10 Days of Thanksgiving

I went to bookclub last night.  We read Room by Emma Donoghue which is a really creepy book about a young woman kidnapped and imprisoned in an 11 by 11 room for six or seven years.  Long enough to have given birth and raised a 5 year old son, Jack.

This is not a book that I would normally choose to read, but the joy of a bookclub is that it expands my range of reading.  I read out of my comfort zone which is mystery, thriller and romantic suspense. 

Long story short, all of these lovely ladies, who prefer literary fiction, want to read my book,  Death in Bandit Creek.  Being romantic suspense, it certainly is not literary fiction. 

I am so grateful to those 12 wonderful ladies.  I hope they like my book.

Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving comes from our agricultural roots. I am the first generation of my family to have lived most of my life off the farm, but when I think what is home means to me,  the  family farm is one of the places I think of.  I have a painting of the farm on my wall beside me as I write.  It shows the house my grandfather built, the barns and outbuildings, the fields sweeping to the prairie sky.  The farm has been gone now for almost 30 years, but it gave me roots. I  still remember gathering eggs as a child.  Farms teach you to be tough and do your chores.  And in the fall, it is a time of harvest and Thanksgiving.

Today I am grateful for a wonderful writng group,  the Bandit Creek Collective.  Together, 32 of us, have banded together for an advernture and to take a risk.  Each of us is going to write a novella set in Bandit Creek, Montana, We are cooperating to edit each book and then market each book.  My book is Death at Bandit Creek and it will be awailable for sale shortly.

Like any good goal, this project has stretched me and helped me prove some things to myself.  That I can write a book until it is finished.  That editing and revisions do not need to take five years.  That with the feedback from my friends, I feel confident to send it out into the world. People will love it.

The editing was hard and there were some tough comments.  But hey, I am a farm girl, remember.

So I am thankful for my Bandit Creek writing group and especially Suzanne, Brenda, Alyssa, Tawny and the committee, CJ, and Lawna.  If not for them I would not be introducing  you to this fabulous interview about my book on the Bandit Creek site.  Check it out:

 http://banditcreekbooks.com/2011/11/10/carla-interviews-amy-jo-fleming-about-%e2\
%80%98death-at-bandit-creek%e2%80%99/

Take a moment to remember

IN FLANDERS FIELDS POEM

By Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks still bravely singing fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead: Short days ago,
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved: and now we lie
In Flanders fields!
Take up our quarrel with the foe
To you, from failing hands, we throw
The torch: be yours to hold it high
If ye break faith with us who die,
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields

Composed at the battlefront on May 3, 1915
during the second battle of Ypres, Belgium

The Business of Writing

Now that the book is totally finished, I am on to a new adventure finding people who want to read my book.  The people who have already read seem to love it.  So I guess after that, its just one person at a time, discovering the book, getting hooked and deciding to read it.  Wish me luck. 

Death in Bandit Creek

I finished my final edits to my book Death in Bandit Creek today.  Yahoo