A 105 year old cookbook.
Six generations of women.
Four countries, four languages
One mystery.
No Place I’d Rather Be is on sale for $2.99 for those who love stories about cookbooks, journeys, families, life. Oh, and Montana.
I’ve been asked about my writing process many times, so here it is, short and sweet:
1. First, I think up all sorts of bad ideas for my books. My editor and agent are good enough to tell me that they are bad ideas. I think up more ideas. They’re still bad.
2. FINALLY, I have a good-ish idea. My agent and my editor like it. I celebrate by eating chocolate.
3. I start driving in the country. I garden. I daydream. I walk and walk. Why? I need the first line of my book. I do not write a book without knowing that first line. I wait for it to magically pop into my head. Like a spell. Or a curse.
4. Next, I write 2,000 words a day, 10,000 words a week, or I don’t go to bed on Saturday night. I’ve had some real late Saturday nights. But I have to set goals, or that dang book will not get written, friends, no, it won’t. Why? Because I would rather play than work. I would rather hang out with Innocent Husband and The Kids. I would rather call my laughing sisters and my dear brother. Writing books is haaaard. (Whine, sob, sniffle.)
5. When the first draft is done, I goal set again. I edit five single spaced pages a day. All of those pages are a total, complete mess. They’re an embarrassment. The writing is terrible. I told Innocent Husband that if a gargantuan stork ever carries me off and my book is still in draft form, he is to have a nice bonfire with it. When I’ve edited the whole wretched book at five pages a day, I move to ten pages a day, to fifteen a day, etc. Yes, it is brain-numbing.
6. I edit all my books eight or nine times before they’re off to my agent and editor. Right about the sixth draft I start thinking I should have been a carpenter.
7. I edit again with my editor’s comments, then through copy editing and proofreading. It’s about 12 times total. Did I mention the brain-numbing part?
8. When I finally send that edited book off, I get myself a mocha and sit and relax and go back to day dreaming.
Happy reading all.
Some days you just have to go and hang with flowers.
I hope your day is filled with books, flowers, and peace.
One woman on an island who sees things she doesn’t want to see.
Two eccentric aunts in floppy, flowery hats.
One mother who lied. What could go wrong?
All About Evie, out October 29th.
My novel, No Place I’d Rather Be, is on sale, as an audiobook, for $3.99.
Do you like cookbooks? Recipes? History?
Then you might like this one. Olivia Martindale finds a 100 year old cookbook in her family’s attic buried in a box. Her ancestors wrote the recipes, and their life stories, within the pages.
Now if only her Grandma would tell her about her secretive past…
https://www.chirpbooks.com/audiobooks/338547?fbclid=IwAR19Alw0ty8wm5cQ-ictizPbbj2Lcai3Yf01SL-dVDaYdT6Kr5uiyB9isUo
Coming October 29th…
Have you been to the San Juan Islands? Then you know where All About Evie is set…
Evie Lindsay has premonitions. They’ve haunted her her whole life.
There’s one premonition that ends her life. Maybe. Possibly.
In the meantime, she runs her bookstore and hangs out with her mother and aunts who wear floppy hats and do crazy things.
Sometimes Montana calls my name.
Or, uh, maybe it’s my fun and funny sisters begging me to move there and live next door. Hard to tell…
Innocent Husband cracks me up sometimes. Well, often.
We’re sitting around drinking coffee, reading the newspaper, the kids’ cats all over meowing, and he says, as if TOTALLY exasperated and shocked,
“This is HORRIBLE. Kylie Jenner officially unfollowed Jordan Woods on Instagram. Well, it’s about time!”
I thought his eyes were going to roll so far back into his head he would lose them.
And on we go, creaking along…
Cathy Lamb All rights reserved © 2011-2025 |
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