"The notion that such persons are gay of heart and carefree is curiously untrue. They lead, as a matter of fact, an existence of jumpiness and apprehension. They sit on the edge of the chair of Literature. In the house of Life they have the feeling that they have never taken off their overcoats."
- James Thurber, My Life and Hard Times

Monday, December 23, 2019

God bless us, one and all

If you did not get a Christmas card from me, my apologies. Either you didn't give me your address, you gave me the wrong address, or the postman didn't ring twice. At any rate, here it is. First, the family photo.




After two of my horses retired in Temecula, I gave up on the whole family photo thing. But here are some shots I included on the card.



And of course, the obligatory letter.

For those of you who can't read the fine print, here is the text:

Every Time a Bell Rings

…someone tells me to take off that stupid elf hat.

Where has 2019 gone? For a while, it felt like a long year, but now I’m thinking, wait—come back here. Half the time, I barely knew where I was or what was happening.

We had another year of not traveling far, but traveling well. At least that’s the spin I’m going for. The annual trip to the Gold Lakes Recreational Area was just as glorious as ever. There was still snow to be found in July, which was a treat. Dale got in some golf, and Marcus hiked a chunk of the Pacific Crest Trail…alone. Amazingly, he was able to update me with his location via Facebook Messenger. Even more amazingly, I stayed calm. Mostly. I mean, he could’ve gotten eaten by a bear.

We went to a couple of weddings this year. In May, Dale and I traveled to San Luis Obispo for Gabi and JT, and in September, our whole family went to the Sacramento area for Mindy and Dylan. Both are sweet, young couples—younger than Marcus, which freaked me out a little. In each case, we got to spend time with friends, and went wine tasting. It was a win-win-wine weekend.

Dale did his usual trip to Angels’ spring training in Arizona in March. He also went to Massachusetts for the yearly golf tournament. He and his team represented the West Coast, and happily won the tourney. The Placentia Parks and Rec department still counts on him to coach at least two basketball teams of youngsters, but they do appreciate his service. This year they awarded him the Placentia “Do the Right Thing” award, established by our current mayor. So far, he hasn’t let it go to his head. He still golfs as often as he can, and gardens the rest of the time. At the moment, he’s working with a company to install solar panels on our house. I’ll let you know how it goes.

I went to a lot of horse shows and a lot of library events this year. Dale accompanied me to the ALA Conference in Washington, DC, where we had a lovely dinner with our niece Ashley. She’s in the Navy, and we don’t get to see her often. The big event for me was our library’s renovation to celebrate our centennial. As the president of the library’s board of trustees, I found myself presenting our plans and progress to every group in town. I nearly cried when I spoke at the ribbon cutting—I’m so proud of our library staff. Our library looks fabulous.

My horses are still alive and kicking (sometimes literally). Snoopy and Frostie spend their days being horses in a herd. Dhani and I are beginning to show well together, and I’m looking forward to 2020. I’m also looking forward to 2020 because I will be releasing the 5th Peri Minneopa Mystery in February. Look for MURDER BYTES!

Marcus seems to find a new job with a new group every day. He’s still handling recital hall duties at CSULB, but in the meantime, he’s in several choral groups, an acapella group, a doo wop crew, and does a lot of random singing with other musicians. This year, he managed to sing in a choir with Pete Townshend. The first concert I ever took him to was to see The Who, so it felt like full circle to me.

In the movie I quoted, Clarence says no man is a failure who has friends. We are thankful to have many, and no matter what kind of ups and downs we experience, I feel as successful as any billionaire.

We wish you all a wonderful life, however you want to define it.



Best wishes from our house to yours,

The Carlines

******

Merry Christmas!
Happy Hanukkah!
Happy Kwanzaa!
Happy New Year! 

Oh...just...be happy.

Cheers!

Sunday, December 1, 2019

Please, sir, can I have more?

I'm not a sir, but I don't judge. Of course you may have more. You may actually have two, because you asked so nicely.

CHAPTER 2





CHAPTER 3



Stay tuned...there are more chapters headed your way!




Thursday, October 24, 2019

It's time to start my engines

I've written the book. It's been edited. Formatted for Kindle and paperback. What now?

1. Choose a release date.
2. Start making people want what I've written.

I made a couple of videos to kick off the process. One is to give you the release news.





The other is to make you want to know more.



Want to know more? Stay tuned.

Wednesday, August 28, 2019

The Choice is made!

Extra points if you know what movie that quote is from.

After tallying all the comments, the cover art selected is: Cover 2!



Which is, coincidentally, the cover I liked best, too.

So now what happens? The manuscript is in its final edits, which means I am reading it aloud one more time. After that, I will begin the formatting. One format for the Kindle, one for the paperback, and possibly one more for the hardcover. My manuscript will be a book.

With each platform, I will re-read the book (yes, cover-to-cover), looking for errors. For these re-reads, I will read the actual medium. The e-book will be downloaded to my Kindle. I will order a proof copy of the paperback, and the hardcover. Any changes I make will now have to be made in all the formats, plus the original Word file. 

It's all painstaking, but IMHO, all worth it. Is perfection too much to ask for?

My little author's heart would love to publish it as soon as I get this all finished, but my publisher's head says no. We need to elicit reviews. We need to set up book signings. We need to engage potential readers and build excitement.

What do we want? The 5th Peri Minneopa Mystery!
When do we want it? NOW!
When will we get it?

FEBRUARY 21, 2020. 

Wednesday, July 3, 2019

The suspense is killing me. I hope it lasts.

Extra points for the movie this post's title is from.

I've been a busy bunny these past many months, trying desperately to finish the 5th Peri mystery, give it a name, and prepare for its debut. At times, I thought it would never happen. At times, I was willing to "half-ass" it, throw it all together, shrug, and release it without much fanfare. 

But reason prevailed.

I can't release a book I'm not proud to have written. There are a couple of books among the ones I've published that are not my favorites, but I'm not ashamed to have my name on the covers.  The more I edited this novel, the more I fell in love with it, and the more justice I wanted to do to the story.

The current status is:
1. It's in its final phase with my lovely and talented editor, Jennifer Silva Redmond.
2. It has a title.
3. It has a jacket teaser (that probably still needs tweaking).
4. I have four strong contenders for the cover art. This is where you come in. Take a gander at the cover options I'm considering and let me know your preference. BTW, we can mix and match fonts and colors if you think there's a better combo.

People of Earth, I give you:

MURDER BYTES

P.I. Peri Min­neopa has had enough. She’s clos­ing her busi­ness, mar­ry­ing her detec­tive boyfriend, and set­tling down to a life of ease–until her brother shows up, accused of a mur­der he swears he didn’t com­mit. Now she’s back in the thick of things, inves­ti­gat­ing the death of an engi­neer who may have been steal­ing techno-secrets from other com­pa­nies. Her rela­tion­ship with her brother is an icy one, at best, and she strug­gles with her ambiva­lence, as well as her desire to leave inves­tiga­tive work behind. Dig­ging around in people’s lives is rea­son­ably easy, but when the bul­lets start fly­ing, will Peri be able to keep her promise?

Cover Option 1



Cover Option 2



Cover Option 3



Cover Option 4



Look for one of these covers, and more Peri Minneopa to come your way February 2020!

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I support fair and equitable library access to ebooks and so should you.