Everybody wants to be closer to free!

Friends, family, lurkers, professional peers, I have a small announcement.
Remember when I put my book out and I thought a hundred people would shrug and say, meh?
Remember how thousands and thousands of people downloaded my book and then paid for my book and I had no way to show what it meant to me other than gushing?
Well, it has been 90 days since I ordered my first proofreading copy and I am allowed to give my book away for free starting at midnight tonight.
So this is how I say thank you.
If you thought about getting it and never did- this is your chance.
If you liked it and want to share it with someone for free- this is your chance.
If you just want to be a cool person with a hook-up for free stuff- this is your chance.
I've been given an incredible gift these last nine weeks and I want to share it and spread it.
So enough gushing.
Gushing is overrated.
Have a book on me!
Download it, share it, love it, hate it, read it, review it, just don't miss it!

Write what you know

A writer is a leach.
 I want to soak all the humor and trauma right out of people and laugh and cry over what was never mine to begin with.
Leach.
Emotional vampire.
However you label it, you have a story and I want it!
Last week I was working on my current manuscript while the Artist was on his computer. I interrupted three times. "Do cars use metric wrenches?"
The Artist: "The foreign ones do."
five minutes later. "Would you replace a radiator or a water pump first?"
The Artist "huh?"
Nevermind.
five minutes later. "Do you park a Cessna in a hangar or outside?"
The Artist: "Depends. Outside is fine."
"What sort of drills do they do for soccer teams?"
The Artist: "Honey, what are you doing?"
"I'm working on my book and I have to know how to fix cars, fly planes and play soccer."
Long, long pause.
The Artist: "That's good. Write what you  know."


Which is fabulous advice (even when your sarcastic husband says it in his deadpan voice and makes you laugh so hard you delete a page of dialogue) but there is a beautiful tool for finding out what we don't know-research.
Research. Sounds so dry and boring. I like to call it story time.
Something amazing happened after the success of On Little Wings. I got to add a little tag to my life. Now when I have questions I call total strangers in my apologetic voice and say, "So sorry to bother you, but I am an author and I would like to interview you for my next book." And then I sit down and people pour their stories into me!

Last night I spent several hours interviewing an Air Force Crew Chief and a retired fighter pilot.
I sat at a kitchen table between the two of them while they taught me yaw and pitch and pressure and flight controls and visual flight rules.
They told me about the Gs in a F16 and G measles that pop the blood vessels in your legs and how your heart goes into your stomach cavity. Literally.
I took the pretend yoke in  my hand and he made me pull a plane out of a stall to make sure I understood the details.
"Not too fast!" he insisted as I pushed the stick in to level the nose.
I learned maneuvers, nicknames, soaked up a culture that fascinates me.
Next week I meet with a commander of the Civil Air Patrol and after that, I have a meeting with a car mechanic to learn how to change a radiator (I researched it for hours on youtube, but I want every detail to be accurate.)

So yes, write what you know. And learn what you don't.
Be a leach. Be a listener.
And then be a donor- give it all back. Give it all back and more.
Make it fly.

But...

I think reality shows wrecked television, but
I just finished watching Project Runway.

I don't feel like doing the laundry, but
I just put my fifth load of the day in the dryer.

I sent my daughter to school in short sleeves, but
it just started snowing.

Yesterday we were walking outside barefoot, but
winter finally found us.

The Cowgirl turns nine next week, but
I've haven't figured out a party or bought a single present.

The Dancer has been potty trained since she was two, but
yesterday she had her fourth accident this week.

I think parents should always stay calm, but
yesterday I bopped my child with a stuffed cat.

I really need a babysitter this weekend, but
I think it's too late to line anything up.

I believe in healthy eating, but
I downed a bag of peanut m&ms in two days and told myself it was healthy because of the nuts.

The Dancer is bothering me and asking me to bake her some cookies, but
I am ignoring her and writing instead.

I make myself sit down and write a page every day, but
sometimes I do a lot more.

I need to interview a pilot for my next book, but
I'm too tired to learn something new today.

I got a one star review on Amazon, but
I laughed about it and didn't cry later.

I am a work in progress, but
some days I just feel like a piece of work.

I am really sorry about the stuffed cat.
No buts.

How is your week wrapping up?

Ketchup

Today I am under the weather and reading history books in bed so I decided to play ketchup.
I'll just show you a few pictures so you see what is going on around here since I've been a lazy blogger.

1. The Cowgirl is obsessed with the digital camera she got for Christmas. I love checking her card because I find pictures of forks and toenails and doors and I wonder... well, I just wonder. We even found a video of her sister defying death by swinging on a dog leash strung across the top of our stairs. If I can keep them alive Barnum and Bailey will thank me.
But I found a good one that she took out at the barn.

2. Speaking of barn, I love having a horseback rider in the family. It is ridiculously fun to watch my baby girl take charge of something as big and independent as a horse!

And equestrian activities can be kind of snooty, because they attract rich people. (mostly because rich people are the only ones who can afford a horse. Or normal people who trade all other luxuries for a horse) But we like to combat that by not buying our own horse and fancy equipment. We just take one lesson a week and shake things up by laughing too loud in the stable and saying "Howdy!" We are sort of the country bumpkin cousins of the horse world. It's a hoot. (Told you I was a bumpkin. Who else says "hoot"?) I think the Artist would appreciate a disclaimer about now: He is not, in any way, shape, or form, a bumpkin of any kind. He is an urbanite whose love is evident in the fact that he hangs out with bumpkins. There.

3. Thank you to everyone who has been so supportive of my book! I cannot believe the kindness of not just my friends and family, but complete strangers. I cannot express what the kind reviews and words of encouragement have meant to me. Between Goodreads and Amazon I have over 110 reviews now! I am 1/3 done with my rough draft of my next work! Onward ho.

And now we are pretty much ketchuped.

Jeeps and bottle rockets and love

Heart Day.
Love Day.
Day of the roses and sparkling grape juice (teetotalers here).
Day of little gifts that fit in little bags and little boxes.
Big smiles.
And I just wanted to surprise my one and only Valentine with a post to tell him how much I love him.

Darling, take a good look this little girl

Can you see all of the dreams just leaking out of her? Can you see how much she wants to love and be loved? Can you see how she wants to grow up to be a  good woman who gives her heart to a good man?
Can you see how she wants to stick her toes in the ocean and touch a dolphin and kiss under the fireworks? Can you see how she wants to rock baby girls in soft blankets and be their everything?
Can you see how her fingers itch to write? She wants to make something beautiful that will last.

You, my love, are her knight in shining armor. You came for me. You gave me everything. And you should know how much I love you.
How much I loved you from the first moment I sat across from you at a dim restaurant where we were eating "as just friends."
How much I loved you when we took the roof off the Jeep and looked up and stars.
How much I still think of that first kiss on a dark porch and my 17 year old heart shooting bottle rockets into my weak knees. I'm not sure I've walked straight since.
How much I love the way you bend around me like a crescent moon and pull me into the light of your arms.
How much I love the way you tackle our daughters and shake our house with laughter.

If all our money disappears (it does tend to do that) and our beautiful things come to nowt (as things always do), if I get old and wrinkled (on my way), if we are still looking up at the stars and shooting bottle rockets and sitting in the crescent moon with laughter for a soundtrack- I am rich. I am rich. I am everything I need to be.
Because I am yours.

I love you. Happy Valentines Day.

Deer Heart

Dear Heart is the nickname I call my children, by the way.
Especially when I want to throttle them. I grit my teeth and say, "No Dear Heart, you cannot use my mixing bowls to house orphaned worms." It keeps me from saying... something else.
Back to business. There is mischief afoot at Tapper's house. I finally got the girlies up to bed and I found that my stump had been dragged behind my chair and tipped over.
(Do you remember my stump?)

It's really heavy so I couldn't figure out why my little ones would have gone through the trouble to tip and roll it into the corner of the room.
Then I looked up.
And laughed.

I guess their stuffed reindeer just wanted his mama.
You never bore me, Dear Hearts!

Awww...

The Artist felt all better yesterday so we decided to take him to see the stars with us last night. At bedtime we drove out to 200th Street, Middle of Nowhere Kansas, and parked in the gravel next to some kind of an electrical something or other. It was dark and people-less and had a place to park and turn off the headlights.
I played a nice, happy tune in the soundtrack of my head because if I played something ominous this post could very easily be "nice family stops on a dark country road and is never seen again."
It's all about what music is playing, right?
So we opened our hatchback on the warm winter night (three cheers for global warming) and just looked. Looked at how many there are. Looked at how the sky curls around us until it tucks the starry covers into the horizon, like it's keeping us safe.
And I picked up the Dancer and we looked for a star to wish on. I wanted a little one that doesn't get much wishing action. I figured a star like that would try extra hard for me.
So I stared at my tiny star and I'll admit, I thought of my book and the publishers looking at it and of a vacation somewhere tropical and I was tempted. Until the Dancer pressed her soft cheek into mine and brought me back home.
I squeezed her close in all of her pink pajamaed wonderfulness and whispered, "I wish for you."
"I wish for you," she said back.
And the Artist and the Cowgirl were throwing rocks across the road and laughing in the glow of our dome light on that abandoned road and I smiled to realize that my best wishes already came true.
The rest are just tiny details.

I know- I'll say it for you.
Awww...