“All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust.” ― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

I was feeling really down recently. Here in Maine, it's been raining a lot and, although the normal temperature at this time of year is low 80's, we're barely making low 60's most days. (That's Fahreinheit for those of you who need to calculate to Celsius.)

In short, after a long, cold winter, we're having a wet, cold summer, too, it seems...

So I've been cruising Facebook a lot...and I found this lovely photograph that I resposted to my wall:

Now, I personally like this because I have a nephew who spent a LOT of time in the hospital as a baby, and he would have LOVED this....

I'm amazed at the number of people who have liked this on my timeline. I posted it on June 22, and as of today (June 26), it has 450 likes and climbing....and the lovely comments from people who liked it as much as I did has restored my faith in humanity. They mirror my thoughts on this type of person:

These Every Day Heroes deserve SO much more attention than the Reality TV types.....

Of course, now I'm trying to think how I can do some little act like this every day. It suddenly came to me that each time you help that elderly person in the grocery store, or smile at a baby who is being a little fussy and make it smile back, or any little, simple kindness that you do for your fellow man, YOU can be an Every Day Hero!

Here's to the Every Day Hero in all of us! 

May we all find that faith, trust and pixie dust is all we need to make a better world..

One foot in the past and one foot in the present

My current work in progress is one of those "long term" pieces.

It started out in 1989 in a series of notebooks - 5 little 5x7 notebooks, to be exact - written during my breaks and lunches while working at a little place called Yield House in North Conway, New Hampshire. It was the first time a story flowed solidly from end to end instead of popping in as bits and pieces, and my sister-in-law was reading each day's progress while I cooked supper, as she was staying with us for a brief time.

Then I set it aside, wanting to research the time frame to make sure I made no obvious gaffs...

And now all of that research is going into the rewrite....Heaven help us all.....

The story is, in the same format as the prior books published by Northern Bard Publications, already 686 pages....and a LONG way from being finished. The native American side of the story explains so much about the world that the young lass lives in, and presents a real problem for the knight who has been granted land in the New World. As I continue to edit, getting myself caught up to where the story went before the characters started arguing about what happens next about a year ago (when I was typing it onto the computer and adding in the research about the natives), the characters are impatiently waiting for me to get back to where I left them.

For those of my era, there was an old Carol Burnett bit about a playwright (view here, for those who need it: https://youtu.be/KOVOv5WrZWs), and strangely, that's what I think of when I think of Max and Amy, waiting for me to finish the edit and continue with their story. Sir Maxwell, dark haired and dark eyed, in his native American clothing, keeps glaring from me to Amy, with red hair and pale green eyes...and she glares right back....

Some days, I seriously wonder if that skit was true.....

Hating Selfies As Much As All Pics of ME......

For someone who wanted to be an actress when I graduated from high school, I've been told I have a bad attitude about pictures of myself. I'm supposed to be like the people whom I met in the college Theater classes, self-absorbed and so determined to succeed that they were stabbing the others onstage with them in the back, just to get a better part to show them off to better advantage...

It went against every reason I had for wanting to be an actress in the first place.

The crew I was with in high school understood that a production is a group effort. Each member of the "team" has a different role that is very important to the show. No role is more important than the others, because the so-called "star" needs the other people to play off of. How can Scarlett O'Hara win the eye of the man of her dreams without Mammy to tighten her corset to the proper degree?

Of course, there's also the fact that, from a very young age, I seemed to be the one of my siblings to "ham it up" for the camera, doing what my parents called "ruining" every family portrait they ever took. Take, for example, this shot of my siblings and I on our swing set in the early days of colored photographs. The Brownie camera that Dad owned needed the sun behind the photographer's back in order to get a properly lit outside shot. My siblings all managed to look into the sun with just the slightest squint to go along with their smile. Me? Not so much...

Yes, that would be me making that funny face in the little plaid dress - and I started this nonsense of goofing for the camera before I could even walk, as this photo of me and my cousin at the age of 6 months (he was just three weeks younger than me) at Christmas time.

As I've grown older, I've tried to NOT make faces, but even a selfie that I did yesterday (because one of my sisters insists that I post WAY too many photos of other things and not enough photos of me enjoying whatever the thing is I want to share) makes me cringe, because even when I just try on a small smile, I think I look exceptionally stupid. What do you think of me "channeling my inner gypsy" in the skirt I got for my birthday last week?

Suffice to say that I need to get together with someone who will direct me properly in order to get a new author photo like one of my current favorite authors, Sherrilyn Kenyon. She looks like the kind of person who understands romance, doesn't she?

Of course, for all I know, she has the same attitude as my other favorite SK - Stephen King. He also has stated that he doesn't like photos of himself, but puts them on the books just because that's how it's done. Maybe his attitude is the one I should take: People don't care how goofy I look in my author photo as long as the story is good...

At least, I hope people think the stories are good. It's been so long since I got a review from anyone who wasn't there before I published the first novel that I'm not sure what any new readers think. Most of my reviewers are close friends who give me good reviews out of kindness.

Would a better picture, maybe put on the back of the book, make a difference? What are your thoughts on this?