What are some of your favorite names? Not people names so much, but names of farms, businesses, wine, or tea? I’d seriously like to know if you, as a buyer, are attracted to sophisticated names, funky names, or something in between?
There’s lots going on at Casa Comer these days. We’d hoped to extract the first of the 2010 honey this weekend, but too many thunderstorms rolled through our valley to work with the bees. They get agitated when the weather is, well, agitating. We were also busy with a niece’s wedding and dozens of out-of-town relatives. My favorite visiting relatives, of course, are my daughter Hanna and my five-month-old granddaughter, SweetPea. Hanna was chief photographer for the wedding, which meant Grampa and Gramma got lots of SweetPea time!
So one thing there’s been plenty of this weekend–aside from baby snuggles!–has been talk of naming our farm and the business(es) we hope will spring from it. Businesses that relate to bees and honey, to herbs and teas, and possibly meads and micro-brewed ale. So my opening question is quite serious: What kinds of names–on signs–on wine bottles–on tea packages (etc)–make you stop and take a second look?
Rodeo Sweetheart is the story of Samantha Jenson, whose beloved ranch home has fallen into tough financial times since her bull-riding father’s death two years previous. To make ends meet, Sam and her mom reluctantly turn it into a dude ranch. Even this isn’t quite enough, and Sam’s mom is considering selling out. Sam will do nearly anything to keep this from happening–from being nice to the wannabe cowboy city slickers to making a dangerous plan of her own.
But Ethan Ames, vacationing with his family from New York City, has plans of his own, and they don’t include falling for the ranch girl. What will happen to him and Sam when she finds out why his parents are really here? But on the other hand, what will happen to his relationship to his folks if he bails on their lucrative plans?
A story of two young people’s relationships with their fathers–and what it takes to break free of their fathers’ expectations–Rodeo Sweetheart is a sweet little romance by 
Betsy St. Amant, who lives in Louisiana and is a member of the American Christian Fiction Writers group. Betsy is multi-published through Steeple Hill and has been published in Christian Communicator magazine and Praise Reports: Inspiring Real Life Stories of How God Answers Prayer. One of her short stories, ‘Kickboxing or Chocolate’, appears in a Tyndale compilation book, and she is also multi-published through The Wild Rose Press. Betsy has a BA in Christian Communications and regularly contributes articles to Crosswalk.com. She is a wife, author, new mother and an avid reader who enjoys sharing the wonders of God’s grace through her stories.
I purchased Rodeo Sweetheart in ebook format and read it on my iPhone.
August 4th,2010
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It seems I struck a chord with The Power of One, posted two weeks ago. Today I’d like to share with you the compelling story of ONE child.
From Seedlings to Servings: 11-Year-Old Grows Tons of Veggies for the Homeless
When Katie Stagliano was in third grade, she planted a cabbage in her family’s small garden. When it grew to an astounding 40 pounds, she donated it to a soup kitchen, where it was made into meals for 275 people (with the help of ham and rice). “I thought, ‘Wow, with that one cabbage I helped feed that many people?’” says Katie, now entering sixth grade. “I could do much more than that.”
So Katie started planting vegetable gardens as part of her nonprofit Katie’s Krops — she has six right now — including one the length of a football field at her school in her hometown of Summerville, S.C. Classmates, her family and other people in the community help plant and water, and Bonnie Plants donates seedlings. This past year, Katie took her commitment to a new level: she has given soup kitchens over 2,000 pounds of lettuce, tomatoes and other vegetables. Katie and her helpers are now harvesting the spring planting, and another 1,200 pounds will be donated by October.
If you’d like to read the rest of Katie’s story, click here. Katie doesn’t stop with a ‘few’ veggies!
Food for thought: Why do we get the idea that there is no power in one? If an 8-year-old can see a need, meet it, get inspired, and start a campaign that makes a difference to hundreds (if not more!), why are we so afraid to step out of our boxes and take one tiny step?
On Monday morning I had 96 index cards laid out in Scrivener, a super-marked-up Word document with thousands of comment bubbles…and a blank document.
On Friday morning, the Scrivener file looks pretty much the same, with a few minor tweaks. All the comment bubbles are still intact. The third item, the once-blank document, has undergone the most change by far.
20,351 words into the rewrite makes me very happy for the end of the first week of work. The first half dozen scenes are all new; subsequent ones are tweaked, reworked, or–in some cases–deleted. I’ve gone back and forth within the building document every day, finetuning earlier bits as I continue to add words.
In a couple of instances I noticed that the same information was revealed more than once, or that two conversations were too similar. Which was stronger? Which timing worked better? Make the change. So what occurs in the other instance, then? Did the elimination leave an interchange too weak? Is there other information that can be shifted here?
Oh, yes. Move or delete one thing, and everything around it turns to jelly. It’s great fun getting it all solid again. Yes, that was sarcasm.
But not completely. Because some of these pieces are snicking together with a near audible click. And that, my friend, is a really good feeling.
I recently downloaded the free Kindle version of Daughter of Joy, first in a historical romance series, Brides of Culdee Creek, by Kathleen Morgan. (The free Kindle version is no longer available on Amazon.)
I don’t read a lot of historical fiction, but I picked this one up because I’d read a previous novel of Morgan’s, a fantasy entitled Giver of Roses (which apparently I’ve never reviewed…hm…).
Abigail Stanton lost her husband and her young son in separate incidents a couple of years previous to the start of this story. She’s determined that she must now find employment, and what she finds is that the Culdee Creek Ranch (near Colorado Springs) needs a housekeeper. The problem? Owner Conor MacKay has a reputation. His wife left him years ago, and since then he’s taken a native lover. Following her death, he’s had a stream of housekeepers/mistresses. Abigail is willing to run Conor’s household, cook his food, do his laundry, and take care of his nine-year-old daughter, Beth. She is not willing to warm Conor’s bed.
Beth is a challenging child. She’s the apple of her daddy’s eye and has been given free rein ever since that terrible incident at school, which no one talks about. The child has a learned mistrust of housekeepers, who seem to have no use for her other than getting to her father.
Conor, for his part, has turned his back on God and forbids Abigail from mentioning God’s name in his house. He’s bitter and prickly, protecting himself and Beth from further manipulation.
With those threads, Kathleen Morgan weaves a story of redemption in the midst of brokenness. If that’s all I said, you’d expect to see a novel with a somewhat predictable story arc, but Morgan has some surprises up her sleeve that turn this tale back on itself before coming to a satisfying conclusion.
As a writer, one of the things I paid close attention to was Conor MacKay, who quite honestly was self-centered and very unlikeable for a fair chunk of the novel. We beginning writers are often cautioned about creating unlikeable characters as they’re hard to pull off. It is difficult to put the reader firmly on the side of such a character, when all the reader really wants to do is give them a firm shake. I couldn’t see what Abigail saw in him, other than that she’d promised Beth she would stay and that she didn’t have another job prospect. Morgan masterfully brings Conor MacKay around in incremental changes, barely noticeable at first.
I’m interested to see where Morgan takes this series in future volumes.
Kathleen Morgan began her career writing contemporary romances and soon moved to historical and futuristic romances. She sold her first book, a futuristic romance, in April 1990 while stationed in Korea as an Army nurse. Additional romances soon followed, until she had sold a total of fifteen books in the general market, establishing a loyal readership along the way.
Since that time, she has received numerous awards for her work, including a Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice award and Career Achievement award, and The Literary Times award for Literary Excellence in the Field of Romantic Fiction. She was also a Romance Writers of America RITA finalist.
Kathleen now focuses her writing talents in the area of inspirational fiction, offering readers characters who struggle to redefine their growing faith in everyday life.
By Sharon Cousins, 2nd in a 3-part series!
More than half the world’s six billion people depend on solid fuel for cooking—wood, charcoal, coal, crop residue, or dung. Fuel must be purchased or laboriously gathered and carried home. The humanitarian toll of this dependence is staggering.
Forests dwindle; brush becomes scarce. Women and girls walk miles to find wood, carrying up to sixty-pound bundles home. Many face dangers of attack by villagers or landowners, or by roving thugs, rapists, or wild animals. Women with no one to care for infants carry them low in a hip sling to leave room for the load. Infants have been killed—some decapitated—when a basket or rope breaks and the load slips. These women have no alternative. Staples like rice and cornmeal require cooking. Raw vegetables may not be safe due to ground or water contamination.
Indoor pollution from cooking fires kills 1.6 million people each year, mostly women and young children, who spend hours each day with open fires in poorly ventilated spaces. Many children are injured or killed in cooking fire accidents. Diarrheal diseases from unsafe water cause another 2.2 million deaths. Billions experience misery and downtime. With little fuel for cooking, none is left for pasteurization.
Solar pasteurization uses free power. A simple Water Pasteurization Indicator makes solar pasteurization easy and sure. Solar panel and box cookers do not make smoke or fire and cannot themselves cause serious burns.
Solar cookers free girls to attend school. Some schools in the developing world use solar cookers in their lunch programs. Smart Mexican teens built solar ovens for their school, to heat lunches brought from home. Solar cooking science projects can engage and empower students, as in this pilot project in Eldoret, Kenya I have been e-advising, in which middle and high school age students have invented a new solar panel cooker design that outperformed two others in tests.
Solar cooking jobs as constructors and trainers empower women with new opportunities for employment. Many entry levels are possible for manufacture, sales, and entrepreneurship. The large, powerful Global Villager Sun Oven—which has propane back-up and is also suitable for large schools, orphanages, hospitals, etc.—enables start-up of village bakeries, providing jobs and producing fresh bread and baked goods in places where they were previously unavailable.
Even with a smaller cooker or two, many women find they can cook for their families and still bake a cake, often sold by the slice or for a special event such as a birthday. Women frequently use time saved by solar cooking to enlarge their gardens or do craft work that they can sell. Families starting with savings from one solar cooker have worked their way up to purchasing livestock and trees.
Solar cooking, introduced with cultural sensitivity, training, and follow-up, saves money, time, pain, and lives. Successes like the Iridimi and Tuolom refugee camps in Chad, where solar cookers keep women safer and provide employment, show that this sunny solution can play a significant role in improving lives.
Solar cookers are going out by dozens, hundreds, thousands, and are increasingly welcomed and accepted. They need to go out by millions. Solar cooking and pasteurization technology addresses all eight of the United Nations Millennium Goals, and it is time for it to come into its own. Scaling up to meet the crying need and gaining acceptance by larger aid and emergency response efforts and programs is a subject of considerable discussion and effort among underfunded organizations promoting solar cooking and water purification.
Solar Cookers International maintains the most comprehensive online repository of information on solar cooking, related technologies, and the people and organizations that promote them, the Solar Cooking Archive and accompanying Solar Cooking Wiki. SCI representatives to the United Nations work for stronger support for solar cooking programs. SCI has partnered with projects in Kenya, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Chad, and more, in addition to maintaining the Kenya-based East Africa Office. A recent response to the Haitian earthquake sent 200 solar cookers to Haiti, with another 200 on the way. SCI’s upcoming turnkey package will make it easier for larger aid groups and disaster relief organizations to plug into solar cooking.
Many dedicated organizations work toward similar goals. Solar Household Energy (SHE), Sun Ovens International, Gnibouwa Diassana’s Sun for All, Sun Cookers International, Vietnam Solar Serve, Solar Oven Society, Solar Cookers World Network (an umbrella organization), and hundreds more are working bright miracles in more than 100 countries.
Support the solar cooking solution. Help make the world a brighter, cleaner place for everyone.
What You Can Do
• Donate to Solar Cookers International or other solar cooking NGOs and projects. Persuade your church or club to do a fundraiser to donate to solar cooking. If you like carbon offsets, solar cooking is a good way to go, since one solar cooker keeps an annual estimated 1.8 tons of carbon dioxide out of our atmosphere.
• Make at least one simple solar cooker and attain at least enough competency to heat soup (if you break the seal and slide the can into a clean black cotton-blend sock and keep it right-side-up, you can heat soup and such in the can in a solar cooker) and pasteurize water in an emergency. See the first post in this series for more information.
• Churches, clubs, or communities with “sister cities” or an “adopted” neighborhood or village or institution in the developing world can consider a solar cooking project with their community. Many solar cooking NGOs will provide advice for a successful project. If you have a partnership with a hospital or orphanage or school, consider raising funds for a Global Villager Sun Oven (preferably with the whole bakery package) project.
• If you are involved in mission work, teach outgoing missionaries how to rig and use a simple solar cooker or two. Same for people joining Peace Corps or going to remote or primitive places to live and work at any jobs. They will have an easier, safer time, and it is another way to minister or serve. The CooKit is a light, inexpensive folding cooker, good for traveling and emergencies, if you’d rather buy one than make one. (Travel tip: In some places where oven bags are not available in stores, it is possible to obtain autoclave-able bags from hospitals that will work just as well.)
• If you are involved in emergency relief work or charitable organizations that serve the developing world, promote solar cooking to your group or organization.
• If you are involved with youth groups or organizations, do a solar cooking project. Kids love learning to make their own treats in solar cookers, and today’s youth are tomorrow’s Peace Corps volunteers, scientists, and innovators.
• Volunteer time and skills to a solar cooking organization. Help needed ranges from stuffing envelopes or other office tasks through things like donating computer skills, writing copy or editing, doing promotional art, or constructing cookers, all the way to traveling overseas to work in projects (though often you must pay your own way to do this).
• For more ideas, visit What You Can Do To Promote Solar Cookers on the Solar Cooking Wiki.
Sharon Cousins lives, loves, works, writes, reads, gardens, enjoys playing music and singing, and cooks with sunshine, high on a ridge ten miles north of Moscow, Idaho. Sharon’s fascination with solar cooking began late in ’06, while doing research for a novel series she is working on. You can read more about her solar cooking activities on her Solar Cooking Wiki page. You can learn more about Sharon’s writing and approach to writing on her unique writers’ website, Write ‘em Cowgirls! and in her free writers’ e-newsletter, the Write ‘em Cowgirls Express. Sharon is currently a member of the executive board of Solar Cookers International and also serves as a regional representative for the International Women’s Writing Guild.
How much revision/rewriting do your novels require? Over here, quite a bit. Even though I write the first draft with a loose outline, apparently I still write to discover the story instead of to record it. Totally seat-of-the-pants writing doesn’t work for me either. Call me a hybrid!
I spent a couple of months researching and building characters, settings, and plot arcs. Wrote the entire first draft in about three months, then flipped back to the beginning to fix the stuff I could already see was wrong (round two). Sent the novel out to a trusted crit buddy while I focused on other things in June…like vacation!
But you know? I want this novel to be ready to pitch at ACFW conference in September. So now that I’ve seen the words more clearly through my crit buddy’s eyes and done some brainstorming about what to throw out and what to develop further, I’ve created a revision outline in Scrivener. Basically each outline card links back to the original scene it represents, however loosely (unless it’s a brand new scene), with changes detailed. It’s taken me about a week to work through this to my (and my buddy’s!) satisfaction.
Now I’m faced with the task of writing a 90,000-word novel in the next six weeks. 15,000 words a week (or about 3,750 words a day, 4 days a week) is doable if challenging, but only because I know the characters and the plot so well at this stage. It’s also a consolation that I’ve done this before–last October, when I rewrote a 60,000-word novel in four weeks after an editorial request.
So…I’ve got some posts already scheduled through the remainder of the summer and I’m hoping there won’t be any holes on the blog, but you know? There might be. I’m going to be over here in my corner, fighting my fight, and hoping for the best.
Heartless showcases a world more complex than exists in many fairy-tale style novels. The Princess Una has come of age to accept suitors, but she’s not smitten with the first few who come to show their respect: Prince Aethelbald seems stodgy, and the Duke of Shippening is a doddering old man. But Una’s in love with being in love, and these men aren’t her idea of the perfect guy. Only the jester makes her smile.
What Una doesn’t know is that there is a huge plot underfoot to gain control of her father’s kingdom, Parumvir, and that she is being manipulated to make wrong choices. The story takes a distinct turn into left field midway through when the Dragon appears and tosses Una into a dark whirlwind she couldn’t have foreseen. Neither could the reader, honestly. In retrospect, there was foreshadowing, but I wasn’t prepared for the completely different feel unfolding in the second half of the book.
Besides the characters and the specific plot, the author has created an interesting world. Adjoining Parumvir are the Goldstone Woods. Una and her brother are forbidden from crossing the bridge to discover the strange things that go on in these woods, though Una’s pet cat, Monster, has come from there. Not only is he blind, but has no eyes at all, yet he seems attuned to the family and is just as agile and coordinated as any sighted cat. And oh the fun when the faerie folk cross the bridge and set up the Twelve-Year Market in Parumvir.
This is a novel in which the omniscient point-of-view worked for me most of the time. I believe any story would be strengthened by the use of specific viewpoint characters, but Stengl’s style ebbs and flows with the story and does it justice.
Though touted as a Young Adult Romantic Fantasy, Heartless doesn’t focus on the romance aspect as much as I expected. Instead it follows the choices someone might make and how those choices can bind them into slavery. Because the novel is loosely allegorical, the redemption aspect is somewhat predictable, but still within the story parameters Stengl has set. Heartless is the first book in the Tales of Goldstone Woods. I’m curious to see where Stengl will next take this series being as the story of Una seems complete. I’ll be onboard.
Here’s how it all begins:
“Do you think they will come before the year is out?” Princess Una asked her nurse.
“Who will come?” her nurse replied.
“Suitors, of course!”
Though the sun was bright, the air blew chill through the open window that spring morning, and Una wrapped a shawl around her shoulders as she sat waiting for Nurse to finish the awful business of preparing her for the day. Nurse, who had long since ceased to function as a real nurse and these days played the part of maid and busybody to her princess, wielded a brush with the tenderness of a gardener raking last year’s dead leaves, making every effort to tame Una’s honey-colored hair into an acceptable braid. One would have expected that, with many years’ practice, she might have acquired rather more gentleness. Not so Nurse.
She paused now, mid-tug, and scowled at Una’s reflection in the glass. “What brings on this fool talk?” She raised a bushy eyebrow and gave the braid an extra tug, as though to wrest all the unruliness out of it in one go. “You keep your mind busy with your lessons and deportment, just as always, and leave that messy business of courting and arranging marriages to your father, as is right.”
“But I’m of age!” Una winced again and tried not to pull away from the vicious brush. She twisted her mouth into an unattractive shape as pain shot through her scalp. “Papa always said that he wouldn’t accept a single inquiry from a single prince or single dignitary in a single realm of the whole Continent until I came of age.”
“As is right.”
Read the remainder of the first chapter here.
Anne Elisabeth Stengl makes her home in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she enjoys her profession as an art teacher, giving private lessons from her personal studio, and teaching group classes at the Apex Learning Center. She studied illustration at Grace College and English literature at Campbell University.
Heartless is her debut novel.
I am insignificant. What can I do? I’m nobody. No one listens to me. Heck, hardly anyone even comes to my blog! Why should I bother? I may as well give it up. There are six billion people on the planet, and I am only one. I can’t make a difference.
Oh yeah. So easy to be defeatist. So easy to throw in the towel. So easy to go with the stream, because one little fish swimming against the current isn’t going to do any good at all.
What am I talking about? Everything. Nothing. The problems of the world around us seem insurmountable. There are earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanoes, floods, and drought. There are oil spills, rainforest clearcuts, and endangered species. Politics is a sham, no matter which side of the coin you rest on. Need I go on?
I am one person. I cannot solve the world’s problems. I do not have the power to halt the forces of nature or the boardrooms of BP. It’s easy to become depressed or immune.
What can I do? Very little, it’s true. But I haven’t been ‘called’ to the big things. All I can do is be faithful in the little things. The things in my path. The choices I make, by themselves, don’t make a big difference to the Earth as a whole. Even if all of my friends united and made changes together, we’re still only a teensy, miniscule school of fish. Swimming upstream. Floundering.
Why bother?
Ah, but I do make a difference. The difference may not be noticed ten miles from home, but here, in my sphere, my choices do have an effect. A big change we’ve made in the past few years is to garden more and source a higher percentage of local food. You may look at that and say, “How nice for the Comer family.” “I can’t do that.” “I live in an apartment.” “My family would rebel.” “Nobody grows food where I live.” “Who cares?” Or….fill in the blank.
So your contribution, your “one little thing” may be different than mine. That’s okay. We’re not meant to be clones. We’re unique individuals with our own talents, opportunities, and contacts.
The question is, what are you doing to make the Earth itself a better place? What impact are you having? What is YOUR “one little thing”? And once it has become a way of life, what is the next little thing you can add? Not to save the planet, but to enrich your own surroundings, your home and community.
Because you know what? There are ripples. And the power of one becomes the power of several. We just have to start somewhere. Pick a spot, and toss a pebble.
Sometimes folks are curious where I get so many free books to review. Some of my sources are private memberships, like the ACFW writers’ e-loop and the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance. Both of those, as well as Christian Science Fiction Fantasy Blog Tour only offer selected inspirational titles.
Recently a new friend invited me to NetGalley, which is a digital review site with nearly forty publishers onboard. Some large, small small, some fiction, some not, some specifically Christian, many not.The beauty here is that you can download the galleys of the books and read them on your computer, Sony Reader, Nook, Kindle, or other devices. Caveat: not all publishers offer all their galleys in multiple formats. The one book I decided to start with isn’t available for iPhone; ie: the Kindle app for iPhone cannot be used.
The book I’m reading now is Tyger Tyger by Kersten Hamilton, which doesn’t release until November 2010. Meanwhile, the publisher, Clarion, is trying to build some momentum and expectation for this YA fantasy novel. Here’s the blurb:
Teagan Wylltson’s best friend, Abby, dreams that horrifying creatures–goblins, shape-shifters, and beings of unearthly beauty but terrible cruelty–are hunting Teagan. Abby is always coming up with crazy stuff, though, so Teagan isn’t worried. Her life isn’t in danger. In fact, it’s perfect. She’s on track for a college scholarship. She has a great job. She’s focused on school, work, and her future. No boys, no heartaches, no problems.
Until Finn Mac Cumhaill arrives. Finn’s a bit on the unearthly beautiful side himself. He has a killer accent and a knee-weakening smile. And either he’s crazy or he’s been haunting Abby’s dreams, because he’s talking about goblins, too . . . and about being The Mac Cumhaill, born to fight all goblin-kind. Finn knows a thing or two about fighting. Which is a very good thing, because this time, Abby’s right. The goblins are coming.
So far I’ve only read the first couple of chapters, but I think I’m going to love it. You’ll see a review up sometime! Meanwhile, NetGalley is a site you may enjoy poking around. You might want to sign up to review books for them. You can also follow them on Twitter as @NetGalley.
