Catching Up

Hi. It’s a warm day here in SE Colorado and the smell of spent fireworks still lingers in the air. We had a nice display in town, preceded by a great barbecue at our daughter’s home. Later, there was an array of any number of bottle rockets, roman candles, poppers, and other assorted noise and light makers that brightened the night sky. Hope everyone had a great Fourth of July!

Sorry I have not posted for a while. I have a wonderful interview with Kassy Paris, who’s book, First I’m Nobody, is now available in E-book format. Unfortunately, when I attempted to post the interview, I got some kind of HTML error. I have no idea what in the world that means and have referred the problem to my web master. You should see the interview soon. Check back to learn about Kassy’s book and her thoughts on E-book publishing as well as the advantages and disadvantages of writing with a collaborator.

I’m pleased to have recently joined an online critique group. It is through ACFW and we are all writing stories set in the 19th Century. My crit partners are astute at picking up my errors and I’m looking forward to learning a lot from them. A couple of them are published, which I consider an advantage. I feel like I’m getting advice from “experts”, or at least from writers who know a whole lot more about the profession than I do.

Profession? You bet, and I have to keep reminding myself of that. I’ve rewritten Chapter One of my WIP more than I would have liked to and still don’t have it right. Yet, it reinforces the fact that I am in the process of learning. It took me three years full-time to acquire the skills I needed for my basic nursing degree. Add to that another six years part-time to obtain a bachelor’s degree. Another thirty plus years in the work force and I still learn something new all the time. So, it stands to reason that the five years I’ve invested in seriously learning about writing are just the beginning. I only get time to read a writing craft book maybe once every two months, I’ve attended only one writing conference a year for the past two years, and my time to actually write is limited. So, I feel like I’m crawling along at a snail’s pace, but even a snail reaches it’s destination eventually!

Membership in the online critique group gives me a sense of responsibility. I have to meet a deadline, and for me, that’s a good thing. If I’m told that I need to have something done by a certain time, I manage to do it, even if I’m completing it at the last minute. We have each chosen a week during the month to submit our work. Mine is week three, so I want to have a revision of my Chapter One and the subsequent Chapter Two ready by Monday the fourteenth. Gives me a little over a week to get my work in top shape.

Oh, in case you’re wondering, I’m way past “Chapter One”. I’ve written twenty chapters, well over 200 pages, and the rest is in outline form, but I keep going back to that first chapter because I still don’t like the way the story starts. Many writers say that is the hardest part, figuring out where and how to begin the book.

Now that I’ve found the time to write a few lines for the readers of my blog, I’m all keyed up to keep on writing. But, unfortunately, it is time to quit and get ready to go to work at my paying job. Maybe it will be a quiet shift and I can add a few lines to my story during my dinner break or late in the evening when my work is done. Now, if I can just take Rosalynn Carter's advice, who says, "you have to have confidence in your ability, and then be tough enough to follow through."

Simple Lessons

Good morning! It’s a beautiful day here in Colorado, although we sure could use some rain. I know they are getting way too much in Indiana and some other states. Maybe if we ask, the Lord could shift it west a bit?

I want to share with you something special that happened in our town last week.

Their little voices, raised in unison, filled the auditorium at the elementary school. They sang praise songs with titles like “Custom Built Heart”, “Rev It Up”, and “High Performance Mind” that carried a theme of car racing . Decorations included various engine parts, repair tools, and of course, black and white checked flags. One of the highlights of the week’s activities was the pinewood derby, held after each child had custom designed their own car.

Although the words to the songs wore on the nerves of the adults who spent all five days there, the message, reinforced with hand signs, ingrained itself in the memories of the children. They all went home with CDs and I know my granddaughter, for one, has played it a hundred times since Friday.

I’m talking about our Vacation Bible School. One hundred forty-five kids attended. That’s impressive for a town that boasted thirty-two seniors in our graduating class this year.

Even as joy filled my heart while I listened to the sweetness of young voices praising God through song and memory verses, a touch of sadness pervaded my mind. How many times will those little ones run into the guardrail or collide with each other along the racetrack of life, robbing their “custom built” hearts of the wonder of God’s love? How long before their “high performance” minds are stymied by the low-grade fuel that drives the motivations of man in this day and age?

It’s easy to start out on the track of goodness and love toward God and others, but a bump in the pavement, a distraction on the sidelines, a wrong decision, flips us upside down in an instant. We find ourselves hurt and bleeding and resenting whatever it is that got in our way, and the love is replaced with greed and hatred and the worship of false gods.

Keeping our eyes focused on Jesus is a difficult task, not because of who He is, but because of who we let ourselves become. We shift our gaze away from the cross and shove God’s simple commandments to the background of our lives, then we wonder why we end up digging ourselves out of a horrible wreck.

We need to embrace the words to those simple childhood songs and commit some basic Bible verses to memory in order to focus on the One for Whom we are running the race and the prize that awaits us at the finish line.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and love your neighbor as yourself.” – Luke 10:27.

“We love because He first loved us.” – I John 4:19

By the way, my granddaughter, pictured above, won third place for design of her derby car. Wahoo, Madison! Grandma does love to brag!

Interview with Author Tina Forkner

I am pleased to welcome debut novelist Tina Forkner to my porch this morning. It's a beautiful day here in Colorado and the wind is still, for a time anyway!

Leave a comment and you will be entered in a drawing to win a free copy of Tina's book!

Tina, welcome to Patti’s porch and congratulations. Tell us about your debut novel, Ruby Among Us.

Thanks Patti! Ruby Among Us is set in the lush vineyards of present and past Sonoma Valley. The novel weaves a story of three generations of women and the memory that binds their hearts together. Readers will journey with Lucy as she searches for a heritage long-buried with her mother, Ruby, in a tale of remembrance and redemption.


What prompted you to write this particular story?

I was living as a single mom in Wyoming and feeling particularly down about my situation in life when I began to think about my daughter and worry about what would happen to her if I were to die while she was still young. I asked myself a question that amounted to, “What would she be told about me?”

And then like a typical writer, I expanded my questions to the hypothetical. “What if someone decided to take her away from everything that has to do with me? How would she feel? Would she try to find out about me?” And I sensed she would, so I typed out what amounted to a few paragraphs of fiction, or maybe a few pages, I can’t remember, and then I called it Ruby Among Us and closed the file. It wasn’t until I later married my husband that I pulled that file back out and it turned into a book.

Your story is set in the Sonoma Valley. Do you have ties to that area?

For a time I lived in Sacramento, where I attended Sacramento State, and spent a few weekends a month visiting relatives in Santa Rosa and driving through the Sonoma Valley. The beauty of it really grew on me and served in many ways to heal my heart as I went through some tough moments known only to me at the time. I think the setting lent itself to the book easily because I had absorbed so much of it during that growing period in my life.


When did you begin writing Ruby Among US?

I guess that depends on if you count the few paragraphs I wrote when I was a single mom or later when I got married. I guess I finished it about three years ago.

In some ways, it seems like I’ve been writing Ruby Among Us my whole life in my head. I just never knew how everything I was thinking was going to connect. It took life experience to put framework around my writing thoughts.

What has helped you the most with your writing career?

This is a boring answer, but what has helped me most is reading and what has helped me next is writing a great deal of fiction, essay, and poetry.

I am an English major and took creative writing courses in college that I know helped me learn the craft of writing and discover my voice (which I think I’m still discovering).

I didn’t start attending writing conferences until after I wrote Ruby Among Us, but I can say that conferences helped me make connections and learn about the business side of writing and publishing. Conferences are really very inspiring.

I have read writing books too and I’m sure all of those things help, but first and foremost are the simple acts of reading and actually writing that, I believe, will make you into a good writer.

By the way, I highly recommend the ACFW conferences. They are wonderful.

You recently held a launch party for your book. Tell us a little bit about it.

The launch party for Ruby Among Us was more than I could have dreamed. I know I’m blessed to have had a turn out of about 100 people and to have sold almost 100 books. I am truly amazed and humbled that so many people turned out.

I have to brag a little bit on the folks who threw the party. The Laramie County Library Foundation with the Laramie County Library were the wonderful hosts. Not only was it wonderful to have my first launch in our amazing new library building, but they had real Mantecadas, just like Kitty makes in Ruby Among Us and there were beautiful quilts hanging in the reception area since Kitty is a quilter. There were roses and vines everywhere and both the reception and launch party were amazing.
It was fun to sign books for the first time at a signing and to meet and interact with readers. That was the best part, getting to meet readers.

Do you feel the launch party helped further your career? How?

Yes. For one thing, it’s great to get that boost of confidence. Even though we ended up selling lots of books, selling books was never the goal. The goal was just to have a “coming out” party if you will, to introduce me to the public and allow my family just to celebrate the occasion with our friends at the library.

It ended up that the library publicity, local media and some of the local stores really jumped on board to help make my debut as much of a regional success as possible. I think local sales are definitely related to the success and publicity of the launch party. Those sales may never go outside of Cheyenne, but it won’t be for lack of a good start out the gate.

What kind of writing schedule do you keep?

Since writing full-time I try to write early in the morning and again from about 9am – noon. Now that the publicity is really moving, my schedule is thrown off balance. To be honest, I’m still trying to figure it all out, but I know the heavy publicity for Ruby Among Us won’t last forever and then I can get back to my old schedule.

Do you have a speaking platform? How essential do you think this is to a writer’s career?

No. I don’t have a platform. That’s not to say I don’t speak. I speak about Ruby Among Us and the writing and publishing journey because that’s what is happening right now in my life. I can still speak to groups like MOPS, women’s conferences, churches and small groups about things that relate to the book, such as, keeping close family ties, motherhood, etc., but on the most part I’m a novelist.

It’s hard for fiction writers to come up with a platform for our books. We have to be careful because the platform shouldn’t be contrived, but should be a natural part of that speaker’s personality and purpose. Liz Curtis Higgs is an excellent example. There is nothing contrived about her speaking platform.

To me, having a platform isn’t 100% necessary for a fiction writer, but there are many who disagree and would say that I haven’t been in the business long enough to know that. They might be right. J

Do you have any advice for unpublished writers?

Not to ever lose site of the act of writing. Blogs, conferences, writing loops, (planning our speaking platforms! J ) etc. etc. are great networking tools, but can take a great deal of time away from writing. Doing too much of it before you are published seems to me a little like putting the cart before the horse. Work on your craft first. The only way to get better at it is to write as much as possible.

And for writers who are Christians, God is in control of our ultimate outcome anyway and for me, I have to remind myself of that every time I feel like a failure. We hear it and say it all the time, but living it is more difficult.

Thanks, Patti!

Thank you, Tina, for a great interview. I wish you the very best of success with Ruby Among Us and in your writing career.

Good-bye to a Friend

Hi and welcome back. The wind has been crazy here the past several days. Maybe best if we sit inside today. The dust will get in your eyes!

A few months ago, I promised a friend I would send her a copy of my manuscript as soon as it was finished. Since it is a western, I thought she would be a great person to preview the story before I sent it out to an agent or publisher.

Today, I received a phone call telling me my friend had passed away. My heart is heavy with sadness and regret. Barb was one of the sweetest people I ever had the pleasure to know, not to mention the most avid fan of Gunsmoke there was.

I met Barb when I went to Los Angeles in 2001 to attend Jim Arness’ book signing at the Autry Museum of Western Heritage. Barb, known as “Brooklyn” because she made her home in Brooklyn, New York, and her unmistakable accent broadcast it to everyone, was probably the most excited of all of us. She had been sending Jim fan letters and special items, some of them hand-made, for years. I remember her telling us “I hound the man constantly!”

Brooklyn developed cancer a few years back, and when Jim Arness heard about it, he called her personally to wish her well with her treatments. She was so thrilled that she called all of her Gunsmoke buds to tell us about that phone call.

The second time Brooklyn had a bout with cancer, she asked us to send her a hat or cap that she could wear during her treatments. That way, she would be reminded of her Gunsmoke buds. I sent her one of my 1980 Winter Olympic caps, very fitting since the Olympics were held in Lake Placid, New York that year.

Brooklyn sent me cards and notes about three or four times a year, on my birthday, Easter, Christmas, and they always had a Gunsmoke or western picture on the front. I treasure the photos she sent me of her Gunsmoke room, which contained hundreds of items of Gunsmoke and James Arness memorabilia.

I will miss Brooklyn so much. Every time I sit down to watch Gunsmoke, I will remember her. And, yes, I will finish that novel. I’m writing it for all those out there who are just like Brooklyn, who love westerns!

Jim Arness celebrated his 85th birthday on May 26th. Go to www.bkjackson.blogspot.com. Arizona Inspirations has a great tribute to him and Gunsmoke.

Contest Announcement

Everyone loves to win something in a contest, right? If you're a reader, you especially like to win a free book. So, I'm going to accomplish two goals with this contest. One is to draw folks to my web site. The other is to decrease the ever growing number of books in my house.

All of my books are dear to me. Most of my Christian fiction books have been written by friends I have come to know through my contacts at writer's conferences or through email and membership in various writer's groups. However, there is no way I can keep all of these books. If I did, my husband and I would have to move into the garage!

So, I'm going to promote my favorite authors and their wonderful stories through this contest. Some are Christian, some are secular. Be the tenth (this number will change every month) person to send me an email through my site and I will send you a list of the books I need to give away. Granted, they are not "brand new", but most of them have been read only once and remain in excellent condition. You get to choose which one you would like. You are welcome to email more than once, just like the radio contests where you have to be the sixth, ninth, or whatever, caller to win the prize. You don't need to make the message elaborate. A simple "enter me in your contest" or "hi, it's me" will suffice. However, if you wish to leave comments about the site or anything else, I'd love to hear them.

The only stipulations are that you enter the contest through the web site contact page (www.pattishene.com) and not through comments on my blog. The other thing is contact information, although if you email me through the site, I believe your email address will automatically be provided.

Good luck!