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Click on date to see earlier newsletters:
December 11, 2004 -- October 19, 2004
-- July 24, 2004
-- May 2, 2004 --
February 2004 --
Archives 2003 -- Archives
2002 -- Archives 2001
-- Archives 2000
December 11, 2004
Holiday Howdy from South California! We've actually had some
cool weather here--down to the fifties! (No smart remarks now!) I was able to
wear a sweater. That doesn't happen often enough for me. I think deep inside I'm
a snowgirl. I much prefer cold weather to hot.
Margrit Hall, the quilt designer for Benni Harper's Quilt
Album, and I, are almost done with our book tour. Thanks again to all of you
who took the time to come out and see us. Weren't her quilts gorgeous? We're in
talks with C & T about doing a sequel. More news on that when it is
finalized.
For those of you who've been asking about books on tape...it's
finally happened. Unfortunately, only two are sold to Recorded Books (www.recordedbooks.com).
They bought Sunshine and Shadow and Broken Dishes.
You can purchase them either on cassette tape or compact disc.
If enough people buy them (and the company makes a profit) they said they'd
consider doing other books in the series. It's been a long time coming so I hope
you enjoy them. Broken Dishes isn't out yet, but is coming. I'm listening
to Sunshine and Shadow now and the actress is amazing. I was able to
chose between three women and though they were all marvelous, Johanna Parker,
sounded the most like Benni. She is a San Francisco native so that might have
something to do with it!
Boo is doing great, growing so fast that I almost get worried.
When he came to us in June he weighed nine pounds. He now weighs twenty-three.
He's a great dog and looks especially dapper in his plaid Christmas collar with
the bells. It makes it easier for me to find him at crowded family gatherings!
I wish all of you a Happy Hanukkah, a Merry Christmas and a
healthy and peace-filled New Year. Thank you for being the best fans in the
world!
Happy "Tails," Earlene
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October 19, 2004
Finally she writes! Actually, I've been so busy getting ready for the book
tour for Benni Harper's Quilt Album, that my correspondence both on this website
and in my personal life has really had to take a backseat. I hope to get caught
up on it all once all the signings for the quilt book are over.
Check out the appearances section of the website to see if I'm coming to your
neck of the woods. Please come by and say hello. I love meeting friends of Benni
Harper!
Other than being crazy-busy (and I know you all know what that is like) things
are going well with me. Boo is going to be 6 months old on October 17th! Hard to
believe. His personality is really apparent now, his likes and dislikes. It's
been fun having him here though I've had to totally change my work habits.
I've had to learn how to write with a puppy pushing a ball against my leg trying
to convince me to stop and play. There are some new pictures of him on Boo's
page if you want to see how he's progressing. His ears are completely up now and
I realize I should have named him Radar. He's not a great sniffer (even misses
food that is lying on the floor) and retrieving is not his strong suit (I can't
play ball if you won't bring it back to me!), but any strange sound within five
miles of our house, he's your dog (and a loudly barking one, at that). His big
discovery yesterday was rain dripping off our second story balcony. At least
that's what we thought he was barking at five a.m. to eight a.m. in the morning.
It had rained the night before, his first, so water from the sky was definitely
something he had to warn us about. He's a great dog and keeps me and Allen on
our toes.
Not to mention my local PetSmart and PetCo are naming the toy section in his
honor.
This winter after I'm back from my travels, I'll settle down and attempt to
finish my mainstream book. I'm behind in it so, if things go the way we plan, it
will come out in February 2006.
(I have to turn it in February 2005.) More later on my progress.
Delectable Mountains will come out in May 2005 like my books usually do. It was
a different sort of book for me to write. I'm warning you all now that it is the
most serious of all my books. For some reason, the theme and plot did not lend
itself to a funny subplot. It's a little different than my other books, but
please remember, different is not always bad! Growing and trying new things is
always rewarding and makes us better people, I think.
And to those of you who have asked, yes, Hud is back in that book. But his and
Benni's relationship takes a big change and you find out a little more about
him, about Gabe and Gabe's family.
So, happy autumn to you all! Hope you don't have too many leaves to rake up and
that you take time to make a nice cup of hot cocoa (to make it Mexican hot
chocolate, add cinnamon and a bit of cayenne pepper!) and relax with a good
book..
See you on those Happy Trails,
Earlene
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July 24, 2004
Home again, home again...
Happy Mid-Summer! As that wise young woman from Kansas said, "There truly
is no place like home." I had a wonderful tour and was thankful and excited
to see so many of you come out and say howdy. You all are the best. Hope you had
as much fun as I did.
The moment I arrived home I went to work on the final touches of the first draft
of "Delectable Mountains," my twelfth Benni Harper book. I sent it to
New York two weeks ago. I'll be working this summer on my long neglected
mainstream book (which is behind schedule so I'm not sure when it will come out
now) as well as making notes about Benni book #13.
And...housetraining our new Pembroke Welsh Corgi puppy! He's thirteen weeks old
as of July 17th. We brought him home three weeks ago. We named him Boudin
(pronounced Boo-dan) which is a type of Cajun sausage, but we call him
"Boo". He's tri-colored (black, brown and white), presently has
"Yoda" ears (they'll straighten up soon.) Those of you who want to
know more (and see pictures) can go to "Boo's Page" on the website.
The story of how we got him is pretty remarkable and involves my last book tour.
Benni Harper's Quilt Album will be out October 2004. Margrit and I are debuting
it at Houston Quilt Mart & Festival. In November and December we'll be doing
booksignings in California and Arizona. We wish we could go more places, but all
of our travels are being paid for out of our own pockets, so unfortunately,
it'll have to be local this time. There are places to buy signed books through
the mail--Poisoned Pen Bookstore in Scottsdale and Abuttonlady, both of whom are
under my Favorite Websites.
Some of the booksigning dates are set. More will follow as we get verification
from the stores.
There'll be another contest (drawing) in a few weeks with two chances to enter:
one on my website and one on Margrit's (www.cattaildesigns.com).
Hope you all have a super summer filled with good books, lots of barbecue and no
mosquitoes!
Happy Trails, Earlene
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May 2, 2004
On the road again...
It's that time of year--May. In the bridal veil fern on my small patio, two sets
of mourning dove babies have been hatched and learned to fly. My red geraniums
surprise me again by bursting into bloom when I least expect it. I'm desperately
trying to finish the first draft of my 12th novel Delectable Mountains (due in
New York on June 30th).
And it's time to go on book tour.
For those of you not familiar with how publishing works, at least in my
case...it takes me a year to write a book and my publisher a year to turn it
into something you can hold in your hand and read. Then once they do that, I
have to get out there and try to convince somebody, anybody, to buy it (so I can
keep writing more books).
Most writers I know, including me, are really reclusive people. To those of you
who have met me, I know that's hard to believe because though I'm basically
reclusive, I also love to talk. I also love meeting my readers even though it
feels completely natural to actually go out and talk about what I've written to
large groups of people.
I think it was Robert Frost who, when asked to explain one of his poems, he
replied, "You want me to say it better?"
That's a lot like what I feel like when I am asked to talk about what I've
written. Sometimes I don't always know why I have written a book a particular
way or where the story comes from. The process of writing is often still
mysterious to me. This is something that many writers have told me they feel
also. We do our best to explain it, but we can't always, at least in a way that
is satisfying to the reader.
And when you are reading a book of mine, I'm always one book ahead of you and
that is often where my thoughts are. I always have to skim through the book I'm
promoting to remind myself what it is about.
Book tours themselves are pretty intense. Fifteen cities in sixteen days, coast
to coast, is not unusual. At the beginning of my tour, I'm full of energy, but
after too many airports, cab drives, early morning radio shows and room service
at ten p.m. days, I'm looking closer to the after pictures you see in the backs
of women's magazines.
That said, I just want to say how much I appreciate not only all of you who buy
and read my books, but especially those who take the time to come out and say
hi. I'll try to be entertaining and answer your questions and I'll even give you
a sneak look at the gorgeous cover of Benni Harper's Quilt Album coming out in
October 2004. To see if I'm in your area, check my website under 'Appearances.'
See you along those happy trails, Earlene
p.s. New contest coming sometime in June!
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February 2004
A Day in the Life..
I'm often asked what my daily life as a writer is like.
It seems a mysterious thing to people, this writing of books.
I can see why. It often
seems mysterious to me, too. But
there is also an everyday, mundane aspect to writing that might surprise
people.
I usually wake up about nine a.m. That
sounds quite decadent, but my working day tends to end about one or two
a.m., so that's actually the same amount of sleep most people get, just at a
different time.
The first thing I do is pour myself a cup of coffee which my husband (bless
him!) leaves in a carafe. My
office is right off the kitchen so I sit down in my writing chair (army
green corduroy with a matching ottoman) with my laptop. Yes,
I'm still in my pj's and I have about 25 pairs of them (mostly cowboy
prints). I often start the day
by reading the Bible, some kind of spiritual book (right now it's A Year
with C.S. Lewis--Daily Readings from his Classic Works) and pray.
Sometimes I just start writing.
I read a paragraph or two of what I wrote the day before to remind myself
where I am in the story. Then I
write. I work for about five or
six hours straight sitting in my chair.
I usually drink three or four cups of coffee during this time.
Some days I'm not disturbed at all, other days (especially when I get
closer to book tour time) there are phone calls and FedEx deliveries that
stop me. Talking on the phone
doesn't disturb my train of thought. I
can usually get right back to the story.
But if I get dressed and go out, that's it for me.
I can't write the rest of the day.
If I'm having a good writing day, I can produce ten pages of first draft.
I've had days when I can't write at all or only write two or three
pages. It's pretty
unpredictable. The hardest thing
is if I go for one or two weeks without writing at all.
Those first few days trying to get back into the swing of it is hard.
I usually quit around two or three p.m.
I print out what I wrote, finally get dressed and go out for
something to eat. I tend to like
Taco Bell, but where I live there's an abundance of fast food restaurants.
I read what I've written over lunch, writing notes and corrections on
the page. For the next two hours
I run errands, pick up my mail at the post office, buy groceries, do all the
things that keep a household going. Since
last November, when I moved my elderly father closer to me, I now run many
of his errands or visit him.
I get home about five p.m. and either start something for dinner or read for
an hour. When Allen gets home
around six p.m. we either go out to eat or eat something simple at home.
In the evenings I do a lot of my paperwork, answering fan letters,
letters requesting donations, making/sending press kits, updating mailing
lists, etc. There's a lot of
paperwork aside from the actual writing of a book that piles up.
My husband goes to bed around ten p.m. and I spend the rest of the
evening either watching TV (if I'm particularly burnt out), answering email
(at least an hour, sometimes longer), working on website stuff (like this!)
straightening up around the house, doing laundry, paying bills and other
necessary aspects of life. I
often read late at night, many times the research books I'm using on the
book I'm working on. I go to bed
about midnight and read fiction until about one or two a.m.
Then I start all over again.
The most important part of my day, of course, is the five or six hours when
I actually write. Those get top
priority over everything except the most dire emergencies which is why my
house is messier than I'd like and I don't exercise enough.
Without those important five to six hours, there would be no Benni
books.
So, hope that sheds a little light on what my average day is like.
If a reality show were made of my life, it would, without doubt, be
the most boring one on TV. But I
often tell my writing students, it takes a boring life to make exciting
fiction.
Happy trails, Earlene Fowler
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