Moving my Blog back to my old Stomping Grounds & BelleBooks Linky love

Welp, yesterday my blog went bye-bye. A notice popped up that my blog was suspended and there was no explanation other than the link I clicked on that read how I could be seen as spam or did something that was against their rules.

Of course, it was a "glitch;" I wasn't spam and didn't do something against their rules, and they had my blog up again by today.

However, I've decided to return to my former blog where I don't have to worry about that happening. It felt really weird to be suddenly suspended as if I did something wrong even though I knew I hadn't, but I felt rather oogly about it, as if I had dirt on my hands or something.

My old stomping grounds used to be under the window spaces blogger and sometime about a year or so ago it was formed into wordpress- I kept that blog but rarely posted to it. Yesterday I fiddled around with it and am trying to spiff it up for my move there.

I will leave my blog here with a redirect link - I don't want to delete a couple of years of my life I've had here! Lawd no!  I may import my posts over there, if it works out all right, and in that case, I don't know if posts stay in both places.

I hope y'all will follow me on over there! I plan to make it easy as I can to follow the blog and leave comments - soon as I figure out all the whatevers and such and sos - feel free to email me if you have any problems.

Okay, y'all come on over! It's still under construction right now and I've changed the look of it several times (I may upgrade to Pro so I have more to work with), but I hope to have it 'finished' over the weekend  - lawd.

Kathryn's Wordpress Blog

And since today is linky love day, I will do as I planned and link to BelleBooks/ Bell Bridge Books and their authors. This will be my last Linky Love here on this blog.

BelleBooks/Bell Bridge books has been wonderful to me and I adore them. Their authors adore them. And, there is something for everyone to read. I want to give them a big Shout Out today.

BelleBooks/BBB page for writers

BB/BBB Authors

About BB

They made my dreams come true. Three published books and a novella later, and another book on its way in the spring (Family Graces probably will be the title of the last in the Graces Trilogy), foreign rights (Russia so far!), ebooks, print books, audio books soon to come - I just can't say enough things about them. They are a dream to work with and respect and love their authors. Go BB/BBB! Check them out, and as their site says - there really is something for everyone.

Now - y'all come on over and help me to feel at home in my new/old blog home.

Stop. Sit in your chair. Open a word doc (or pull out pen and paper) and Begin

We not only have holiday company for a few days at the little log house at Killian Knob, but I am up against a deadline, or two! The post below is a repeat post from 2009 but bears repeating. And it applies to more than just writing!

As for me, I am right now doing some last minute edits on the final Graces novel in the Graces Trilogy. The contract is signed. A date of March/April is planned for its release, and as well, Bellebooks/Bell Bridge Books is re-doing Secret Graces's cover so that all three Graces Sagas bookcovers are similar, so they look like a trilogy (I had a lot of mixed letters/comments on the original cover for SG-some hated/some loved). I can't wait to see what SG and the third Graces novel covers will look like - I still become excited; I still am giddy about it all.

And as well, Rose & Thorn will go live January 15 - we are busy preparing the winter issue. My New Years Holiday will be busy, but in a good kind of way.

So now -

What someone wrote in a comment one day: “You know all that is what kind of halts me in writing. It just overwhelms me and then I block. I like blogging because I have the feel of freely writing. I guess it is a bit of a quirk.”

Never never never never never never never never never never never never never never never NEVER NEVER NEVER let anything stop you from writing if this is what you want to do and you are ready to discipline yourself to it—no one else on this earth or beyond should stand in your way: no advice from well-meaning writers, no rules, no nuttin’.

 Trust me when I say that if you really want to write a novel, or stories, then you must practice your craft and the only way to practice is to just sit down and write. As you practice, you will figure out what works for you, what your “voice” is, what your “tics” are, what your weaknesses and strengths are, what delights you and urges you on and what frustrates you and makes you want to stop writing. You will find out your own personal style of writing in both how you write and what you write.

 But listen! If you are happy writing blog posts, what is wrong with that? If you write a successful blog and people come to your site and leave happy interested comments, are you not a success? Are you not writing for an audience who loves coming by and seeing what you have written?

 When I began writing Tender Graces, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing; I didn’t even know how to write dialogue! But I had desire. I had discipline. I had want. I just wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote and things began to come clear as to my own style and voice and what made me feel comfortable. I wrote 200,000 words and most of those had to be trashed or re-cast or fiddle-dee-deed, but, boy did I have fun, and boy did I learn much about what kind of writer I’d be. I was writing for an audience of one: Me. That is free-ing, let me tell you!

 Don’t let the “rules” or advice of others stop you or scare you or make you feel as if you are somehow lacking if you don’t write in a certain way—just write and in the writing find out who you are, what kind of writer you are, what you love to write, and how you will write. I can’t stress this enough. Find what makes you happy and do it.

 If the writing feels strained and you want to back away from it, then find out what is hindering you: Are you writing for someone else? Are you listening to too many writers (like me!) give advice and it confuses you? Are you straining towards something that isn’t meant for you?

 Stop. Sit in your chair. Open a word doc (or pull out pen and paper) and Begin. Just have some fun, see what comes out. Who cares if you have so-just-very-little; who cares if there are many adverbs and present participles and dangling participles and similes and blah blah blah blah—how will you know what you want, or where you want to go, or how far you will take things, until you sit down and begin? How will you know what makes you happy until you write it without restraint?

I had to get to a certain point in my writing before the advice I read made sense –Hear that: I had to know how to sit down and write and find out what kind of writer I’d be before all the “rules” began to make sense, and only then could I use them, manipulate them, have fun with them—and I’m still having fun, and I’m still learning my craft—there is always room for growth, never become complacent even if you are a best-seller.

You all would laugh your arses off if you could see some of my first attempts at writing stories. So what? I laugh too! Haw! But I also see how far I’ve come, how much I’ve learned and how much more I can learn.  Lawd, even some of the works I've had published I want to go in and change the heck out of them!

Sit. Breathe. Tune out the voices. Have fun. And, write how and what you want, and where and for whom you want. Be sincere.

Dig it out from the you that is uniquely you.

See y'all Friday for Links Day! Hope you are having a wonderful holiday.

Random, and not so random, Links, Videos, and Photos . . . Rose & Thorn & Handsome Men in Showers & et cetera

Today's links/videos/photos will be done lickity spit, because Angie Gumbo Writer, I, and our wonderful staff are working hard this week to ready the winter issue of The Rose & Thorn Journal and our newsletter. We hope you will stop by and say so long to the writers and poets from our fall issue. Send a note if you enjoy a story or poem or the art- or let us know what you think about R&T.

Our newsletter will go out to email inboxes on January 15, the day the issue goes live. If you haven't signed up, we hope you will--it's free and your emails are protected.


Also, our R&T Blog is chock full of gooey-good-stuff - about writing and writers and books and literature and people and places. Today R&T staffer Dr. Adnan Mahmutovic's (author of Thinner and [Refuge]e and more) review and interview of Jo Cannon’s Insignificant Gestures will be up at the R&T blog. We'll be posting Adnan's interviews and/or reviews about once a month. We'd love to have you subscribe to the blog while you are there! And I had to put that Dr. there in front of my friend's name - he worked so hard for that Ph.D. Go Adnan!

Because I love my publishers, Bellebooks//Bell Bridge Books and want to impress them with how hard I work and for them to think I am loved by multitudes, *laughing* I'll post this link again if y'all want to go check it out on BB's new blog and my first post with them . . . Bullies, Outcasts, Prejudice and SWEETIE

Though I am doing well on Kindle, I'd love to see more of my books in bookstores and in libraries, so I encourage you to ask for them in your local bookstores and libraries if you are so moved- my dream would be to have my books in every library - oh! I love libraries and librarians. Epecially when he talks about them:

Diane still has the week-long give-aways, and a signed copy of Tender Graces is still up for grabs last I looked.





[I still can't remember how to make the links open to a new page, so sorry. I am quite surprised blogspot doesn't have this feature included. I know somewhere we are to put a target="_blank" but danged if I can figure out where/how.]

Danged if this video doesn't make me laugh every time.  The look on Mrs. Lincoln's face as ole Abe takes his time . . . laughing!




That's it for now, folks. See you all Friday! Now I'm going to finish my coffee before a snowy walk in the cove.

target="_blank" . . . where oh where does this go? dang.

PS! I almost forgot - Small Footprints's Art Tist (click pic) painted this from one of my photos! Oh, I do love this: