A BIG Thanksgiving 2017

I know I haven’t posted chapters of Karda for several weeks. First, it was Thanksgiving. I have a very big family, and Thanksgiving is our major get-together holiday for the year. We meet at my brother Bob’s cabin on Grand Lake of the Cherokees. This year there were sixty-four of us, with, I think, fourteen who weren’t able to come. Bob’s cabin is pretty big.

Wow, there could have been almost eighty of us. And we’ve been doing this for all my long life. At mother’s, then at my house, then at my farm, and now at Bob’s cabin. We’ve had other people, too, in-laws, friends—from Austria, from Japan, Germany, Brazil, Venezuela, from Spain and France,  This year there were people from Houston, Portland, Atlanta, Durango, North Zulch. (Yes, really, North Zulch) When I tell people about our Thanksgivings, they are, well, they are flabbergasted. 

In this day and age of what I often feel is a fracturing world, I realize how very fortunate we are. We can get together, that many of us, with differing personal, political, and religious beliefs, and have a great time. Several small fish get caught by small fisherpersons from the dock. We take walks and kick leaves, eat turkey and pecan pie, mashed potatoes, dressing and giblet gravy, and pumpkin pie, canned olives (a family tradition), chocolate pie and brownies, and this year Jeri made pralines, which Rachel informed us go really well with red wine. 

Where else could you get Thanksgiving cheese grits, first brought by Chris, who’s gone, now a tradition carried on by Abbie and one day, perhaps, by Lucie. 

One tiny five-year-old Mia got lost, causing panic, and then found upstairs watching a movie. Another five-year-old was sick to her stomach because that morning she had fallen off one of Uncle Allen’s horses. Ada Jane mounted back up when he put the saddle on because then she could have a seat belt. Five-year-old Miles lost some tiny legos someone stepped on. Ouch, legos hurt. We laughed, old people talked about all the trouble we got into when we were kids. We remembered those who are gone with love. 

Because below all those differences, in this world where differences are pulling us apart, we have a web of love, a warp and weft of love, a give and take of love that stretches and binds us together. If any one of those eighty plus people says, "I need help," there will be someone there to help. Just knowing that, feeling that fabric, means I don’t need to ask for support. It’s already there holding me up.

This is a precious thing. This is a priceless, precious thing. This is a thing for giving thanks, for Thanksgiving. 

On Writing October 17, 2017

I spent most of this last week at my sister, Alice’s. (Alice V Brock, author of prize-winning mid-grade novel River of Cattle) We worked the whole time.

I spent most of one day with Kim Davis and her daughter, Jackie, my web gurus, so I could finally figure out how to post here, and the rest of the time on my book 2 and Alice’s book 2. I screwed up trying to post this, and it will have to wait until Kim can walk me through it. AGAIN.

Alice got most of the chapter that is the mid-point crisis of her second novel in her Will and Buck series. And she jerked and tugged and pulled a rough and sketchy plot outline out of me for my third novel in the Adalta Series, Falling. It was tough. I don’t plot. Or rather, I use the I Shot an Arrow into the Air, It Fell to Ground I Know Not Where Plot Method. 

It remains to be seen how long I can stick to it. When I tried to plot Hunter, vol. 2, I ended up not even using one of the main characters I’d worked so hard to develop. 

While you are here, check out the new cover (by Kurt Nilson) for Hunter on the Books page. It would be great if you commented to tell me what you think of it.

Chapter One in the Karda serial follows. I’ll post Chapter Two in two weeks. If you sign up for my newsletter, I'll let you know when I post it.