Uncategorized Archives - UnaPAULAgetically Texan

August 30, 2025August 30, 2025

Look into the eyes of a child. You can see God there. ~Amma

August started our next six weeks of travel (five different states for five different reasons, some via our Ford F150, some via plane, then a trip overseas to visit a friend), and we kicked it off by flying to Atlanta to celebrate the birth of our granddaughter, Naomi. Part of our job as grandparents was to keep older brother, Elias, occupied, which we did willingly. He’s a smart kid and fun to be around, and so far, he has accepted the new baby with enthusiasm.

I like to people-watch. Eavesdropping (or spying—what do you call it when you can’t hear but can watch?) often gives me ideas for things to write. Observing others is easy to do while traveling, and you get such a slice-of-life choice while in the airport. This trip was no different.

The first thing I noticed was a couple standing off to the side, out of the main flow of foot traffic rushing past. They faced each other, and he leaned in close, touching her face with a tender gesture. She stood stock still, gaze pointed over his shoulder. I wasn’t sure what they were doing, but the moment felt intimate, so I looked away.

As we passed them, I glanced over for a last peek. He held his hand in front of her face, and she leaned slightly forward, mouth pursed as if she were blowing the seeds off a dandelion. Realization struck.

He’d wiped an eyelash from her face, and she was now making a wish and blowing it off his fingertip.

So many thoughts flew through my mind. Triumph—I picked up enough clues to figure out what I witnessed. Curiosity—do people from other countries do the same ritual when an eyelash drops onto someone’s face? Tenderness—the couple had a history together. Their body language told a story.

Once we found our gate and settled in to wait for our trip to Georgia, we were confronted with the flurry of activity and personality that was Teagan, a three-year-old from Alabama who headed to Atlanta to participate in a beauty pageant. She’s been participating since she was six months old. Mom shared photos from her phone, and the hair and makeup extravaganza was just as bad (or good, depending on your point of view) as you might imagine.

Teagan first caught my eye because her mom had put her hair into an interesting braid, and I was trying to figure out how she’d done it. But after like ten seconds, Teagan inserted herself into our space and took over the show.

First, she looked me right in the eye and asked, in her lispy three-year-old voice, “Can I have a hug?”

Mentally, I sighed. Okay. This child is going to require my attention for the next thirty minutes, and I wasn’t really up for entertaining her. But how do you say no to a hug? So I said, “Sure!” and opened my arms wide. Then I fell in love. She chattered on about everything. I asked her if three-year-olds had to do a talent at their pageant. They do. Hers is usually dance (she takes ballet lessons). And sometimes she sings if she feels like it. Spontaneously, I wondered? So my husband, John, pulled up pictures of ballet dancers on his phone. “Can you do that?” he asked, showing her a dancer posed en pointe, arms held gracefully in the air. She placed a hand on his knee and leaned in close to peer at the photo.

“Mama! That’s you.”

Mom looked up from her phone and chuckled. “No, baby. That’s not me.” She looked at us with a self-deprecating shrug. “I used to dance. She’s seen pictures of me at home.”

Mom probably weighed a good eighty pounds more than the ballerina in the photo. But Teagan didn’t notice that. She saw a lovely, graceful dancer and thought she looked just like her mother.

That got me thinking, and I pondered it while John and Teagan moved on to pulling up photos of the moon (she likes space). What do I need to change about the way I see things to have the same attitude as Teagan? How can I notice only the very best in others? How can I see my neighbors the way God sees me, recognizing and encouraging the potential, the good, and forgiving all the rest? That attitude certainly won’t come easy, but I want to try.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them” 2 Corinthians 5: 17-19.

Later, after disembarking the plane and riding the tram across the airport, we heard Teagan’s mom call up to us. We had just stepped onto the escalator to ride up to the parking level, and they were passing by on their way to the elevator.

“Hey!” she called. We glanced over the edge as we rose. There stood Teagan, waving her hand madly, grinning from ear to ear. “She wanted to say goodbye.”

I smiled and waved back just as enthusiastically. “Bye, little friend! Good luck at your pageant.”

My friend Tracy Redman always encourages us when we travel—talk to a stranger and make a new friend. I’m glad I let Teagan into my life, even if only for a while.

I’ve decided to self-publish book number four instead of going the traditional route. Made for More is currently in the final stages of editing and will go through a round of beta readers. If you’re interested in getting an advance reader’s copy (ARC) of a Christian romance starring a rock star and a high school teacher (how does that even work? Read it to find out), and providing feedback, let me know. I’ve hired a book-cover designer. Now I wait. My plan is to have the book out by October this year.

My friend Cathy Rueter just had her debut novel come out. She writes Christian suspense, and this book, Murder May I?, was published by Elk Lake Publishing Inc. I have an author interview with her posted on my website. Check it out here … https://paulapeckham.com/lets-talk-about-books/ . Her book revolves around the fashion world. I love getting peeks into environments I know nothing about and learning something new. Her story gives just the right amount of hints to keep you guessing, but without giving everything away in Chapter Three. I really enjoyed Cathy’s story. I hope you will too. You can buy a copy on Amazon. https://a.co/d/cprapIj

I’m traveling to Washington State in September to teach a class on ProWritingAid at the Southwest Washington Writers Conference (one of the five different states in our fall travel). I purchased a lifetime access to the program but knew I wasn’t getting my money’s worth. There is SO much it can do. So I did some research and went through every tool PWA offers, making notes along the way. If the conference records the sessions, I’ll provide a link to the presentation on my website, in case you’re considering purchasing PWA for yourself. In my opinion, buying the program was money well spent, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who writes.

While in Georgia, my daughter-in-law, Jonnique, recommended watching an eight-part Netflix series titled “The Trunk.” It’s Korean and uses subtitles. (Side note: this is our third Korean show, and they are VERY good at crying. Tears flood eyes, they drip dramatically over an eyelid and roll down a cheek – very realistic.) It really confused me for the first episode or two, but it totally sucked me in. I loved the male main character. We binged the show in four days. I didn’t LOVE the ending because it left me with several questions, but thankfully, there is a book by the same name, so I downloaded it to my phone, and I’ll read it on my way home to Texas tomorrow on the plane. The show gave me a good lesson on how to drip, drip, drip the clues into the story while building up to the grand reveal at the end.

June 16, 2025June 17, 2025

Lean on me when you’re not strong … giving comfort to those who grieve

My almost-83-year-old mother keeps me stocked with Netflix recommendations. She spends her time either reading, playing tennis (yes, she still plays), or watching TV. Add the fact that she has insomnia (as do I—thanks for sharing that gene with me, Mama), and she churns through a lot of television. The good thing for me is I get pre-reviewed entertainment suggestions, which I find helpful. When I look at ALL the options available on Netflix alone, the decision-making section of my brain goes on overload, and I end up watching reruns of the Great British Baking Show or Queer Eye.

The Great British Baking Show - one of my favorites!

So, thanks to Mama’s sacrifice of spending her time to vet shows for me, I recently watched Adolescence. (Short review at the end of this post – worth watching!) The show was emotional, and it affected me.

During the last scene of the final episode, I didn’t say anything, or even make a noise, but tears spilled down my cheeks as I watched. Then my dog, Buddy, stood from where he lay on his rug, walked over, and shoved his nose under my hand. Did he come over to comfort me? How did he know?

Comfort. Easy enough to provide. Can we offer comfort in the same way?

Thinking of this reminded me of an incident at the school where I taught. Every year, one hour would be my conference period. Most teachers took care of paperwork business during that time, including making copies of lessons in the copy room. Every year, we’d have different “copy room partners,” depending on how schedules were set up. One year, my copy buddy was Coach Peters (name changed). His son had graduated with a teaching degree the previous May, and Alex had been hired at our school to teach and coach baseball, to be Coach Peters’ assistant. The prospect of working alongside his son thrilled Coach. Then one day, they found the young man dead in his bed. I don’t remember now what the exact medical diagnosis was, but Coach Peters and his wife were blindsided.

Alex died over the summer, so a few months had gone by when I ran into Coach in the copy room. I asked him how he was doing. I didn’t specifically mention his son, but that’s what I meant. He poured his heart out to me, tears sliding down his face. Tears slid down mine as well. We were work colleagues, not friends. I hardly knew the man. But the thought of living through the death of my child made my heart hurt for him.

What floored me was when he said this: “I wanted to talk about Alex one day during our planning period. My department chair listened for a minute, then told me she thought I should get over it. Life goes on sort of thing.”

Her response shocked him. It shocked me. All he wanted was to remember his child, to share memories of him. The woman shut him down.

I don’t think she meant to be cruel. When people are faced with emotions, and we don’t know what to do to fix the problem, we avoid. And seeing tears from a grown person, particularly a man, puts others into an uncomfortable situation. But all Coach wanted was to talk, to be heard. My job was simple—listen. And cry a little with him. To care enough to ask how he was. We hugged afterward and went about our day. I don’t think I spoke to him one-on-one again that year. But in that moment, my attention gave him something that helped. By acknowledging his pain, I allowed him to grieve. Maybe that’s all he needed.

We’ll all probably find ourselves in a similar situation at least once in our lives. When that moment comes, do your best not to run away. Instead, be the sympathetic ear, offer a shoulder to cry on. In today’s emotionally fraught world, we need to take care of each other.

Christians are called on to comfort each other

Galatians 6:2 teaches this: Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

Sometimes, we don’t have to solve anything. Just listen.

In my writing world, I have an update. My completed contemporary romance about an aging rock star, Made for More, is currently with an acquisitions editor at one of the large five Christian publishing houses. Receiving an offer from one of the Top Five without agent representation is a big leap, so I’m keeping my expectations realistic. She told me she’d have an update by July. If the answer is no, I’ll move forward with self-publishing the novel. If that is the case, my goal is to have the book out into the world by September. So stay tuned!

Quote from my upcoming book - Made for More. "Buckle up, Buttercup. You're in for the ride of your life." The ride of her life? Hopefully it wasn't heading straight off the side of a cliff.

I’m currently writing my first attempt at romantic suspense. I’m on chapter seven as we speak and having a lot of fun figuring this genre out. My working title is Fighting for Justice, but that will probably change. Titles come hard for me.

You can find all of my books on Amazon in print, eBook, or audiobook formats.

Here’s a link to the audiobook of Protected. https://paulapeckham.com/never-trust-anyone-who-has-not-brought-a-book-with-them-lemony-snicket/

I taught a class on formatting to the San Gabriel Writers League last week. My next step is to break down each small segment into individual videos and post them on YouTube. If you’re contemplating self-publishing and want to save some money by doing the formatting yourself, give the videos a try. Here is a link to the first one I’ve uploaded, which shows you how to change your margins to the size you want your book to be.

Subscribe to be notified when I upload the next videos. And, as always, if you run into problems doing your formatting, I’m an email away and would love to help.

Series review

Adolescence.

Described as a four-part crime drama, it shows the fallout after thirteen-year-old Jamie is arrested for murdering his classmate. The show probes mental health, masculinity, and the ease of online radicalization, particularly within the incel (involuntary celibate) culture. A string of violent acts committed by teenage boys against teenage girls in Great Britain inspired the series. Stephen Graham, who plays Jamie’s father, has the final scene of the show. His performance absolutely gutted me.

* Cautionary note: I doubt if everyone in Great Britain speaks this way, but many of the British shows I watch have some pretty serious language. They (at least in the movies) drop the F-bomb as casually as I say, “please pass the salt.” Be forewarned.

February 28, 2023February 28, 2023

She ain’t from around here, is she?

Many of my Northern friends have commented on my Texas accent. I don’t think I have one, at least not much of one, but they disagree. I think the difference often comes down more to the word choices we make rather than the sound of our voices.

For example, in the South we use the word “y’all.” It’s a contraction of “you all.” But rather than that harsh New Jersey sound (picture Joe Pesci in My Cousin Vinny), it has a nice Southern drawl to it.

We also call all soft drinks “coke,” as in, “I’m gonna get a coke. You want one? OK, what kind, Dr. Pepper or root beer?”

This little guy? He’s a doodle bug.

We use the word “tump,” as in, “Don’t swing so high on the swing set. You’re gonna make it tump over.”

And we won’t get into the argument of how to pronounce pecan.

Most of the time, my non-Texan friends and I communicate well, despite our differences. We may hide a grin behind our hands from time to time, but we understand each other. However, in the past few weeks, three words I consider commonplace have stumped my critique partners.

That makes me curious. One partner lives in Illinois and the other in the United Kingdom in the Forest of Dean (but was originally from Australia). Do they not know the words I use simply because of geography?

So I’m doing a survey. Without looking these words up (’cause that’d be cheating), post your answers in the comment section below and tell me what you think they mean. Then tell me where your parents raised you. (Technically, that should say where you were reared, but nobody actually says that word and it sounds weird.) Ready?

Percheron
cup towel
criminently

I can hear my grandmother’s voice on that last one, and it makes me smile. I’m eager to hear your definitions. If you have a word you think we won’t know down here, throw it in, too.

P.S. For those of you who have read and enjoyed Protected and A Father’s Gift, I have an update. I mailed the manuscript for book three, Accepted, to my publisher on Saturday. I hope the new book will be out by late summer/early fall. Squee!

July 7, 2022July 8, 2022

Use Me For Good

Surprises await everywhere, every day. We simply have to watch. Not sure you agree? Read on.

My brother invited me to attend Willie Nelson’s 4th of July Picnic music festival in Austin. Despite my extreme misgivings about spending an entire day in 100˚ heat, I accepted. Seeing Willie was a bucket list item, and time was running out on that one.

Q2 Stadium – 2022 Willie Nelson 4th of July Picnic

We arrived around 3:30 pm, armed with water bottles, sunblock, and my Mexican wide-brimmed straw hat, but were delighted to discover our seats were already in the shade at the Q2 Stadium. One major blessing!

I’ve never been a huge country music fan, so I knew none of the acts for the day except Willie. Nevertheless, I settled in to enjoy the day. I’m a people watcher, and believe me, there was plenty to watch. Took about five minutes for me to decide a local drill team must’ve gone out of business and held a fire sale on their knee-high white cowboy boots. ’Cause, friend, approximately one in ten of the young women in attendance wore a pair. The only thing missing was the fringe down the sides.

Don’t get me wrong—they were cute, paired with airy short dresses that I’d have been happy to wear if I didn’t want to subject the surrounding people to the sight of my crepey, post-50-something skin all afternoon. There were just a lot of them. The overabundance detracted from the cute impact after a while.

I went to the concourse to get some food. While walking around, I came upon a distressing scene. A man, probably in his 60s, lay on the ground. A younger man stood near his feet, weight shifting from side to side, his hands clasped on top of his head as he watched, concern flooding his face.

The stadium medical team tended to the older man, quickly pulling open his shirt, running for an AED machine, inserting an IV to administer fluids. The man’s skin was gray, and after three convulsive paroxysms of his chest and stomach, he stilled. One medic began CPR.

A man behind me prayed softly. I backed up to stand next to him and gripped his hand. The fact there were now two of us seemed to imbue him with the confidence to speak loudly, strongly, claiming the promise that where two or more are gathered, God is there with them. Our fingers clung tightly, and I fought the tears pooling in my eyes.

I never heard the medics yell “Clear!” nor did the man’s body jerk as if they shocked his heart. They loaded him onto an ambulance stretcher and wheeled him away. As far as I could tell, he never moved again. All I could think was how excited he must’ve been to see Willie Nelson later that night. Dying on the concrete floor of a stadium most likely hadn’t been on his bingo card for the day.

People passed by with hardly a glance at the frenzied activity taking place at their feet. Were they more considerate than I to not stand and watch? Or did they not care? Daniel, the 6’ 4” Hispanic man who prayed so ferociously, gave me a tearful hug and left.

Music from Tyler Childers pounded on the other side of the bleachers. Life continued. Within moments, the medical team had all the plastic wrappings from the AED machine cleared and thrown away. It was as if nothing happened. Stunned, I returned to my seat.

Moments later, cameras projecting on large video screens on either side of the stage showed a young man kneeling in front of his girl, holding a small box up to her. She clapped her hands across her mouth, then nodded. He stood and embraced her, and the entire stadium cheered. The seesaw of emotions left me a bit whiplashed.

Later, a young woman moved to the back of the floor area where there were no chairs and danced to the music, alone. A young man in cowboy boots and a straw hat apparently took it upon himself to rescue her from her solitary celebration and raced across the open zone, skidding to a halt in front of her, boots sliding on the protective flooring laid on the soccer field. He placed the two beers he carried on the ground, then leaped to take her in his arms. She happily complied with his twirls and spins, following his lead as they danced together to the sounds of guitars and a harmonica. When the song ended, he gave her a short bow, collected his beers, and returned to his seat. Duty done, problem solved. Made me smile.

Jason Isbell took the stage. I knew none of his songs, and the overly loud, distorted projection from the enormous speakers made it difficult to understand all the lyrics. However, I could clearly hear the chorus in one song.

“Cover me up and know you’re enough to use me for good.”

Unable to discern what the song was truly about, I felt like those words were a prayer. Use me for good. Daniel prayed for the unknown man on the floor. The young man pledged his love to his girlfriend. The rescuing cowboy wanted to create a sweet moment for the solitary dancer. And all those white boots made girls across the stadium feel pretty.

Willie came on at 9:00 and sang for an hour. He was winded and stayed seated in a chair. But he is an 89-year-old country music icon. I’m glad I got to hear him perform.

Before the night was over, I’d held the hand of a stranger, laughed and sang with others. Never seen any of them before. Will undoubtedly not see them again. But I always want to be used for good. Took my lessons from a stadium full of cowboys, cowgirls, and country music singers. There is always an opportunity if we just look for it.

And, if you’re not a Willie Nelson fan, listen to this song, performed with his son, Lukas. And, sir, who may have died on the floor at a concert on Independence Day, let these words sing you to heaven.

“Just Breathe,” written by Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam in 2009

February 7, 2022

Hamilton (the musical) taught all of us about history. It also teaches English grammar.

Anyone else out there a Hamilton fan? I’m obsessed. Not only is the music appealing, emotional, and interesting, but it’s also so incredibly smart.

For example, the rhyming shows up in odd places. Patterns are unusual and unexpected.

Watch this one—

“She courted me
Escorted me to bed and when she had me in a corner
That’s when Reynolds extorted me
For a sordid fee
I paid him quarterly
I may have mortally wounded my prospects
But my papers are orderly.”

And Lin-Manuel doesn’t give a pfft about echoes—

“I never spent a cent that wasn’t mine
You sent the dogs after my scent, that’s fine.”

Brilliant. Simply genius. I could listen to this musical every day for the rest of my life and not grow tired of it.

But when I first listened to the music, one part confused me.

I received a Hamilton CD for Christmas in 2019, just as I started my writing journey. I hadn’t joined a critique group yet, hadn’t started relearning all my grammar rules, so I didn’t get what Lin-Manuel Miranda was saying. Read this verse Angelica writes to Alexander:

“In a letter I received from you two weeks ago,
I noticed a comma in the middle of a phrase.
It changed the meaning. Did you intend this?
One stroke and you’ve consumed my waking days.
It says, ‘My dearest, Angelica.’
With a comma after dearest.
You’ve written,
‘My dearest, Angelica.’”

This puzzled me. What’s the big deal with a comma? I’m so glad you asked.

To explain this, we must use fancy English-class words we learned 40 years ago. (Okay, maybe that’s just me. You may actually remember this word.) We have to talk about appositives.

I heard you sigh from here. Keep reading. I’ll show you how I simplified this rule so I can remember it, thus saving myself from looking it up each and every time I come across it in my writing.

First, the definition. An appositive is a noun that describes another noun.

My friend Lin-Manuel Miranda dropped by.

Lin-Manuel Miranda, a famous writer, created Hamilton.

When an appositive is essential to the meaning of the noun it belongs to (restrictive), don’t use commas. When the noun preceding the appositive provides sufficient identification on its own, use commas around the appositive.

Let’s look at my first example again.

My friend Lin-Manuel Miranda dropped by.

I have more than one friend. If I leave out the appositive, my sentence says, “My friend dropped by.” Saying “my friend” is not enough information for you to know who dropped by. I don’t put commas around the appositive because we need that information.

However, in our second example, it’s different. Read it again.

Lin-Manuel Miranda, a famous writer, created Hamilton.

Lin-Manuel Miranda IS a famous writer—we all know that—so we don’t need that information. We use the commas to set aside the extraneous information (non-restrictive).

Let’s do another one.

Our vice president, Kamala Harris, is the first woman elected to the position.

Our vice president is a relatively precise identifier, so Kamala Harris is not considered essential.

We can live without the information supplied by the appositive. Use commas.

Famous composer Lin-Manuel Miranda won a Grammy Award for the Best Musical Theater Album in 2016 for Hamilton.

The way I constructed this sentence, I must include Lin-Manuel’s name in order to know which famous composer we’re talking about. Since we need his name, no commas are necessary.

Clear as mud?

Now, back to Angelica. What got her so hot and bothered?

“My dearest, Angelica …”

Alexander added the comma, showing he didn’t think it necessary to explain who his dearest was. He could live without that information. In other words, no other person in the world could be his dearest, so including her name was unnecessary. She was his dearest.

Scandalous! My mnemonic to remember?

Need it? No commas. (Both words start with N.)

Can live without it? Commas.

My mother, Sandy, just traveled to Alaska.

I know who my mother is. I can live without the extra information. Use commas.

My friend Tammy Spradley is an even bigger fan of Hamilton than I am.

I have lots of friends. We need the information. No commas.

I’m bookmarking this page because I know I’m going to have to check myself again at some point. Feel free to do the same.

January 24, 2022January 24, 2022

“When you love what you do, it’s not work anymore.” Horse hockey.

American filmmaker Lawrence Kasden, screenwriter for several Star Wars movies, made the following statement, and it’s 100% true.

If you think you’d like to write, the first thing you must do is abolish your ego. That’s hard, but you’ve got to try. Because from day one, someone somewhere will gleefully tell you what is wrong with what you just wrote. And most of the time, they’ll be right. If you allow it, on the first day of your new career, you’ll learn something.

Those criticisms are hard words to hear because you’ve just poured your soul into what is on that paper. You’ve opened yourself up, allowed people to see inside your psyche. You make yourself vulnerable. So when someone starts methodically ripping your work to shreds, it hurts. But the pain is necessary.

I had to go through a very detailed psychological evaluation once for a company who planned to hire me. When I read his report, one line jumped out at me. He said, “Bristles at criticism.”

My response? “I do not!”

Oh. Wait. Point taken.

My default reaction to any criticism is to defend. I have learned to shut that down as quickly as I can and force myself to LISTEN. I don’t have to agree with the criticism I receive from critique partners, and I may decide to ignore their suggestions. But I have to listen. Because the plain truth is, I don’t know everything. Probably, they don’t either, but they might know THIS, so I need to hear their words.

Deb Haggerty, the editor-in-chief at Elk Lake Publishing, Inc., posts helpful articles for her authors on our private Facebook page. I always read them. If the boss thinks something is worth sharing, then I pay attention. She recently posted a link to this article, along with the pithy caption, “Please, please, please read the following article!” (And, yes, she spent a valuable exclamation point, giving the impression she felt passionate about it.)

So I read the article and added it to my growing list of things an author must know.

https://us5.campaign-archive.com/?e=8b905fac2e&u=7b5222d5ce3ad8e5630c9f2d4&id=b17505630b&fbclid=IwAR16a2_ltLLcuIW0vx_H37RM2F2JIbMo8mV5J2Vv0QXvR_vCUx7h8zDiJGE

So, swallow your pride. Admit you just learned something. Now, go forth and start hunting. And may the force be with you.

December 29, 2021

Oh, won’t you stay with me?

Social Media is a “build it, nurture it, engage them, and they may come and stay.”

I stole that quote from Seth Godin (and that lyric in the title from Sam Smith). Seth Godin is an American entrepreneur, best-selling author, and speaker. He should know what he is talking about, as he essentially invented commercial email. As authors, we know we need to build some sort of social media platform because that is how we will gather our ever-essential followers. Whether you’re an author looking for readers, or a baker looking for cake customers, you need a method of reaching people and snagging their interest. The challenge is then keeping them hanging around for more.

According to marketing experts, if you want to gain name recognition, you need to post something on Facebook or Instagram at least two times each and every day (five times if you live on Twitter.) Ahem… please do NOT go back and notice the date of my last post on any of the above-mentioned platforms.

Enter the major problem most of us have.

Thanks to Terri Main, owner of the WordMaster Academy, I have a list to help you crank out content to fill those thirty posts per month.

Step one: Break your topic/genre into subtopics. Let’s say you write romances that take place in Victorian England. Your list might include:

Fashion
Economy
Architecture
Class Struggles (a biggie in Victorian England. Just read Dickens)
The Workplace
Marriage rituals
Politics
The legal system

Those are a few ideas to get you started. Someone interested in Victorian England might be interested in any one of them.

Step Two: Choose one of those subtopics. (Or use the main topic if you like)

Step Three: Fill in the blanks below.

A Joke about _______
An Image about _____
A video about ______
A link to an article about _____
A review of a book/movie/TV show about ______
A blog post about ____ (Remember when writing blog posts, copy and paste them into the status box on Facebook and attach a photo. Links get fewer views than original posts with images)
A cartoon about_____
A picture quote about_____
A discussion question about ______
A survey about ______
A poem about ________
A piece of flash fiction about _______
A background piece about a problem you faced writing about _____
Something you learned researching _______
A tip for people writing about ______
A pet peeve about how ______ is portrayed in movies/TV/Books.
A Facebook Slideshow or Picture Gallery about _____
A post you made six weeks or more ago about _______
A post you made on another social media platform about ______
A guest post from someone else interested in the subject.

There are twenty blanks to fill in that list. If you create a post for each one, that gives you 10 days worth of content. Repeat that for two more subtopics, and you have a month of posts.

So how long will that take? I’ll do a run-through right now and time it. Since I set my book in the 1860s, in Texas, my characters either are or interact with cowboys. I’ll answer the first five prompts and see how long it takes to do. Ready, set, start the timer!

Post 1, Day 1: Cowboy cartoon.

Now I’ll think up some copy that ties this to my story. “Manny probably wished for something this easy to catch during his cattle-driving days.”

Day 1, Post 2: An image about cowboys.

My copy with this photo might go something like this: Texas is known for its gorgeous sunsets (although someone told me it’s due to the completely unromantic reason of dust in our atmosphere). I like to think of what Manny or Abby might have seen each night as they made their way home from roaming on their property. Back then, a family could claim 120 acres just by filing with the General Land office.

Day 2, Post 1: A video of a cattle drive. My copy would go something like this: “In the beginning chapters of Protected, Manny and his best friend, Jonathan, are heading home from driving a herd of cattle to Kansas. They spent two to three weeks on horseback, eating from a chuck wagon, on their way to the meat market. It would’ve looked something like this.”

Day 2, Post 2: A link to an article about the life of a cowboy in 1866. I would write something like this to go along with the article. “The cowboy of Hollywood was far more glamorous than the real-life cowboys of the 1800s. Read on to discover facts it might surprise you to know.” https://www.frontierlife.net/blog/2020/10/26/cowboy-life-in-the-1800s-primary-sources

Day 3, Post 1: A review of a book/movie/TV show about cowboys. I would write: “Ask anyone on a book recommendation website or Facebook page for a book about cowboys, and you’re going to hear about Lonesome Dove. It is the quintessential story about cowboys, particularly for dialogue. If you want to write a story with a cowboy in it, read this book first. Maybe read it twice so you marinate your brain in cowboy-speak. You’ll love it.”

https://www.amazon.com/Lonesome-Dove-Larry-McMurtry-audiobook/dp/B07BGQGG7R/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=lonesome+dove+book&qid=1640747337&sprefix=lonesome+dove%2Caps%2C571&sr=8-1

Stop. My timer was at 18 minutes, 2 seconds. I’m one-sixth of the way through. So, I’d need between 1 hour, 45 minutes to 2 hours to complete a full month’s worth of content for my Facebook and/or Instagram feeds. That’s doable. Set a reminder on your phone for the first day of every month and crank it out. Then it’s simply a matter of copy and paste to your social media of choice, and you’re done!

Let’s do a pinky-swear challenge. I’ll try it if you will.

December 21, 2021December 21, 2021

It’s a long way to Dallas.

I served on a federal jury several years ago. I didn’t even mind because it got me out of my classroom for three weeks, and it was a particularly tough year. I wrote some musings about my experience once the trial was over. A friend reminded me of that collection of thoughts the other day. So, here is a resurrection of my memories of that good ol’ time. Enjoy.

Things I learned while on jury duty:

It is a long way to Dallas.
It pays to be nice and make friends. I left my purse at home one morning, and Pedro, the attendant of the lot I used each day, let me park my truck there for free until I could find someone to borrow the money from.
Women in Dallas have only one toe, and it is right in the middle of their feet. I know this to be true because of the pointy-toed, spike-heeled shoes they wear. There is not room in those shoes for more than one toe.
Reading glasses make a very effective crowd-control tool when used correctly. I learned from observing Judge Lynn if you perch them right on the end of your nose and glare menacingly over them, you don’t have to actually say anything. This maneuver is particularly effective on jurors who return late from lunch (not me!).
It is a very long way to Dallas.
You can ride the train to Dallas, but you must be at the Vickery Street station at 6:15 am to get to the courtroom on time.
If you walk around the Vickery Street train station at 3:30 pm to familiarize yourself with everything so you won’t miss the train the first time you ride it the next day, you’ll feel like you’ve just stumbled into the Stephen King book The Stand, because there will be no one around but you.
Walking around in a marble-floored, high-ceilinged, empty train station building in broad daylight is creepy.
If you pee against the protective shelter while waiting for the train (not me!), the train conductor, who spies you doing this while he waits for the scheduled time to head to DFW airport, will not be happy and he will call the Transit Police. The Transit Police will come and take you off the train while everyone else looks on, handcuff you, and take you away.
Riding the train was not as much fun as it was cracked up to be, despite it being a very, very long way to Dallas.
The Spanish word for before is antes (pronounced “awn-tez”).
The Spanish word for after is despues (pronounced “dez-pwez).
The Spanish word for tools is heramienta (pronounced “air-raw-may-en-ta”).
The Spanish word for cocaine is cocaine (pronounced “co-cah-een-ah”).
The Spanish word for heroin is chivas (pronounced “shee-vas”).
The Spanish word for well, as in, “Well, when you spoke to the FBI, you lied to them, didn’t you?” is bueno (pronounced “bway-no”).
The Spanish word for o.k., as in, “O.K., let’s look at your testimony again,” is bueno (pronounced “bway-no”).
The Spanish word for good, as in “Good, we’ve established that you lied to Mr. Delapaz,” is bueno (pronounced “bway-no”).
The Spanish word for no (duly reported and translated each and every time) is no, (pronounced “no”).
You can get a crick in your neck driving for 30 minutes along I-30, trying the whole while to position your head in just the right spot behind your rear-view mirror so you don’t have the sun glaring straight into your eyes. This, however, is an advantage when you walk around at lunch as it forces you to hold your head at a snooty, self-important angle, which lets you fit right in. It also helps if you’re wearing pointy-toed, spike-heeled shoes.
The Seinfeld “Soup Nazi” now lives in Dallas and owns a Greek restaurant two blocks from the courthouse. Be ready with your order when it is your turn and, whatever you do, do not ask a question about the menu.
Courtrooms are very cold.
Blankets, coats, and mittens are allowed in courtrooms.
Cell phones are not allowed in courtrooms.
You can sneak your cell phone past the security guard on the fifteenth floor if you keep it in your coat pocket (accidentally, of course) if you wait until there are several important attorneys all trying to get through at the same time you are.
It is a very, very, very long way to Dallas.
It is extremely hard to not watch the news, read the paper, or listen to NPR (even if you don’t normally do so) when someone tells you not to.
It is extremely hard not to talk about something that totally consumes your every waking moment for three weeks.
It is imperative to not wear pants that have become ever-so-slightly too small for you when you are forced to sit still for eight hours.
A certain lethargy steals over your body around 1:30 – 2:00, forcing your eyes to flutter as you valiantly fight to stay awake. This will happen every day, like clockwork, and will last approximately 20 minutes. It will also earn you a glare from over the reading glasses.
Vitamins, a Gingseng-Gotu Kola capsule, and an Arizona Energy tea at lunch will help combat the early afternoon nap syndrome but will not completely alleviate it.
Wiggling around a lot will help you stay awake.
Tapping your knuckles repeatedly—and hard—with your pen will help you stay awake, although it tends to annoy jurors sitting next to you.
Chewing the inside of your cheek will help you stay awake.
Taking a water bottle in with you and drinking from it will help you stay awake. Unfortunately, you only get one bathroom break after lunch, so this maneuver has its pitfalls.
Frowning with intense concentration and looking back and forth between witnesses, interpreters, and attorneys will help hide the fact that your eyes are fluttering.
Listening to a trial where you learn the names of a lot of Hispanic people—many of whom have the same first name; many of whom also have a nickname; many of whom have two last names, either of which might be used by any given witness at any given time—is sort of like reading a Tom Clancy novel.
Making a flow chart helps keep everyone straight. It can also be recopied each day from 1:30 – 2:00 to keep you awake.
Being a teacher gives one excellent practice at picking out when someone starts to lie.
Swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth (we don’t say, “so help you God” anymore) doesn’t have the effect one would expect on the veracity of testimony given.
Lawyers aren’t necessarily good at math. We waited a moment or two for our prosecuting attorney to do mental math and figure out what 30 kilos times $20,000/kilo is.
Jurors are not permitted to call out answers.
It’s an extremely long way to Dallas.
Restating a question five times by changing the first few words will not magically make a different answer come from the witness’s mouth. For example,
1. “Mr. S, you were afraid of R. A., weren’t you?”
2. “But isn’t it true, Mr. S, that when you found out E. A. and J. R. were going to set up R. A., you got scared?
3. “But in your grand jury testimony, Mr. S, when you said, ‘Are you crazy?’, it was because you were afraid of setting up R. A., a known drug dealer, wasn’t it?”
4. “But Mr. S, didn’t you walk out of J. R.’s apartment that night because you were afraid of R. A.?”
5. “You were frightened of setting up a known drug dealer, weren’t you, Mr. S.?”
Witnesses, even when they are self-confessed drug dealing, conspiring, scam artists, can be funny and smart-alec when they answer, “For the fifth time, dude, the answer is no.”
Jurors who snort with laughter at funny, smart-alec answers made by self-confessed drug dealing, conspiring, scam artist witnesses will earn themselves a glare over the reading glasses.
Jurors are not allowed to make objections, even when a question has been re-asked five times and answered the same way each and every time.
Jurors from Mississippi use the phrase, “He musta been fed with a sling-shot when he was a baby,” to describe very focused, intense, no-nonsense attorneys who repeat questions five different times in an effort to wring out a “yes” from the witness.
Never, ever, ever take your car to an auto repair shop that has any of the following characteristics:
1. It is made of corrugated tin.
2. It consists mostly of a field, a fence, and a shed.
3. It looks like it has been repainted several times with very brightly colored paint.
4. There aren’t many cars sitting around waiting to be fixed or cleaned, and the people running it don’t look very busy.
5. There is a pick-up truck parked anywhere across the street with a person using binoculars sitting in it, watching.
In fact, never, ever, ever take your car to be fixed anywhere besides Christian Brothers Automotive or Pep Boys, just to be on the safe side.
When people get busted in a drug raid, everyone there gets busted, so don’t ever, ever, ever take your car anywhere to be fixed other than Christian Brothers Automotive or Pep Boys.
It’s okay to use the f- word in a courtroom, and it won’t even earn a glare over the reading glasses.
It’s sort of creepy to sit five feet away from a drug dealer and watch him get mad and start using the f-word when the defense attorney hammers away at his testimony.
It’s a long way to Dallas.

December 7, 2021May 2, 2023

National Authors in Grocery Stores Program

Are your sales on Amazon flat? Do you feel like you’re shouting into a void when you promote your book?

If only I had access to the general public on a regular basis where I could sell my books.

Have you ever thought that? Indie authors, traditionally published writers, or hybrids—we’re all looking for reliable, effective means of getting our work out into the world.

Well, I have a solution for you! It’s called “National Authors in Grocery Stores Program.”

This program partners with various grocery stores. It started in Texas, but now stores in the following states have joined the program: Alaska, Colorado, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Ohio, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming.

Authors pay a yearly membership fee of $75.00. You then pay $25 for each book title. This gets your book entered into the grocery store’s vendor program. Once you have registered your title, it’s a done deal. You pay only once per each book ISBN.

Authors set up a table inside the store and sell to passing shoppers. You retain 62% of the sale.

December is the perfect time to enroll in the program. It takes about thirty days to get everything into the system, so you’ll be ready to sell in January. This will give you a full twelve months of usage from your $75 membership fee. If you enroll in April, your renewal will be due in January, regardless of whether you got a full twelve months out of your membership fee.

How it works:

You pack in what you need. Table, chair, decorations, books, etc. You set up. You pack back out when you’re done.

You can make a copy of your book’s back cover where the ISBN number is located and give interested shoppers a copy of the cover which they use to buy the book at the register. The cashier scans the bar code, the shopper pays, then she brings her receipt back to your table and you hand over a book. Or you can hand them the book. Some authors worry shoppers will steal the book, hence the back cover copy idea. However, in my experience, after you chat with the reader and sign their book for them, you’ve developed a relationship. I have had no books go missing.

You can set up shop any day of the week, but the most popular are Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Prime times are 3:00 – 7:00 on Fridays, and 10:00 – 3:00 on weekends. However, you can set up whatever day works best with your schedule. If you’re having a booming sales day, you may stay longer than you scheduled. If your sales are flat, you’re free to pack up and head home for the day. They arrange the schedule so only one author is there at a time.

Two of my friends in ACFW DFW Ready Writers have taken advantage of this opportunity, and they’ve both sold books by the hundreds. It requires a time commitment, but marketing our books is a continual hustle, and this one pays off. In four month’s time, I sold 75 copies of my books.

Interested? Contact Ray Depew at 845-699-6664 or at rayd792002@yahoo.com. Ray is not affiliated with the grocery stores. He is an author, like the rest of us, but has put this program together to make the unending job of marketing a little bit easier.

So, get out there and promote yourself. Good luck and may the sales force be with you.

Click to download the official regulations.

Authors-In-Grocery-Stores-Sign-Up-Flyer Download

November 18, 2021

Courage to Stand Out

As a writer, it’s helpful that I have a family member who edits Christian publications for a living. I have my own, personal, built-in networking machine. (Thanks, Lori!) I recently enjoyed the opportunity to share an article with the magazine, The Journal: A Resource for Ministry Spouses.

I wrote the story, Courage to Stand Out, from an event that occurred almost a year ago. Now that I’m not teaching, I miss my chances of spending time with fun teenagers. A fellow church member, Linda Nowlin, asked me to drive our church van to Cleburne, Texas, to deliver gifts. Linda volunteers with CASA (Court-Appointed Special Advocate), as do I. Linda has also accompanied me to Mexico with my mission team, so we’ve worked with each other on multiple occasions. (More networking!) Our youth had collected several presents to donate to children in foster care.

This story is what came to me after listening to the girls chatter on the way home. My takeaway? Never be afraid to be different. God made each of us exactly the way we are, so embrace your difference. Check it out on page 16.

https://tinyurl.com/3afsskv8