With it being National Library Week, Lake Wales Public Library asked me to present as a local author, to talk about the writing process and getting self-published.
It was a small turnout, maybe because it was still early - 10:00 AM - and early in the week. Hopefully the other local authors will see bigger attendance.
Got to talk about what I feel are key elements to writing - Time, and Inspiration - and discussed my more popular stories like "...All Others Pay Cash" and "War of the Murder Hornets".
Every second week of April is National Library Week, and each public library - city or county system - will have special events to encourage our communities to show up and read out.
Lake Wales Public Library plans on hosting a week-long Local Authors appearances, and I've been invited to present my recent work Funny Locations this coming Tuesday April 9th at 10:00 am.
If you can't see the link to the library calendar, let me post the info:
They would like for you to sign up so they can track the turnout, thank you.
Lake Wales should be getting a decent showing of local authors - several of my fellow members of the Writers 4 All Seasons group were invited, along with some from the Lakeland Writers chapter of FWA - all week long, so please if you're in the area do show up and support your public library and your local authors!
If you're not in the Polk County / Central Florida area, still check out your local library during the week of April 8th through the 13th for your library's activities!
(mutters to self) Now I gotta find that Florida tie I wear for library events...
Ocean gave birth to six kittehs that night, but I held off on naming most of them until I could determine which ones were which and name them to the characters of the TV show Firefly. Until they opened their eyes, and I took them in to the vet to have them checked out. And then I waited to see which of them was the bravest - or craziest - of the lot to where I would name him Mal (two of the tuxedo kittehs were River and Simon, obviously as River was the daughter to Ocean and so the male tuxedo was Simon, the pretty grey female was Inara (almost Kaylee), the remaining male black kitteh was Jayne and the female black kitteh Zoe).
I wanted to keep one kitteh so I could feel okay about one of Ocean's babies growing up well - the animal rescue I took the remaining kittehs would not allow me to share contact info with their future forever home adoptees - and so I kept Mal thinking he would be the friendliest and fearless of the lot. Instead, Mal turned into a scaredy cat around my parents - essentially the only ones who've visited me over the years as my domicile isn't well-meant for hosting a lot of things (sigh) - and well that's how it turned out.
To ANYONE who adopted Inara, Zoe, Jayne, River and/or Simon, I can only hope they are still with us and that they've enjoyed loving homes.
In the meantime, I got stuck with THIS guy.
Happy birthday, Mal!
Ten years old. In hooman years that means he's getting AARP mailings.
So I'm submitting more work to the annual Florida Writers Association's Royal Palm Literary Awards for 2024.
I've put in four of my blog articles from the other site to see how they fare.
I tried uploading my short story anthology for the Anthology - Prose category, but that submission page didn't provide an "upload file" option. Could be a few bugs in the submission process as they've just opened it today. I'll try tomorrow.
Update: MOTHERF--- I just found out this morning when I logged back in that FWA is limiting the number of total submissions to FOUR now. It was FIVE the last couple of years, and now they've... mutter grumble... I can't remove one of my blog articles now, since I've paid for the submissions and there's no refunds on them.
I will have to remember to submit Funny Locations for NEXT year, and also see about arguing to get the max limit back to FIVE. /rage
Okay, as you know I've published a book through Amazon Kindle Direct. As a librarian who teaches computer skills classes especially one on self-publishing, I need to understand the process for getting published through the OTHER market through IngramSpark, so my next project is getting my blogging article collection set up through THAT.
So I will be distracted by getting this done over the next month or so, including making an order for a book cover - what should a non-fiction book cover look like? - and then making sure the formatting is done proper (Ingram seems to use different formatting than Amazon).
I will update when I can. In the meantime, PLEASE tell your friends about Funny Locations and get them to buy copies and leave reviews! Danke.
