Another Writer-ly Day

I'm in a rut. I can't stop working on writing stuff. Today I got on a chat with Kindle Direct Publishing (again) because I couldn't find Island Dreams on my Bookshelf which is where you publish or republish your titles. Once I had that squared away, I spent most of the afternoon reloading Island Dreams to Kindle Create (seen here) because it was one of the manuscripts lost when my original version crashed. So I had to redo the title page, the copyright page, the Dedication (to the dive guys who taught us to scuba dive), the "Books by this Author" page and the Acknowledgements.

 

Then I went back onto my Bookshelf page to republish it with the individual ISBNs and my name as publisher. Luckily I had this jpeg (photo) of the cover because that's the only one I didn't have GetCovers design for me. I hired an editing/formatting service which I ended up not liking because I didn't have control over things. But somehow I ended up with a jpeg so I could crop it for the eBook and use the whole thing for the paperback. This is the only cover that I can't change the blurb, author bio, or author photo on. I don't like that either, but it is what it is.

 

It was so warm today (38 degrees!) that a lot of the snow in the backyard melted. The snow and ice on the birdbath melted a lot too. You can see the sled tracks from the neighbors' fun sledding last night. They must start high up on the hill to get up the speed to slide all the way across their yard into mine. Well, it's actually one yard. There's their half and my half. It's a duplex, you know.

 

Before I started all the writing stuff this morning I drew a gratitude journal page for yesterday. I'm posting it because it has the final Freebie Friday totals on it. The free downloads total is 9,415 audiobooks! Takes my breath away.

 

The first shipment of copies of Anneke's Legacy came today. Twenty-five books in one carton is heavy. I gently rolled it from the porch into the house and then picked it up to carry it to the table. Before supper I sat with a pen, bookmarks, and "Autographed Copy" stickers and got them all signed, bookmarked, and stickered so they're ready to be sold. My book storage area is nearing capacity. I don't know where I'll put them if I write too many more books. Not downstairs, that's for sure.

 

Then I decided I wanted to paint instead of draw so I painted this Hydrangea. I like it. It looks kind of like the teacher's example and I like the leaves, especially the two in front. 

 

I had a phone call with GBB this morning about the Midwest Book Review. She's gotten reviews of her two books from them and uses them in publicity. I thought about sending in one of my books but then I read that they don't want your books if you don't have distribution. Which I don't have. Amazon doesn't count because bookstores and libraries can't order from Amazon because they only charge Retail. One of the reasons I'm republishing my books is so that I can widen distribution so they can be accessed by bookstores and libraries. I looked into a national contest too but shied away for the same reason. I'll keep researching.

While I watched Finding Your Roots on PBS tonight I knitted a few rounds on the Melt the ICE Hat but not enough to warrant a new photo. Besides I need to consult the pattern to see where I need to start decreasing for the pointy top.

Yesterday the light over the stove and two of the (many) clocks in the kitchen's batteries ran out. All on the same day! So I had to re-battery the clocks and replace the light bulb. I was happy to have spares so I didn't have to run out for supplies. 

--Barbara 

A Writing Work Day

I did a lot of writing work today. This morning while waiting for my critique Zoom to start, I got on
a chat with Kindle Direct Publishing because I'd unpublished Horizon and couldn't figure out how to republish it. I'd done it before but was just going about it all wrong. I chatted with a nice woman who told me that she'd try to help. While she was typing, I realized that in order to republish the book I needed to go back to the "Create" button and start all over. *head, slap* So I thanked her and went about my day. By that I mean, after lunch I republished Horizon paperback and eBook so they're linked on my sales page eventually. I also unpublished and republished Better Than Mom's while the correct way to do it was on my mind.

 

 

Then I copied and pasted the next pages for submission to cda for critique for next Monday. And I transferred the edited pages from today into version 2 of the manuscript. I also did some creative rearranging keeping in mind the comments that the "professional" made about the first 3 pages a couple weeks ago.

 

The flower of the day is Sweet Pea. As usual, I was intimidated by the challenge but slowed down, examined the example closely, and didn't do too badly. My Grandma Angermeier had sweet peas growing on the bank where the driveway curved around to the garage and I loved them. We could pick them without getting into too much trouble.

 

The snow plow and sand truck finally came by today scraping a little of the compacted snow off the street and into the end of the driveway. It wasn't much of a drift, more like a little hump, but I went out with the shovel anyway and shoved it all to either side of the driveway. It was heavy but not worth getting the snowblower out for.

I portioned out the rest of the butternut squash soup and put it into the freezer. There was a lot left for one little old lady to eat. Especially with the amount of butter in that soup. Although when I was looking for a soup recipe I found a WW one for pulled chicken with poblano peppers that might be calling my name. The chicken and poblano soup is very tasty, pretty simple to make, and zero points per serving. A much better deal.

--Barbara 

Still Going Up

Part of me hates to keep tooting my horn but another part of me is so gobsmacked at the success of my Freebie Friday promo that I can't stop. The totals today are 9,127 FREE The Seaview downloads, 649 Open for Business sold, and 636 Spies Don't Retire sold. Just wow. And there's one more day left. I get paid for the sold units, I don't know what percentage of the retail, but something, way more than nothing. Even if I only get half, it'll be amazing. Whew.

 

My butternut squash soup was a hit with my knitting friends at Zambaldi this afternoon. I will say that taking a hot slow cooker of soup down there was a trick. I padded it on the floor of the backseat with a big, thick beach towel so it wouldn't tip and I drove like I had fragile glass things in the car. CS made homemade, crusty bread that was still warm, and brought Kerrygold butter to spread on it. DM made cherry bars that were so delicious. Once again, we did not starve. I got some looks when I carried in the crockpot, but I didn't care. I know that they don't mind if you bring food so I brought food. One thing that surprised me was I bought Chinet bowls because I didn't want to haul breakable bowls down there. The hot soup seeped through the bottom of the bowls so we had to double or triple them. It was a good thing they came in a stack of 60!

 

I knitted the last inch of ribbing after the soup was eaten so now I can knit a couple rounds of stockinette stitch before I start the crown decreases. 

 

Instead of drawing a flower, I painted one. It's an Allium, a member of the onion family but prettier. I've been so consumed with writing and marketing lately that I've fallen down on the painting part of my life. I'll try to do better.

 

After supper, I drew a gratitude journal page for today. I was grateful for having the last slice of homemade bread from CS to have with another bowl of squash soup. I didn't have that fancy butter but the plain bread was almost as good, especially when I dunked it in the soup. Besides there's enough butter in the soup to make up for it.

 

This morning I printed off the three pages of comments from the Writers Helping Writers blog contest I won a couple weeks ago, read through her comments, and made changes. I'm especially grateful for her comment that my dialogue can be heavy at times and she said, since it's the fourth book of the series, I don't have to include all of the minute details of every day. That's going to streamline the story. It'll be better.

--Barbara 

Souper Day

Tomorrow afternoon I'm hosting knitting at Zambaldi Beer instead of at my house. The hostess makes the "main course" and the others bring whatever. Since it's winter and cold, I thought I'd make soup. So I did. I made a cauldron of Jamaican Cream of Pumpkin Soup. Not with pumpkin which is what Jamaicans call all winter squash, but with butternut squash. I learned a good lesson by buying two smaller squash which were much easier to trim, peel, and cut up than one biggie.

 

Two of the things I like about that soup are there's lots of onions that get sauteed in 4 tablespoons of butter. I love cooked onions. I always over-onion soups and stews. Anyway, it's a very simple recipe. All you do is saute the onions, throw in the cubed squash, add 50 oz. of chicken broth, and simmer it for about 45 minutes. Then I mash the squash before whirring it with the stick blender until it's mostly blended. Next you add a can of evaporated milk (you could add cream but that makes it almost too rich) and a shake of hot sauce. Oh, and plenty of salt and pepper. And, voila!, you have soup. I'll heat it up in my smaller slow cooker and take it down to the brewery along with a bag with bowls, spoons, and a ladle.

 

Oh my God, you guys. I nearly fainted when I saw how many people downloaded The Seaview yesterday and just now I checked and it's way more. The total free downloads for yesterday and today are 8,517. The sales for Open For Business are 542 and for Spies Don't Retire they're 530. I don't understand why the other two aren't even but I guess not everyone buys the bundle. These numbers are beyond my wildest dreams. The Chirp Freebie Friday Promo was a good investment. It runs through Monday, so if you're interested, go on chirpbooks.com, sign up for an account (there's no membership fee), and download the entire Seaview Series for just around $5. GBB said you have to put in my whole pen name to find it. It's Barbara Angermeier Malcolm, just in case you're interested.

 

I thought you'd enjoy seeing the end of my 4-year-old neighbor's sledding run. She and one of her parents start up on the snow pile from the parking lot kitty corner from our backyard and ride the slide down to my yard. This time it looks like she stopped short, usually they end up past the bird feeders. They have so much fun. I love hearing them laughing and cheering. 

 

Today's flower is a Gerbera daisy. I worked really hard to make the petals that jut toward the viewer short so they look right. I didn't do too badly. I like the way I colored the petals with orange, yellow orange, yellow, and red. Cheerful.

 

I was kind of distracted by the whole promo thing so I didn't get as much writing done today as I might have. I reread the critique pages for Monday and then worked on a couple more short stories. And I took a shower. You're welcome. ;)

--Barbara 

Overnight Snow

They said we'd get more snow overnight and they didn't lie. It is only February, after all. We got about four inches of the stuff. I especially like the way it clings to the retaining wall stones. I think it looks like frosting. It got up to 34 degrees today and it was partly sunny in the afternoon so a lot of the snow melted. I didn't have to shovel or snowblow because I was waiting for the plow to come by before going out, and, in the meantime, my neighbor shoveled my driveway. Thanks, MD! The plow still hasn't come but I'll handle the plow drift when it piles it up.

 

My fears about the Freebie Friday promo last night were unfounded. This morning I had an email from the support guy, Victor (my new best friend), saying that my books were in the Chirp catalog and available for the promo. He put a link in the email so I could see them in my Chirp Audiobook Dashboard and then I got my usual Freebie Friday email and there was The Seaview front and center on the cover page and second on the list. Open For Business and Spies Don't Retire are available with it as a bundle with a deep discount. I looked a few times today to see if there was any way to check how many downloads there'd been but I couldn't find anything. That's okay, I'm just excited to see it. Think how many people saw it and read about it and saw my name. I'm over the moon! BTW, if you're interested you can go to chirpbooks.com, sign in for an account (there's no membership fee), and download a copy. The promo runs through Monday.

 

Today's flower is a Tulip. It was fun to draw and I like the way the leaves turned out. A tulip isn't a very complicated flower so I feel pretty good about it.

 

To bleed off some of the Freebie Friday excitement, I spent most of the morning finishing up a couple of short stories and then scheduling them into early March. I like to have them posted so I don't have to scramble to load one up every week. Speaking of Substack, I got an email from them saying that one of my writing friends, AC, recommended Stories That Need to See Daylight to her readers. She had nice things to say about my writing. Thanks, AC, I like your writing too.

 

At Friday Night Knitting I worked on the ribbing of the Melt the ICE hat #2. Six inches is a long time to rib, I'm telling you. My fingers and forearms are tired from three hours of knit 1, purl 1. Only one more inch of ribbing and then I knit a little stockinette before starting the crown decreases.

 

I mustered up my guts this afternoon and called DM at OtherWorlds Books & More in Sturgeon Bay. When I spoke with him a couple weeks ago I mentioned that I had a new book coming out soon and he offered to host a launch event for me. Well, I called today to ask if he meant it. He did, so I'll be up in Sturgeon Bay at OtherWorlds Books & More on Saturday, March 7 from 10am to 2pm with many copies of Anneke's Legacy, my new lighted palm tree, and the flamingo head sunglasses holder. Come see me if you're in the area. I hope the weather cooperates.

--Barbara 

Snow

It was snowing when I got up this morning. It was that lightweight, fluffy stuff but still I had to go out and clear the driveway and the minuscule plow drift. I used the snowblower because, well, because I wanted to. And it's supposed to snow more overnight. So I'll get to do it again tomorrow. Yippee. 

 

This morning I drew a gratitude journal page for yesterday. I was mostly grateful for the opportunity to have a Freebie Friday promo on Chirp but found out today that it might not happen because my audiobooks aren't listed as being available to Chirp even though they're on the distributor Chirp uses. I've got a support guy looking into it but it might be too late.  Dammit.

 

I spent the afternoon working on a couple short stories. They might both be done. I'll have to read them tomorrow to make sure, then I can schedule them for a Wednesday on Substack. I love that I can get them lined up way ahead of time so I don't have to remember to do it every week.

 

Today's flower is Water Lily. It's okay. I have a hard time drawing the petals on the front of the flower. The angle's wrong or something. I like the leaves and the coloring though.

 

My virtual assistant, KM, sent me graphic designs of ads for Anneke's Legacy and a video and caption for it too. We're going to meet next Wednesday on Zoom to talk about where she should put them. She also offered to make a new bookmark with it included. Naturally I just ordered 100 of the old ones. I'll have her design it, just in case.

I've been doing yoga again six days a week for about a month and I keep expecting my knees to stop aching so much but so far they're not stopping. They woke me up at 6 o'clock this morning. No fair! Pushing the snowblower around didn't bother them. Walking around three groceries yesterday didn't both them. Doing yoga this morning barely bothered them. Sleeping last night did. Arrgh!

 --Barbara

And Today I Got Photos

Just by luck I was standing by the patio door when a Chickadee landed on the square green feeder. It actually stayed long enough for me to take a couple pictures. They don't hold very still so it's a little blurry but I was excited to see a live bird for the second time in a couple of weeks.

 

Then a Downy Woodpecker showed up on the suet nuggets, pecked a bit, and then swooped over to the square green feeder too. Look at that! Two birds!

 

I had to go to the grocery today and left it later in the morning after my shower and yog-ing. It wasn't too crowded but they were out of the one thing I was really hoping to find--frozen butternut squash. I want to make a pot of Jamaican Cream of Pumpkin Soup this weekend and it's a lot less fuss made with frozen squash. But now I get to peel and cube fresh squash because that's what they had. Oh well. 

 

Once I got home I sat down at the laptop and worked on extending some story starts into short stories. My supply is running low since I spent the last three months working exclusively on my next novel manuscript. One of the starts feels like a whole story but it's very short, no, VERY short so I think it needs more words. I'm trying.

 

Today's flower is Foxglove. It was another one of those intimidating ones but it turned out to not be so bad after all. The coloring was challenging but I'm happy with the way it turned out.

 

I went on The Clearing's website this afternoon to check when the Watercolor class will be in the spring. I got kind of nervous when it wasn't in May. It's always in May but this year it's in June. And the class description talks about painting different things, summertime things. Should be fun! I've got to share the dates with my former neighbors to see if they're interested.

And my laptop weather thingy just said "Light snow tomorrow." Ugh. I figured it was going to snow because there were slurry marks on the streets when I went to the store today. They apply this stuff to the streets that really helps with making them not too slick. I appreciate that and the advance warning. I guess.

I got a call from GBB tonight that she heard from the DePere Women's Club that we've been accepted for their show. That's the show that's juried, so we're surprised and pleased to be in. Although that means we'll have two days of shows back to back one weekend in March. Yippee. We should be exhausted by Sunday afternoon. Let's just hope the weather cooperates.

--Barbara 

I Saw Two Birds

When I was doing yoga this morning I saw two birds--a Chickadee and a Mourning Dove--but I wasn't in a position to take their pictures, not that they held still long enough for that to happen even if I hadn't been holding a Boat Pose or a Chair Pose. I was just glad to see them.

I'm on a lucky streak. Last week I entered a Writers Helping Writers blog contest and won a critique of the first three pages of my next novel. I sent my pages in immediately and got her comments back today. They're very complimentary and not too critical of my writing, kind of surprising for a first draft. 

 

About ten days ago, I applied to Chirp (the audiobook arm of BookBub) for a Freebie Friday promotion. I got word today that I'm accepted. That means that from Friday to Monday The Seaview will be offered for free and the other two books in the series will be deeply discounted. They say that there's the potential for thousands of free downloads and hundreds to thousands of paid downloads. It's not free to me, but if I get a few hundred downloads of the discounted audiobooks it'll be worth it. I'm willing to pay the fee to get my name out there in front of thousands of readers/listeners.

 

After yog-ing, I came back here and sat down to make Amazon Ads for Anneke's Legacy. I made 14 of them--two Auto ads (where the Amazon algorithm chooses where to display my ads, one for each format, eBook and paperback), six Category ads (I chose three of the categories that pertain to my story and made an ad for each category and each format), and six Keyword ads (where I found three different book titles that seem similar to my book, used a data scraper to collect book titles and author names from their sales pages, and made ads using that data for each format). It was a tedious process and I was soooooo glad that I had printed off and kept a file of the instructions for making ads from the last time I did Bryan Cohen's Amazon Ads Profit Challenge. Those little sheets of paper were a godsend.

 

Today's flower drawing didn't turn out as well as the last few have. It's a Calla Lily, well, two of them, and I think they're a little misshapen. I like the coloring on the leaves, though.

 

When I got home from Writers Guild tonight, I sat down and registered for the last two vendor fairs on our list. I'd have done it on Sunday when I did the first one of my share of the list, but the last two wouldn't open yet. So I got it done and will send off the checks tomorrow. Yes, we're going to be hauling tables, chairs, and books around the area again come fall. We're even going up to Marinette (50 miles north on Hwy. 41) for one show. I think we'll pile all our stuff in GBB's SUV and only take one vehicle. She says we can cram it all in there.

Sorry I don't have more engaging photos to share with you tonight but nothing I did today was very photogenic. It was sunny again today, so that's a good thing. And it didn't snow.

--Barbara 

A Little Snow

We got a dusting of snow overnight, maybe an inch, and it snowed a little this morning but was overcast most of the day. I was working on re-editing Open For Business this afternoon when I saw orange light reflected in the windows of the house across the street. So I grabbed the camera and took this shot of the sunset. It was brighter in person than it looks in this picture and I could see a part of the sun but that doesn't seem to be in the picture either.

 

Today's flower is Bird of Paradise. It was fun and a bit challenging to draw. I like the colors of the flower and all the shapes of the various petals and sepals fanned out.

 

I knitted a few more rounds of the Melt the ICE Hat tonight while I watched TV. I'm not a very fast knitter so it takes me a while to grow a hat. 

 

Today was the monthly St. Agnes Class of '65 lunch. We went to a new place and I wasn't too impressed. They only had one server to tend bar, take orders, and serve the food. I don't know what was up with the cook but the food took forever to arrive and came out one at a time. The person served first was long finished by the time the last person was served. It was less expensive than the previous place and the food was good but I don't know if that outweighs the poor service.

I realized this morning that I don't have to unpublish the eBooks to add ISBN numbers because they don't have them on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. So I got Horizon's eBook fixed up but have to unpublish and republish the paperback. I'll do that tomorrow.

--Barbara 

A Sudden Thought

Just now when I got up to go get the camera so I could upload and crop the pictures for the blog tonight, I had a thought. See, I've spent the day working on writing--reediting Open For Business, meeting with GBB to plan our vendor fairs, more reediting, republishing Spies Don't Retire, updating my Categories & Keywords list. The thought that came to me was that I didn't work this hard when I had a job! This is the screen that was making me wait to preview the new edition of Spies Don't Retire. It takes its own sweet time getting everything all organized before it opens so I can look at it all together and approve it. Whew. It's a job and for very little pay. But I sure am having fun.

 

One cool thing that happened today was the very first copy of Anneke's Legacy came! I always order one retail as soon as it's available on Amazon so I have the first one. I've ordered 25 author copies to be delivered in a couple weeks so I'll have them to sell but this one won't be sold. It's mine. All mine. This book isn't part of The Seaview Series. It's a standalone novel about a young woman who has to go to Bonaire to settle her late great-aunt's estate. She meets two men--a brooding fisherman and a suitable young attorney. Guess which one she falls for.

 I've been seeing squirrels running across the patio or scampering across the fence by the retaining wall but today this one stopped to try to hoover up some fallen goodies under the suet nuggets feeder. And I heard a bird crash into the patio door but I wasn't out there to see what kind of bird it was. Probably a Mourning Dove. They hit the door a lot. They're not great fliers.

 

Today's flower is a Snowdrop. They're mostly white but I used my lightest blue pencil to shade the petals just a bit. I think they call that "artistic license."

 

It got up to 29 degrees today and it was sunny so it felt great outside. I walked out onto the porch when GBB left and the air didn't hurt. Made a nice change. I just checked my weather app and it's supposed to snow in half an hour. Hopefully not much. I'm not in the mood.

--Barbara

A Sunny Day

And the temperature got up into the mid-20s today which meant that the snow on the hill in the backyard that faces south started melting away. I saw one squirrel scamper across the top of the fence along the retaining wall and no birds. I haven't seen anything at the feeders all week. 

 

I spent most of the day rereading and tidying up Open For Business so I can republish it with my own ISBN number. I realized this morning that all of the work I did on it yesterday was wasted because I wasn't working on the correct version of the manuscript. So I had to start at the beginning again. *sigh* I made it to Chapter 20, just over halfway through. I got all excited at first thinking that I'd already done this work so I could just skate through. Not so fast. I'd gotten about 60 pages in a while back so I added about 100 pages to the completed side of the ledger. It'd go faster if I didn't find myself reading instead of just scrolling through letting ProWritingAid tell me where I need commas and stuff like that.

 

Man, was I intimidated when I turned the page to see today's flower. It's a Lily. And it's complicated. But I took my time and concentrated and it turned out looking like a lily. This looks like the Stargazer Lily that blooms in my side yard in the summer.

 

And I finally made time to draw a gratitude journal page for today. It's not very comprehensive but I was most grateful for the sunshine the last few days. Even when it's cold, the sunshine really cheers me up.

 

Today is the 6th Anniversary of Zambaldi Beer! They had all kinds of fun things planned for the day, special beers, and live music. I got to pick up LC and OJ, get them some supper, and get them out of the taproom to eat where it's quiet. Six years ago they opened and six weeks after that everything shut down for the pandemic. It's a wonder they managed to stay in business through that mess, and they're still going strong. Yay!

--Barbara 

One Hat Done

Tonight at Friday Night Knitting I finished the first Pointy Red Hat. I'm calling it that because it's an amalgam of three different hat patterns. Because the yarn I wanted to use was bulky weight which is heavier than the yarn called for in the original Melt the ICE Hat, I searched and found a plain beanie pattern using bulky yarn so I started there. When I reached the crown decreases I went with another similarly named pattern because the directions for decreasing made more sense to me. And finally I used the  original hat pattern for the cord/braid and tassel. Like I said, an amalgam, but I like the way it turned out.

 

I cast on another one right away and this time I'm still using the bulky yarn (because I have plenty left). I'm going to model the original pattern and make Knit 1, Purl 1 ribbing for six inches and then do the decreases so it'll look more like the pattern picture. I'd be further along but my hands got tired so I stretched them and rested.

 

Look at what came today! It's an 18" tall lighted palm tree! I'm so thrilled with it. I plan to use it as a display piece on my sales table, with the flamingo sunglasses holder under it, of course. Fortunately it comes apart and collapses into a nice tidy box so I can take it along in my tote. Cool, huh?

 

I spent most of the day that I wasn't on one Zoom or another working to get Open For Business's manuscript tidied up and reloaded to Kindle Create. My first version of KC broke so I had to reload the program and lost my uploaded manuscripts. This is one of them. So I'm reading through it on Word with a paperback copy at hand to make sure I'm publishing what I want it to say. Laborious and tiring.

 

So by getting caught up in writing work, I didn't get to drawing today. I promise I'll draw again tomorrow.

Hey, it got up to 16 degrees today. And it's supposed to hit 20 and above tomorrow. Heat wave! Maybe the doorknob will thaw out. 

--Barbara 

Grunt Work

That's what today felt like. I spent most of the day working to unpublish and republish my eBooks and paperbacks on Amazon with my own ISBNs. So I had to make sure the manuscript was up to snuff, add the ISBNs on the copyright page, and work my way through republishing. I just checked on Amazon and my republished novella is listed without a picture and the unpublished one has a picture and no availability. Oh wait, I bet it's still in Kindle Unlimited so it won't be all unpublished until the 90 day commitment runs out. I'll figure it out.

 

Anyway, look at what I got in the mail today. It's a hand-carved wooden flamingo head sunglasses holder. I think it'll be just the thing to put on the display table at vendor shows. Six of my books take place on islands so it's appropriate.

 

And I ordered some short battery-powered strings of fairy lights. I thought I'd twine a string around my new release to make it stand out. I had the devil of a time finding just a few sets and short ones. Many I found were 25 feet long, way too long for a little book display, and others had 12 to 20 strings. I finally scrolled down to find 7 foot long strings and a pack of 6. Much more manageable.

 

When I was exhausted and my eyes were tired from staring at the computer all day, I sat down to draw. I was so relieved to see today's flower. It's a Crocus and it was simple to draw. Thank heavens. Just what I needed after a long, tiring day.

 

I just went on my new audiobook distribution website, clicked on the sales report page, and discovered that some libraries bought two copies of Island Dreams this month! Woohoo!!! It's a start.

--Barbara