Big Promotion Day for Keowee Valley - Deals, Free Stuff, & More!

It’s a big day for Keowee Valley and me!

First, I’m doing a blog tour!

This means I, and Keowee Valley, will be featured on several different blogs–each of them different (and all the things I talk about different, too).

Check them out:



Keowee Valley Blog Tour:
Blog 1: Bell Bridge Books – “Writing as a Mom”
Blog 2: Riding With the Top Down – “The Beauty of Book Clubs” 
Blog 3: Michelle Ziegler Author - “Fun Fact Friday: Katherine Scott Crawford & Her Path to Publication”
Blog 4: Goodreads - "Mining for Gold"

Second, Keowee Valley is available for a special promotion price of only $1.99, today (Mar. 22) through Monday (Mar. 25) at the Amazon Kindle Store and Apple.

Third, today ONLY, I’m doing an Author Q & A on Goodreads. At my Goodreads Author Page, I’ll be answering any questions Goodreads readers, writers, and bloggers may have about my novel, history, literary agents, publishing, the writing life–basically anything and everything under the sun! I do hope you’ll take part. (If you haven’t signed up for Goodreads, it’s FREE and fun.) In addition, Goodreads is offering a free book giveaway to lucky folks who participate!

I figure this is a fun way to get through your Friday, and to get ready for the weekend. I hope to see you somewhere on “the Web” today!

Book Trailer for Keowee Valley

My publisher, Bell Bridge Books, just posted the book trailer for Keowee Valley.

Here it is on YouTube, short and sweet:

Happy Friday to all!

New Author Interview

A great time was had by all Saturday at the Aiken County Library! Many thanks to the wonderful folks, including Library Manager Michael Swan and the Friends of the Aiken County Library, who put it all together.

Afterwards, I was interviewed by the Aiken Standard. (And the reporter was a fellow Clemson grad, though much, much younger than me.)

Check it out: http://www.aikenstandard.com/article/20130127/AIK0101/130129577/1031/author-speaks-about-her-book-research.

Please note that I usually look better than this. (Okay, somewhat better than this.) I am very pregnant.

One of the highlights of the trip was the fact that my in-laws surprised me by driving up from their home on Hilton Head Island to be there for the event! We had a lovely dinner afterwards at the West Side Bowery, a downtown Aiken staple since the 1980s. Our waiter--a daddy himself--went out of his way to make us feel welcome, and even managed to prevent a full-on 3 year-old meltdown by my daughter by stirring (non-alcoholic) strawberry daiquiri mix into her lemonade so she could have "pink" lemonade.

Bless you, sir.

Keowee Valley at the Library

Happy Friday, all!

I’m writing this as my daughter watches “Super Why” on PBS Kids. School was cancelled (which means her preschool was cancelled, too) because supposedly we’re going to get a bunch of sleet and ice today–a dangerous wintry mix on mountain roads.

I’ve become disillusioned about winter weather in Western North Carolina, especially over the past couple of years. Since we moved to the mountains in 2005, we’ve had solid winters with great snow (and as a native South Carolinian, snow is magic to me). But the past couple of years–and, it looks like, this year too–have seen nothing but warm, creepy winters where flowers bloom in February. I’m convinced it’s why everyone’s getting the flu.

I’ve taken to posting photos of winters past on my Facebook page. Like a sad, virtual winter. I’m hoping this will shame Old Man Winter into appearing.

Alright, enough of that. Back to the topic at hand: my upcoming presentation of Keowee Valley!

Barring icy roads, I’m headed to Aiken, South Carolina tomorrow to give a presentation of Keowee Valley at the Aiken County Library. I’ll be talking about my background, the inspiration for the novel, and touching on the history and culture of the Cherokee and frontier settlers in those wild and dangerous years leading up to the opening of the American Revolution. I’m really looking forward to getting a look at the town of Aiken, a place I’ve never been that claims quite an interesting history. The library serves the counties of Aiken, Bamberg, Barnwell, and Edgefield, all of which are fairly steeped in Antebellum history.

I love doing library events!

First, being in a library feels like being home to me. When I was a kid, my mom took me to the library all the time, and I can still remember the tall stacks, the ramp up to the second level, the magic, not-quite-musty smell of books, and the promise of adventure to be had at the touch of my fingertips. And librarians have always had a special place in my heart: the librarian at the high school where my mother taught used to send Mom home with boxes of old books just for me.

Since I’ve been promoting and sharing Keowee Valley with readers and history-lovers, I’ve had a great time at libraries. The audience is always interested and friendly, unafraid to ask questions and curious about anything having to do with the novel–the characters, the history, the landscape. Granted, I’m comfortable in front of a crowd anyway, something I feel lucky about, as many writers aren’t. But library patrons make it easy.

So if you’re in the Aiken area, I hope you’ll stop by the Aiken County Library tomorrow (Saturday, Jan. 26 at 3:00 p.m.).

If not, I hope you have a warm and relaxing weekend before you!

 

A Christmas Wish

Recently my publisher asked me to write a guest post for their blog. It’s up today, and it’s called “A Christmas Wish.” I’m reposting here for those interested.

This was a tough blog post to write. I’ve known for a while that the deadline was coming up, but honestly, had the worst time writing it. After the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School, I have felt like nothing I say holds significance. How, I asked myself, can I write about Christmas, when my heart feels like a leaden balloon in my chest? The pain that those parents and loved ones are suffering–and will continue to suffer–is unimaginable. I’ve thought of not much else these past days but fervent hope for their peace and ease.

My friend, the writer Kimberly Brock, and I talked about this. She, too, was asked to do a guest post earlier this week. Both of us had an admittably hard time writing. Hers is here; I think she does a great job addressing the mystery that surrounds this time of year.

But if there’s a time of year meant for hope, a time meant for magic and for the promise of Light, it’s this season.

So here’s my post. It’s nothing special, just childhood memories and a wish. I hope you enjoy it.

 

A Christmas Wish


Christmas magic.

It’s something—a feeling, a spirit, a hope—that I’ve searched for, and inevitably found, every December since I was a child.

When I was very young, my parents made the magic. They filled our house with Christmas cheer: Johnny Mathis, John Denver and Bing Crosby on the record player and then the stereo; a house festooned with garland, candles and poinsettias; the everyday china exchanged for plates and mugs and bowls of Cuthbertson Christmas china; the lighting of the Advent calendar; the mistletoe hanging from the light fixture in the foyer; and the enormous Virginia pine Christmas tree. Today, that tree is a Fraser Fir, but it’s still brilliantly lit with bubble lights and adorned with mine and my sister’s hand-made ornaments, along with a precious few that have been in my father’s family since the turn of the century. It stands next to an enormous real-wood fireplace, red, crocheted stockings hung at the fat wooden mantel, just waiting for Santa Claus. To this day, my sister’s and my stockings are stretched inches longer than any of the others from years of being stuffed to the brim with goodies.

On Christmas Eve we’d head to church for the United Methodist celebration of the Moravian Love Feast. We’d sing Christmas carols, convene with friends, and hold our candles aloft as the entire sanctuary sang “Silent Night.” I loved standing on the pew bench with my family, holding my candle high and watching the glow on the faces around me. After, we’d head home for Christmas Eve supper with my aunt’s family and our best family friends: a tradition we still keep to this day. That very night, Santa would call the house, and all the kids would line up to hear just where his sleigh was at that very moment (usually over the Atlantic Ocean, Rudolph lighting the way through the fog).

Sheer magic.

Now, as an adult with a writing and teaching career, a family (including a husband, a dog, a three year-old daughter and a baby on the way), it takes a concerted effort to create that Christmas magic. I have to look for it—to make it happen, because I want my daughter to grow up as I was so lucky to: feeling that every day of December holds promise and magic.

I want her to be able—as I did as a child, a teenager, and still do—to stand outside in the dark of a cold Christmas Eve, and to look up at that mysterious sky with wonder and hope. I want her to feel in her bones a peace like no other. That is my most fervent Christmas wish, this year of all years. I wish it for all of us—for the community of Newtown, Connecticut, for all the world, for my family and for yours.

Tonight and every night, may we sleep in heavenly peace.

Down to Dahlonega

I’m thrilled to be headed down to the Dahlonega Literary Festival in lovely Dahlonega, Georgia.

Tomorrow, I’ll run a booth for Keowee Valley, and will speak at 2 p.m. as part of a panel of Appalachian writers in a session called “Appalachia in Fact and Fiction.” Also on the panel: authors Ann Hite (Ghost on Black Mountain), Walton Young (A Gathering of Eagles), Nick Wynne (Flighty Jo Jones), and Mary E. Kingsley (Angel).

I’ve never been to Dahlonega before, and I always look forward to spending time in cool little mountain towns. The weather is supposed to be gorgeous, and the literary line-up a real treat! Some of the other authors appearing include Karen White, Kimberly Brock (another Bell Bridge Books author, like me), Mark Warren, Cherie Priest, Carole Townsend, A.J. Hartley, and more–including keynote speaker Barbara Brown Taylor. I had the pleasure of hearing Brown Taylor speak at the Southern Women Writers Conference earlier this Fall, and she’s wonderful–witty, smart, souful and refreshing.

Even better, I’m being joined this time in my book travels by my husband and my three year-old daughter, who plan to roam the Festival and enjoy the kids’ events while I do my thing. Lately I’ve been traveling alone, so this’ll be fun! (Look for a tall man chasing a little blonde blur.)

If you’re in the area, I hope you can join us!

Let There be Cake (and a New Review)

* Also posted at my author website.

With Rachael, creator of the Perfect Cake

It was a busy book weekend!

We kicked off Friday night with a Book Launch Party for Keowee Valley, thrown by my wonderful parents in my hometown of Greenville, South Carolina. Saturday I headed back up to the mountains of Sylva, North Carolina, for a reading and book signing at the fabulous City Lights Bookstore.

** More on each of these events to come in a later post!

But for now, here’s a new review of Keowee Valley by reviewer Michelle Griep, up at the blog Novel Reviews.


I’ll leave you with a few photos of the utterly incredible cake my friend and the artist/baker Rachael Doss Muldrow created for the launch party Friday night. Made of chocolate, chocolate, chocolate and buttercream icing, the cake was a recreation of the cover of Keowee Valley, and quotes from the novel were iced around the sides.

 

And it tasted as GOOD as it looked!

 

 

Afterglow

What a lovely week it’s been! My first novel launched, the reviews are pouring in, and I’ve had nothing but kindness and support from my nearest and dearest.

Who could ask for more?

See. Look at these gorgeous flower arrangements. The one on the left is from the sweetest parents-in-law a gal could hope for, and the one on the right is from a wonderful friend.

There’s so much I could post about here, about the whole process, about what it feels like to finally hold that novel—the physical book—in my hot little hands. And some of this, I will certainly share (as soon as I come back down to Earth). I dreamed of publishing a novel for years, and the reality of it has been both nothing like what I imagined and even more than I’d thought possible.

Life, of course, has been busy--as it is for all of us. It doesn’t come to a screeching halt just for little ol’ me and my book, and that’s okay. On my plate the past week: grading college essays, reading and writing for graduate school, promoting Keowee Valley with emails, calls and letters; solo-parenting when my husband’s been away on business, and trying with all my might to convince my rascal of a 3 year-old—who’s been getting into big time trouble at preschool—that Mama is most definitely The. Boss.

Yes, it takes convincing. She’s not convinced. But she’s still cute.

See:

 

ARGH

 

But back to the week of the book.

 

Two things I’ve learned:

 

1.) Reading back over the Acknowledgements section of the novel (because of course I’ve poured over the whole thing, examining each and every page, time and time again), I came to an incredible realization.

 

Not one person, over the course of my life thus far, ever told me I couldn’t do it. That I couldn’t be a writer. In fact, every single person—family member, friend, family-friends, relatives, and teachers—encouraged me, spurred me on, and believed in me.

 

Imagine if I'd wanted to be a go-go dancer.

 

Kidding.

 

That kind of belief? It's a magical thing, my friends.

 

And

 

2.) Watching your loved ones read the Dedication and Acknowledgements sections of a novel, watching them read words you crafted so carefully in an attempt to thank them for all of that belief and encouragement … watching them tear up with emotion?

 

Pure joy.

 

So, though the initial excitement is wearing off, and it’s back to the work-teaching-grad school-writing-family grindstone (beautiful, exhausting, wouldn’t-trade-it-for-the-world life that it is), I’m still planning to savor the moment. And we’ve got some fun things in the works: launch parties in my hometown and in the town where I live, and more. Great book events at fantastic indie bookstores, participation in book festivals, library presentations and more.

 

It’s going to be a busy, busy Fall. I hope you’ll follow along!

 

 



 



 

Bet Your Bottom Dollar

This morning I'm channeling Annie. Yes, the curly-red-headed gumshoe orphan from the 1982 film.

When I was four years old, I was entranced by Annie and her Daddy Warbucks world. My mom bought me an Annie wig, I dressed like her, and I staged musical numbers in the living room of our house in Greenville, South Carolina. Anyone who came over--babysitter, aunt, parents' friends, the mailman--was subject to a performance.

It didn't matter that I was Annie's opposite: Southern, very much NOT an orphan, freckle-free, with blindingly white-blonde hair. When I put on that wig and belted out "Tomorrow," I was Annie.

Here. Remember?

The kid even inspires FDR. She's amazing!

So.

The reason I'm channeling Annie is this: as most of you know, my very first novel, Keowee Valley, comes out tomorrow. I dreamed the impetus and details of the novel for years before I put it to paper. I researched for six months and wrote and rewrote for another year and a half. I queried literary agents for about four months (we're talking pages and pages of printer paper, stamps galore, and, finally, four offers of representation amid the nearly 200 rejection letters). The nail-biting decision on which agent to choose. Then, the agony of waiting to find a publisher ... three years of it. And, finally, an offer from a publisher I've come to thoroughly like and admire. Another year plus until publication.

Anyone want to count the years from writing to publication? I wouldn't. It's terrifying.

But tomorrow, my novel will be published.

When I say it's hard to believe, I'm not making it up. Lately, I've existed in a state of numbness, hardly believing it to be real. I've pushed aside any excitement in order to simply deal with the myriad details of my busy life.

And, if I'm honest with myself, the thought of people--strangers and those I know and love--reading Keowee Valley makes the nerves jump beneath my skin.

I know, of course, there will be some readers who love it. Most likely my mom. Okay, hopefully more than just my mom.

There will be some readers who simply like it, or feel neither this way nor that about the story. There may be even some who expected more from me, and didn't get it.

Gulp.

And then, there'll be those who hate it. Who think that I can't write my way out of a paper bag.

Those will sting. Ain't gonna lie. And I've never had the thickest skin. But I hope--I plan--to be like the turtle, and let the water (and the negativity) just roll off my back.

My graduate advisor at the Vermont College of Fine Arts this semester, the incomparable Connie May Fowler (How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly, Before Women had Wings), told me this about bad reviews in a recent letter. I don't think she'd mind me sharing:

Do not allow small, inconsequential things to mar your joy over this success. The publication of your novel is an achievement NO ONE can take away from you. It’s a monumental achievement and it will cast a love-shine on all the days of your life. So glory in it!

I love her.

And I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that the sun'll come out tomorrow, the day of my publication. And it'll be good.

Bet your bottom dollar!

eBook Version of Keowee Valley Now Available!

Kindle users and eBook readers:

The eBook version of Keowee Valley is available for pre-order on Amazon!

Pre-orders for the print version of the novel should be available soon, and on Sept. 27th it'll be available in book stores, including your local indies.

I feel like dancing. But I have a chest cold--drat!

Instead, since the temperatures are in the low 50s in the mountains this morning, I think I'll take a slow celebratory hike with my dog.

Hooray! Cough.

Upcoming Events

Happy Belated Labor Day, all!

My family and I are finally back at the ranch after almost three weeks traveling between three different beaches and three different sets of friends and family. We did come home for two days somewhere in the middle, but it was a fly by. Suffice to say, though it has been a wonderful trip, I am feeling like Dorothy: there is most certainly no place like home.

I'm getting pretty darned excited about the launch of Keowee Valley, coming up on Sept. 27th. It looks like this is going to be a busy and exciting Fall, and I've got some events planned I'd love to share:

• Friday, Sept. 21 at 9 a.m., I'll be presenting a paper at the 2012 Southern Women Writer's Conference at Berry College in Mt. Berry, Georgia. The paper's essentially a longer excerpt from Keowee Valley. I'm excited to learn from great Southern female writers like Dorothy Allison and Josephine Humphreys, and to hear some wonderful new voices in Southern literature. I'm also looking forward to touring Berry College, which I've heard is simply gorgeous.

• Friday, Oct. 12 at 11 a.m., I'll be the featured author at Litchfield Books' lunch with the author series, called Moveable Feast. My luncheon will take place at the famous Sea View Inn on Pawleys Island, South Carolina. I'll talk about the novel and myself, read from it, and take questions. After, there'll be a book signing back at Litchfield Books for those who couldn't make the lunch. Litchfield Books owner Tom Warner tells me that this venue sells out FAST, so if you're interested and in the area, I hope you'll contact Litchfield Books soon! I grew up vacationing in the area, and can't wait to be back and to meet wonderful readers!

• Tuesday, Oct. 16 at noon, I'll be presenting at the Transylvania County Library's Bag Lunch Arts Series in Brevard, N.C. My presentation, "The Slanted Truth: When Fiction Meets History," will delve into the murky waters of historical fiction, past and present. I plan to talk about my own journey researching and writing Keowee Valley, which is set in a time and place shrouded in mystery, even now. After the event, copies of the novel will be sold by the fine folks at Highland Books, Brevard's fabulous independent book store.

• Saturday, Oct. 27 at 2 p.m., I'll be giving a reading and book signing at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva, North Carolina. City Lights is a Western North Carolina staple and hub for book lovers and lovers of the arts. I'm very much looking forward to being a part of such a wonderful book store, and to meeting area readers and writers.

More events to come, both real and virtual!  

My Post at the Bell Bridge Books Blog

My first post at the Bell Bridge Books Blog is up this morning! It's called "And So I Did," and it's about the things that shaped me as a writer.

Enjoy!

New Publication Date for Keowee Valley

Hi, all!

Just got word from my publishers that the new, official publication date for Keowee Valley is September 27. In addition, pre-orders will be available within the next two weeks at places like Amazon.com, etc. So exciting!

More from me soon when things calm down about the tail end of the publication journey. For now, I'm wallowing in my last night at the beach with family and friends.

Keowee Valley Has a Cover!

 

It's here. It's complete. And I am thrilled!

 

I couldn't stand it: I had to interrupt my family beach vacation to send the news.

 

A huge thanks to the talented artist M. C. Krauss, and to the design team at Bell Bridge Books, for a cover that truly speaks to the spirit of the novel. As is the case with most publishers, the final decision on cover art is out of the author's hands. But mine made me very much a part of the process, and I'm so appreciative of this.

 

Hopefully, after the novel comes out in September, you all will let me know if you agree!

  

Keowee Valley Cover Art Coming Soon!

Modern view of the ancient Cherokee country
(photo: Brian Zufall)

Just a quick note to say that my publishers have completed the cover of Keowee Valley. As soon as I'm allowed to share it here, I will!

It's gorgeous. I love it, love it, love it. 

As I type this, the last of the page proofs are being completed by the wonderful copy editors at Bell Bridge Books. I'll get another look at it, and at both the front and back covers, before it goes to print. And before it does, the novel will be available for pre-order on Amazon.com. Then, soon after, in book stores.

This is getting exciting, sportfans.

More to come from me on the whole process, but for now I'm headed to the beach for a much-needed and much-anticipated vacation with my family, including my parents, my sister and brother-in-law (who live too far away and we don't get to see enough), and all our dogs. 

Sand and sun and dogs and paws and adult beverages and boats and beach music and downright good times, here we come!

Countdown to Novel Publication

The official publication date for KEOWEE VALLEY is September 15, 2012!

I say "official," and that's what I've been told ... so, hopefully, this won't change.

It's hard for me to believe, and oh so very exciting: in 60 days, my first novel will become a real book, out in the word, corporeal, for all to see and hold and--dear Lord, please--read. I've spent a good deal of time avoiding this thought--my publication date--because, much as I hate to admit, I've got a bit of the fatalist in me. I need to hold that sucker in my hands before I truly believe that it's real.

There are a great many things that will occur in my writing world before September 15th.

1. The cover design must be completed by my publisher's design team.
2. More endorsements/blurbs from authors who are reading KEOWEE VALLEY need to come in. (Man, oh man, I hope they do. Though I've thankfully had some wonderful advance praise so far, I've got more great authors reading the ARC right now. Fingers crossed.)
3. A book launch party must be planned.
4. An author photo for the back of the book must be chosen.
5. I've got to do all sorts of pre-publication organizing, having to do with promotional materials, press releases, book store events and speaking engagements, etc.  

Here are the things that have to occur in my personal world: (What? I can't just smile and carry my book around like a blankie?)

1. My daughter's 3rd birthday (and party). Yikes.
2. A photo shoot with my very talented cousin-in-law, Paula Player, a photographer in Myrtle Beach (more to come about this), about 6 hours away from where I live.
3. A beach vacation with my family (including my parents, sister and brother-in-law, and all our dogs). Woohoo!
4. Planning for the English courses I'm teaching this Fall. Which begin next month. Oh, law.
5. A total body makeover, including toned abs, sculpted arms, and legs like Gwyneth Paltrow. Why are you laughing?
6. The possible almost maybe perhaps chance consideration of starting work on Baby #2. Did I just type that out loud?
7. Oh, yeah, and I'm still in graduate school.

All of these things are good things. I feel very lucky, and most fortunate, to have them occurring at this point in my life.

But the book, my novel ... the book is the thing.

Right now, it still looks like this:



The Advance Review Copy of KEOWEE VALLEY

Sort of like an elegant phone book, right? I can't wait to see what cover design my publishers put together. It's been an interesting process, the back-and-forth about the cover, but I'm confident it'll be a good one because I promised them my third-born child if it is. Did I just write that out loud?

More to come on the novel publication countdown, the process, and how I'm handling (or not) motherhood, wifehood, teacherhood, studenthood, and writerhood along with it. That's a lot of hoods.

Novel Tag Lines & Cover Art

Credit: articlebiz.com

This has been an enormously fun and anxiety-inducing week in the world of readying a novel for publication. In the past few days I've discovered the following things:

1.) My agent and I chose the right publisher for KEOWEE VALLEY. They may be small in size, but they are mighty in generosity. In a huge publishing house an author's wishes are often lost, especially when it comes to cover art. Most of the time at houses like this, authors will not even lay eyes on the cover of their novels until they're already set in stone.

But at Bell Bridge Books--though the publisher ultimately makes the final call--the author (a.k.a me) is not only consulted on cover art, she is considered. And this is huge. I have spent the past few days in back-and-forth emails with the house's marketing director and cover designer, and most likely wore everyone down with my cover anxieties (I really don't want it to look like a romance novel, I really don't want a woman's face to show, etc, etc, etc). But they have responded with reassurance, generosity, and inspiration. And I'm so thankful.

credit: ushistoryimages.com

2.) There is virtually no good stock art out there of women in Colonial dress--or Colonial fashion in general, particularly representing the mid-18th century... at least not the kind adequately respresentative of my novel. Oh, there are heaping French dresses and shiny silk bodices and plenty of "pirate's ladies," but nothing quite suited to KEOWEE VALLEY, and to Quinn, my protagonist, who abandons a civilized Southern city and adventures into the wild Appalachian frontier. Who wouldn't have worn a ball gown into the the wilderness, but who also wouldn't have looked like a Pilgrim.

So we'll see what the creative team comes up with for KEOWEE VALLEY. There are talks of utilizing an artist, which big publishing houses often do, but for which smaller houses often lack the discretionary funds, and instead utilize stock art. No matter what, I'm (now, after the flurry of emails) confident that whatever image is chosen, it'll be a good one. And it won't be Fabio and his lady in a clutch.

Credit: romancebookcovers.com

Not that there's anything wrong with this image. It's pretty darn awesome. But it's not suited to my novel.

Whew... fanning my face and moving on....

3.) My tribe is creative, generous, kind, and unfailingly supportive. This week I enlisted their help with two things: my author photo for the back of the novel, and a tag line for the front. I posted three photos my husband had taken of me over the weekend and asked folks to choose, because doing so was making me, quite simply, lose my Cheerios. And they did--close to 70-something people responded, not only making me feel plain wonderful, but also giving truly well thought-out opinions. Putting your face on a book that (hopefully) many people will see is something I find to be terrifying. But I get by with a little help from my friends.

The tag line: I sent out an email to some creative folks I know for help with this one. A tag line is a pithy, punchy hook that appears on the front of a novel (movies use these all the time).

Some examples of catchy tag lines:

* from the cover of John Grisham's The Chamber: "Between the crime and the punishment is the truth..."
* from the cover of C. Hope Clark's Lowcountry Bribe: "A killer wants to make certain she buys the farm."

And a few from the movies:

* "The true story of a real fake" - from Catch Me if You Can
* "She brought a small town to its feet and a huge corporation to its knees" - from Erin Brockovich
* "There can be only one" - from Highlander

My tribe answered the call, even enlisting their own family members and friends to help. I gathered up their dozens of great ideas, mixed them with my own, and sent them to my publisher-s-who promptly found one they loved, tweaked it just a little, and we may have a tag line for KEOWEE VALLEY. Because of my Super Friends.

Writing a novel is often a lonely process. You forget that in a crazy world and in a highly competitive field, there are people cheering you on. And I'm finding that there's nothing more fun, especially at this point in the making of a novel, than sharing in the process.