$2.99 on kindle, on sale for a little bit of time.

This is a book about a woman named Grenadine Scotch Wild. She wished she knew why her parents gave her that name…

 

Chapter One

I hear his voice, then hers. I can’t find them in the darkness. I can’t see them through the trees. I don’t understand what’s going on, but their horror, their panic, reaches me, throttles me. They scream the same thing, “Run, Grenadine, run!”

It’s them.

Chapter Two

I needed to hide for awhile. To do that, I had to change my appearance.

I went to a cheap hair salon and had them cut six inches off, to the middle of my shoulder blades, then I had them cut a fringe of bangs. I went home and dyed my hair back to its original auburn color, from the blond it had been the last ten years. I washed it, then dried it with my back to the mirror.

I turned around and studied myself. Yep. That would work.

For the last year I had been Dina Hamilton, collage artist, painter, and blond wife of Covey Hamilton, successful investor. Before that, for almost twenty years, I was Dina Wild. Now I would be Grenady, short for Grenadine Scotch Wild, my real name, with auburn hair, thick and straight.

Yes, I was named after ingredients in drinks.

It has been a curse my whole life. There have been many curses. I am cursed now, and I am packing up and getting the hell out of town.

Central Oregon was a good place for me to disappear from my old life and start a new one. I drove south, then east, the fall leaves blowing off the trees, magenta, scarlet, gold, yellow, and orange. It would be winter soon. Too soon.

I stopped at the first small town. There were a few shops, restaurants, and bars. It had the feel of a Main Street that was barely holding on. There were several storefronts that had been papered over, there were not a lot of people, and it was too quiet.

Still, my goals were clear, at least to me. Eat first, then find a job. I had $520.46 total. It would not last long. My credit and debit cards, and my checking, savings, and retirement accounts for my business and personal use, had been frozen.

I had the $500 hidden in my jewelry box and $20 in my wallet. The change came from under the seat of my car. To say I was in a bad place would be true. Still. I have been in far, far worse places than this. At least I am not in a cage. Sometimes one must be grateful for what is not going wrong.

I tried not to make any pathetic self – pitying noises in my throat, because then I would have pissed my own self off. I went to a park to eat some of the non perishable food I’d brought with me. I ate a can of chili, then a can of pineapple.

When I was done, I brushed my hair. I pulled a few strands down to hide one of the scars on my hairline. I put on makeup so I didn’t look so ghastly. I put extra foundation on the purple and blue bruising over my left eye, brushed my teeth out the car door, and smoothed over my shirt. I was presentable.

I took a deep breath.

This would be the first job I had applied for in many years. I started selling collages and paintings when I was seventeen, and I had not required myself to fill out an application and resume.

I looked into the rearview mirror. My car was packed full of boxes, bedding, bags, and art supplies. My skin resembled dead oatmeal.

“You can do it, Grenady.” My green eyes, which I’ve always thought were abnormally and oddly bright, were sad, tired, and beat, as if they were sinking into themselves.

“Come on, Grenady,” I snapped at my own reflection. “You got a moose up your butt? Get it out and get moving.”

 

I just finished correcting the proofs for No Place I’d Rather Be, which is out in September.

That was my eleventh edit, hear me scream. I am now truly done with that book, hear me cackle in a crazy sort of way.

To celebrate I went outside to garden and whacked off a huge branch on a rose bush that was more like a tree.

The branch swung back and bashed me in the forehead and made me bleed all over the place. The glamour in my life continues unabated…

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/No-Place-Id-Rather-Be-ebook/dp/B01N2Q59G8/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1494313399&sr=1-1&keywords=no+place+i%27d+rather+be+cathy+lamb

 

Hello everyone,

Click on the link, if you would like, to read my column in Ms. Career Girl on outlining novels vs. writing with the wind.

Yep. I’m a writing with the wind kind of gal.

I’m a writing and chocolate eating kind of gal, too, but that is another subject altogether…

Letting Your Imagination Go Crazy Or Outlining And Organizing

My Very Best Friend is on sale for $2.99.

Now, that sounds rather strange.

My REAL best friend, my sister, Karen, is not on sale for $2.99, so to speak. She is priceless.

But my book is. Two hundred ninety nine pennies on kindle.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00P53BX3K/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

 

I hope you all had a lovely Easter!

(No Place I’d Rather Be is out September 1, 2017.)

 

Here are all of my ideas for my next book!

(Argh! Hear me scream!)

 

 

 

I am clueless.

I don’t know why this happens all at once.

But four of my books – What I Remember Most, Henry’s Sisters, Julia’s Chocolates and If You Could See What I See, are on sale for $4.99 on Kindle.

Yep. Only $4.99.

I have no idea how long they’ll be on sale for. Probably not long.

Cheap and sweet.

Have a lovely day and happy reading.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Cathy-Lamb/e/B001IGO5L0

 

So let’s talk about the blood and sweat and tears of writing.

There is no easy way to write a book so don’t go searching for it.

UNLESS, you get the chance to “search” on a raft down the Grand Canyon, or on a Kenyan safari, or wandering through Prague. Then, by all means, go and go quickly. Do your “research,” laugh along the way, and drink a few glasses of wine for all of us.

Other than that, get ready for some pain.

The “blood, sweat and tears part” is real. I’ve had some vicious paper cuts handling the pages of my manuscript. I’ve had hot flashes and night sweats over my computer. And I cannot tell you how many times I have cried over my keyboard.

I write scenes that make me cry, what can I say? Sometimes I am writing about something that I’ve been through, sometimes I’m writing about something I haven’t been through, but I’ve experienced the emotion, sometimes I feel bad for what I’m doing to my characters, and sometimes I’m crying because, damn, writing is hard.

But if you are truly and totally determined to write a book, you must not only be prepared for blood, sweat, and tears, you must set goals.

Does goal setting sound like two bad words strung together? Does it sound like something that will mangle your creative process?  Too boring, too rigid?

Do you picture yourself only writing when the muse hits or the voices in your head start talking? Do you want only to write when you have time, a clear head, all problems figured out, all disasters handled, all kids in bed, all spouses and partners happy, the house clean?

You do? Let me tell you that that is the PERFECT way to never complete your book.

Utterly perfect.

I have written eleven novels and six short stories.   I have set writing and editing goals for every one of them, because if I didn’t, they wouldn’t have been finished.

I don’t think I’ve ever written a book where my life hasn’t turned absolutely upside down and inside out during that time. Hell has come and so has high water. Disaster and problems and issues.

The house has been a mess, I’ve fought with my husband, the kids have been naughty. And I’ve still written.

The only times I stopped writing was during the critical illness/deaths of my mother, father, and mother in law. The grief was too overwhelming.

But I got back into it.  I drug myself to my chair. I forced those words out.

You must do that, too. Honestly, you could give me a hundred excuses as to why you couldn’t write that day or this day and for 98 of your excuses I would say that you should have written and that your excuse was not an excuse.

If you want to write a book you must write.

Life is a mess. If you want to be a writer you must write through the chaos.

So, goal set. Meet the goals. Every day, every week, every month.

How do I personally torture my little writing self with goals?

Once my agent and editor and I have worked out the plot for my book, I wait for the first sentence to hit from outer space. I drive in the country, drink coffee, daydream. When that first sentence zips into my brain and I like it, we’re off and running.

Or, off and writing, I should say.

I write 2,000 words a day, 10,000 a week, or I don’t go to bed on Saturday night.

I write the entire book, straight through. When there is research I need to do, a character who is getting tricky that I can’t figure out, a problem with the plot or dialogue or direction or pacing, I write XXX.

When the first draft is done, and that can be at 70,000 or 100,000 words, I take a day or so off, then I start in on my editing goals.

I will tell you that my first draft is utter crap. It is the worst thing you’ve ever seen. It’s an embarrassment. If someone said, “You wrote this, Cathy?” I would deny it.

This is what editing is for, friends. Turning crap into something good.

My first editing goal is to go through five single spaced pages a day, twenty five a week. I edit the whole book. Because the book is so bad, this is a head banging process.

For edit number two, I attack 10 single spaced pages a day, fifty a week. For edit three, fifteen pages a day, seventy-five a week. For edit four, twenty pages, etc.

I edit all of my books eight or nine times before they go to my editor and agent.

YOU MUST SET WRITING AND EDITING GOALS, TOO.

Stick to those goals. You might set a goal to write 250 words a day. Or 500. You might set a goal to edit two pages a day or five pages or ten. Figure it out. Be reasonable, be kind to yourself, be ambitious but be rational.

You may have to give up something, or many somethings, to meet those writing and editing goals. For me, when my kids were young and at home, it was sleep. I wrote from ten at night until two in the morning and was up by 7:30 to get the little sweethearts off to school.

It’s not that I recommend this, as it’s no fun to be wiped out and feeling zombie-like, but it’s what I had to do to get published.

At the same time I was a freelancer for The Oregonian. I was very busy. Now and then I also cleaned the house and schlepped something onto plates for dinner.

You might have to write on your lunch break and during your kids’ nap times. You might have to write early in the morning when the crickets are sleeping. You might have to feign sickness and not go to church or your mother in law’s house or work. You might have to give up nights of dancing or cocktail drinking. You might have to volunteer less.

You might have to pretend you’re going on a business trip and go hole up in a hotel in a town an hour away from you. (Yes. A very famous author did this. No. I will not tell you her name.)

Something in your life will probably have to go to make space for your writing and editing.

But you want to write that book, right? You want to see your name on that cover. You want people to read your story. You want to be a published writer.

Then do it. Set goals. Write. Edit.  Repeat.

Write on friends.

(Originally published here, in Ms. Career Girl, where I write a column on how to write books. http://www.mscareergirl.com/2017/03/23/blood-sweat-tears-and-goal-setting/)