Well, folks, it's a new year.  Whatever may have happened in 2012 is over with and we can start this year with a clean slate.  As for me, I'm getting glasses so I can see distances, I'm working out more (again), and I've lost two pounds.  Little victories.  I figure if I can have one little victory every week, by the end of the year I'll have 52 victories under my belt.  Not a bad way to end a year.

What are your goals for this year?  Do you want to have a book written by June?  Do you want to weigh twenty pounds less by July?  Do you want to run a marathon in September?  What goals do you want to set for yourself?  If we're making a cake, we follow a recipe step by step, one small step at a time.  To achieve a goal, we need to go step by step, one small step at a time.  Little victories along the way add up to a goal reached.  No goal is so big that we can't break it down into doable pieces--like eating an elephant, one bite at a time.

I'm excited about this blank new year ahead.  As I told someone the other day, "Life begins at seventy and I'm just getting started!"  I'm writing a series of eBooks called, "The Cranky Senior Series."  I figured out how to design a cover and I've designed one for the first book in the series, Mishaps and Miracles.  This book is based on my former book, Bumps Along the Way, but will now have a different cover and will be available on eReaders like Kindle and Nook, etc.  The other two books in the series will be about two cranky seniors getting married and two cranky seniors buying a restaurant.  Sound familiar?

There just aren't enough hours in the day to do all I want to do.  My "job" is offering LegalShield memberships to people who want the protection and security of knowing they can get legal services from a top notch legal firm without being billed.  Triple A is a pre-paid service so that when you need it, it's already paid for.  There are pre-paid phone cards and some pre-paid credit cards.  Now, you can pre-pay for legal service so when you need it, it's already paid for at an astonishingly low rate.  Fred and I have used our membership about eighty times over the last eleven years and wouldn't be without it.

Now, go and set some goals for yourself for this year and break it down into small steps.  Each time you reach a step, reward yourself for your little victory.

Quotation for the day:  Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.  Howard Thurman

Connecticut Novel/Connecticut Mourns

Today is a little different as I'm honored to be part of Bette Stevens Blog Tour.

Before I tell you about my book in progress, let me just say that I'm from Newtown, CT and all the horrors that happened there last Friday affect me in a personal way because it is my town that evil has entered. I lived in Newtown for sixteen years, all three of my children grew up in Newtown and even attended Sandy Hook Elementary School.  I lived in Newtown right up until I moved to California.  My prayers are with all the people in Newtown, as the entire town is in mourning.

I didn't intend to start with a downer but felt I had to mention where I'm from.  On to the blog tour!

AUTHOR BLOG TOUR

What is the working title of your book? Willard Manor

Where did the idea come from for your book? I was wondering one day what a house would say if it could talk and tell about its past owners. From that, I started writing about a fictional house built in Connecticut in 1840 by John Willard. Members of his family owned the house for the next 170 years. In 2010, a young married couple buy the house and in the process of renovating it, find clues to the former owners of the house. The chapters go back and forth from 2010 to 1840 and up.

What genre does your book fall under? Historical Fiction.

Which actors would you choose to play in a movie rendition? Shelley and Tony Maguire, the young couple renovating the house, would be played by Kate Hudson and Matt Damon. Other than John and Mary Willard, all the other characters in the story are born in the house, live their lives, and die, generation after generation so it would be difficult to have one person portray them as they age constantly.

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book? Willard Manor is the story of one house and the family who called it home for one hundred and seventy years.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? Good question. I've been querying agents and publishers, which would be my first choice. As a last resort, I'll self-publish through Lulu.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? Probably seven or eight months. I had to research the Underground Railroad, the Civil War, septic tanks, electricity, the telephone, polio, WWI, WWII, Woodstock, growing marijuana, making moonshine, furniture styles from different periods, etc.

What other books would you compare this story to? Not that I would ever compare myself to James Michener, but his books come to mind, where he tells the story of multiple generations of one family in a particular locale.

Who or what inspired you to write the book? The members of my writing group suggested I try a novel as all my other books were non-fiction.

What else about the book might pique the readers’ interest? John Willard's second son, Thomas, plants apple seeds as a little boy and watches the tree grow. Thomas leaves home to fight in the Civil War and comes back in a casket. That year, his tree produces its first apples. Thomas' apple tree is an integral part of the story.

For other authors' blogs, I suggest you visit:

Lisa Fender at http://www.lisafender.com.
Candy Korman at http://candysmonsters.com
Larry Edwards at http://wp.me/p2EtrA-3b