friends with a woman people call The Witch.

Thus begins Between the Bridges, the newest book in my Up Beaver Creek series featuring the adventures of PD Soares and her friends. They went through so much in the last two books. What else could possibly happen? Well, it’s early 2020, the beginning of a year none of us will soon forget.

After a fun year of writing, many (!) revisions, and a good going-over by my wonderful Beta readers, Between the Bridges is close to publication. On New Year’s Eve, I finished the final rewrite. Now, I’m in what I call “formatting hell,” worrying over spacing, page numbers, copyright notices, and such. My cover designer is working on the cover. I’m hoping to release the ebook on Feb. 1 and the paperback soon after. You will be able to order it not only from Amazon but from all your favorite booksellers through Ingram, the distributor used by most bookstores.

It has been 11 years since I started the first book, Up Beaver Creek, which I fully intended to be just one book, not a series. I spent years on that book, writing, rewriting, and trying to sell it to an agent or traditional publisher. Finally, I decided that since nonfiction was my main career focus, I would self-publish my fiction as the fun thing I did for myself. Readers liked the first book so much I published a sequel, Seal Rock Sound, in 2022.

Self-publishing these days does not mean paying a printer and storing hundreds of books at your house. Print-on-demand technology means we can write and format the books online and have copies printed when orders come in. We can use the power of social media, Goodreads, Amazon and many other online venues to sell our books.

Anyone can self-publish a book these days. Doing it through Amazon’s KDP program is free, and the royalties are higher than most traditional publishers offer. The trick is to publish a book that is just as good as those put out by traditional publishers. Books that are poorly written, edited, and designed make self-publishing look bad for all of us. Books that we don’t promote like crazy go nowhere.

Doing it yourself is not easy, but it does have advantages. You can write the book you want to write without worrying about whether it will sell. You can release the book on your own schedule. The average traditionally published book takes two years from acceptance to publication.

The publisher has the final say on editing and cover design. By self-publishing, you make all the creative decisions. You’re also responsible for the creative mistakes. That’s why revising, having other people edit and proofread, and hiring a skilled cover designer are so important. I have a whole talk I could give on that subject, but let’s move on.

PD and her friends are as real to me as anyone reading this blog. I have to keep reminding myself that I cannot drive up Beaver Creek Road (shown in the photo) and see the Rainbow House and Donovan’s cabin on the right because they aren’t really there. I realized with a shock last night that I’m older than every character in the book and would not fit into their world, not in reality. But in my imagination, I’m 43, just like PD, singing harmony with her and Janey.

I don’t know if I can let them go after this book. PD’s stories have been well-received, and I already have ideas for another sequel. It might be different, perhaps from another’s character’s point of view, but there will be troubles, there will be love, and there will be laughs.

As soon as Between the Bridges becomes available, I will share the cover and links for purchase. Stay tuned for news about launch events and readings. Meanwhile, I have to check the page numbers and margins again.

Thank you to Pat, Samantha, Bonnie, Nancy, Stacy, and Kathryn for your eagle-eyed examination of the Between the Bridges manuscript. I’d be lost without you.

Happy New Year! May God bless us all in 2024.

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Despite Death, Halloween Goes On

Today in honor of Halloween, I’m sharing an excerpt from my book Shoes Full of Sand. Only five days before the holiday, my father-in-law, Al, had died suddenly of a stroke. But my mother-in-law, Helen insisted we carry on with Halloween as usual. Almost two decades later, Helen and my husband Fred are gone, but the memory remains. Here’s how it went:

helen-and-al-lick
Helen and Al Lick

Halloween found us at Helen’s front door, watching as my sister-in-law Harriet handed out candy, making a fuss over each child and each costume. She crouched down, creating a physical barrier so our dog Sadie couldn’t get out. Fred stood watching from between the stuffed monkeys his mother had placed in the window. His brother Condé sat in a chair in the corner, brooding and drinking. I moved between the door and the kitchen, where I was cooking chicken for dinner. Helen sat in the back room, watching “Jeopardy” and “Wheel of Fortune” on TV. During the commercials, she came out, squeaking with laryngitis, laughing at the kids.

Every year, the police blocked off the neighborhood east of the Fred Meyer store for Halloween. Hundreds of children came through. Although her husband had just died, Helen didn’t want her house to be dark on Halloween. So we carved pumpkins, helped decorate the house and gathered in the living room to hand out candy.

About 7 o’clock, Janet from my church showed up at the door with her daughter Heather.

“Janet!” I called over Harriet’s head.

She looked confused. She had heard that my father-in-law had died, but we lived on the other end of town. She had no idea that my mother-in-law lived on Crestview or that we would be celebrating Halloween. Now she didn’t know what to say. “Um, Shirley told me what happened,” she said.

“I know. Hi, Heather.” The shy three-year-old clung to her mother’s pants. Just the Sunday before, we had had lunch together after church with Shirley and Georgia, all complaining about our aging parents. At the time, my in-laws needed a little help, but they were in comparatively good shape. Now the cloud of death hung over the house in spite of the Halloween decorations.

More kids were coming up the driveway, so Janet went on down the street. I felt guilty. Guilty for making her think of death in the midst of trick-or-treating, guilty for not mourning quietly instead of celebrating Halloween.

A teenage girl came to the door when Helen was nearby. “Didn’t you and your husband just move in?” she asked.

Helen nodded but didn’t elaborate. They had only lived there for two months.

Sometimes I missed the old-fashioned mourning customs. I didn’t know what was appropriate. Should I dress normally in my usual reds and pinks or wear dark colors to church? Should I play the piano or be silent? Dared I laugh? I longed for the comforts of everyday life, but was I dishonoring my dead father-in-law if I watched my favorite TV show and enjoyed it? If I went out to lunch with my friends as usual? If I talked about what happened and didn’t cry?

The stages of grief are muddled. On that first day, we wept and then we went numb. I felt neither hunger nor the need to use the restroom. I know only that when a masseuse came through the hospital cafeteria offering massages, I kept thinking, no, I don’t want anyone to touch me. A human touch might have broken through the wall I had built around my feelings.

Helen accepted a massage. “Ah, that feels so good,” she said as the woman kneaded her neck and shoulders. With her husband dying upstairs, was this wrong? Would saying no to the massage have changed that sad fact?

We held no funeral or memorial service for Al. His body was cremated, the ashes destined to be placed at the Newport cemetery. Instead of a service, Helen held an open house, but only a handful of people came. My in-laws hadn’t lived in Newport long enough to meet anyone except their landlord, Al’s doctor and a few of my church friends.

But on Halloween, hundreds of children came to the door, with no idea that there was anything different at this house where grownups stood in the doorway passing out candy than at any other house on the block.

Somebody egged our car outside the folks’ house that night, probably the teens that Helen had turned away at the door after she ran out of candy. We had left the car window open, and egg was dripping down the back of the seat. Sadie jumped in and licked it up. Dogs and teens figured it was just an ordinary night.

For the rest of the world, it was.

Al would have gotten a kick out of the little kids in their costumes. He might even have chuckled at the teenagers and their eggs, remembering his own youthful adventures. He loved life and wanted more of it. Our best tribute would be to enjoy our own lives, every single day of them.

I hope Janet understood that we weren’t being crass on Halloween. We who are still alive have to take the comforts that life gives. Sometimes those comforts include a cherry Tootsie Pop and a six-year-old girl in an angel dress yelling “Trick or Treat!” at the front door.

Copyright 2011 Sue Fagalde Lick