New Blog "Spot!"

Hey everyone!

Tina (beloved webmaster) has set up a new blog for me through Google (is Google supposed to be capitalized when it's being used as a noun?) At any rate, this is a quick test to see if all is working on it. The thing that is great about this blog is I'll be able to see if anyone is actually reading it! Before I sort of felt like a "voice in the wilderness."

So, I'm taking a break for a few weeks while waiting for my editor, agent, webmaster and a couple of friends read the first (or rather second) draft of State Fair. The timing has been great because my baby sister, Debra, and her 13-year-old daughter, Sam, are coming for visit for a week. We'll play, do the tourist thing (Sam wants to see Hollywood and the beach, of course--they are from Connecticut) and when they leave, I'll be back to working on State Fair. Once I send it back again (they usually give me about two weeks to work on it), then I'll be ready to start the next Benni book. It's been nice just hanging out trying to get my life organized again. My office is a total mess and needs to be "weeded" desperately.

Just a quick note about my three days in Kingman, Arizona. I've been to many, many speaking engagements in the last 17 years, but I have to tell you, the folks in Kingman are right there in the top ten in hospitality. Debbie, my local escort (and sister-in-law to my dear friend, Christine, who was with me) was a wonderful tour guide. The town of Kingman is right on Route 66 and has a lot of fun things to do. The Kingman Quilt Guild co-hosted one of my talks and made me a gorgeous quilt with all my book covers represented. I'll get mi esposo to take a photo of it and put it on the website (today he's putting together a pergola for our patio and I don't want to distract him!). All I can say is Kingman Rocks! Thanks to everyone there who made the Book Festival such a success.

Off to clean my office now...or at least take a crack at it. More later! Happy Trails, Earlene

Where in the world...

is Earlene Fowler? I’m right here! (I stole that from an old computer game kids used to check out of the library when I worked there in 1992–Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?)

I’ve been working hard at finishing up State Fair. It’s due on Monday, June 15, so I’m down to the wire. My original due date was May 1, but I had to ask for an extension. So June 15 is truly a drop dead day! (And that’s exactly what I feel like doing right now).

So, except for a wonderful long weekend where I spoke at the Kingman, Arizona Book Festival, I’ve had my nose to mu computer. I went through my normal panic when I finished the first draft (last Saturday at 8:19 p.m. to be exact). I always hate my first drafts. But I’ve been rewriting this week and am feeling better about it. It really is about layering, going back through and clarifying what I meant, changing a word here, a sentence there. My books are always so clear in my head. It never reads as good on the page as it does in my head (kind of like how I look better in my bathroom mirror than in the pictures people take of me).

Right now I’m watching “Tattoo Highway” on A & E. They are in Albuquerque. For some reason I love all those reality shows about the tattoo culture even though I don’t have one. I wonder if anyone has ever gotten a quilt tattoo? If I got a tattoo it would probably be a combination of a pen, a quilt pattern and maybe a cross.

Okay, just wanted to say howdy and let those of you who follow my blog that I’m doing okay. (Yes, I know I’m the worse blogger on earth–forget about me every twittering or tweeting!) Back to work tomorrow on the rewrite. I’m on page 200 (of a 436 page manuscript).

Happy Trails! Earlene