DO IT NOW...OR IT MAY BE NEVER by Rolynn Anderson

Warning!  Do not count your jewelry sets after you've read this article.  I don't want to be responsible for your bout of depression.

Okay, here's the deal for anyone who's lived half a century or more.   If you're like me, you've got hundreds of pairs of darling earrings and scores of gorgeous necklaces.  Yet I was rotating the same three or so sets every day.  No more: I've vowed to wear the jewelry I've bought over all these years, accumulated treasures and memories, for sure.  Instead of waiting for the right occasion or the perfect outfit to wear my precious gems or costume sets, I wear a new ensemble every day.

I figure: jewelry doesn't take much room, but clothes do.  So I've sorted through skirts, suits, fancy tops and sparkly bottoms and ditched most of them.  Now I wear comfortable pants and tops and have enough dressy jackets to manage any occasion, from wedding to funeral.  The rest of my unworn-for-twenty-years apparel goes to Goodwill.  I dumped a dresser; my walk-in closet is all I need.  Yay!  I always hated that dresser anyway.  Ashcan the headboard, too.  Oak is out; dark cherry is in.

Whew!  Minimalist wardrobe and bedroom arrangement; lots of cool jewelry.  I wear a new set every day, even if it's just to Starbucks; even if the gems are paired with jeans or a golf outfit.  Surprising the number of compliments I get on my glitter from complete strangers.

If you want to read about a heroine who has REALLY interesting attitudes about jewelry, meet Liv, in  LIE CATCHERS.  She's intent on solving two cold cases is Petersburg, Alaska, and she uses jewelry to catch lies!  Check out my website at http://www.rolynnanderson.com

http://amzn.com/B00HJDS1LG

 

HOW WOULD YOU HANDLE ROUGH SEAS? By Rolynn Anderson

We’re sitting on our boat in Ketchikan, Alaska, waiting for the waters to calm down so we can ‘take’ Dixon Entrance, a wide spot in the ocean that can cause big trouble for our 45 foot boat, INTREPID.  Now, you should know that our Kady-Krogen trawler is built to handle rough seas, even without stabilizers.  It’s a trawler, built to circumnavigate the globe, and she’s done exactly that with former owners.  But my husband and I are cautious about taking open seas.  When we have to cross them, we watch the weather predictions carefully, preferring ‘light’ conditions, and at the most, 10-15 knot winds, looking for winds flowing with the tide.  We’ve waited for a whole week in a port for the seas to subside.  Luckily, we don’t have a schedule to keep so we don’t need to grit our teeth and go when the weather report is less than ideal.  What’s more, our boat is slow, so some of the large expanses of water take two days to cross.  Not easy to cobble two calm days in a row, let me tell you.

Yes, I can ride the gigantic waves coming at me as a writer and marketer of my novels, but let me have flat waters when I’m in my boat.  I was a high school principal, for heaven’s sake, opening a brand new high school.  Lots of rough seas in that job!

What’s the difference?  Why can I take on huge challenges in life, yet look askance at six to eight foot waves?  I think it’s the feeling of helplessness one gets in big seas.  The waves keep coming and coming and despite what you might think, they AREN’T even.  A six foot sea may turn into a ten foot sea in certain areas, where seas converge of where it’s shallow.  Sometimes, for no reason at all, the waves grow ‘short’, meaning less space between waves.  In such conditions, the boat actually bangs up and down.  And the wind can change so that you might be cruising along with the wind kindly traveling with the current, and suddenly you’ve got white caps crashing into your bow because the wind turned against the current.

So it’s the helpless feeling, the inability to plan ahead, and the portent of physical danger make boating tricky.  Believe me, when I was a high school principal, I felt helpless and surprised often, but worry about my physical well-being was rarely on my mind.

Okay it’s time for you to share the places that make you fearful.  I will add to my list: small planes, zip lines and floating raging rivers.  Sigh.  I’m not very brave, am I?  Are you?

http://www.rolynnanderson.com

CRUISING by Rolynn Anderson

You'll be reading this blog entry when I'm on my way through Rocky Pass and El Capitan in Southwest Alaska, two tricky passages we'll traverse for the first time on our way to Dixon Entrance.  Not only are these routes serpentine and narrow, but they are shallow and we'll need to watch out for strong currents in some places.  So you might ask why we don't take a less tricky route on our way south.  Good question.  One reason is this is a shorter 'road' to Dixon Entrance.  Better: other boaters tell us the scenery is gorgeous.  My husband would add this reason: this is a challenge for us and a new experience.

We've enjoyed returning to familiar places on this, our last trip to Alaska by boat, but we've taken pleasure in new experiences as well.  Take a look at our journey in our blog: http://steveandrolynn.blogspot.com/  and follow our 'bread crumbs' on our SPOT GPS (you'll find the site on our blog).

Happy summer to you all.  Forgive me if I don't respond to comments...I won't have access to the internet for all of July.  Rolynn

A MAGICAL BOOK SIGNING by Rolynn Anderson

My first book signing in a Petersburg, AK, bookstore was a smashing success!  Not only did I sell every LIE CATCHERS book I brought along (43) but I sold ten of my other three books!  53 is the final number of books sold! 

The day was magic.  KPLZ radio blasted my interview all day long and the weekly newspaper came out on Thursday morning with my picture and an interview in it.  Posters announcing the event were tacked on bulletin boards all over town for weeks, too.  And it was a sunny, no-wind day in beautiful Petersburg, Alaska.  Buyers were lined up to buy my book by 1:00 and I had a steady stream of people show up in the next two hours.  Enough people in town had read LIE CATCHERS and passed the word around it was a fun read, but many came to talk to me about the way I’d handled the 1932 cold case murder of Sing Lee.  People in Petersburg love their town and its rich history.  Earl added LIE CATCHERS to his library of 600 books on Alaska.  Nina, the town’s only Rhodes scholar, is a mystery buff, excited to read one rich with her city’s history.  Brenda, the owner of a local gift shop, came because she is a Tlingwegian (offspring of a Tlingit native and a Norwegian), the heritage of my heroine in LIE CATCHERS.  

We cruised away from this lovely town, warmed by memories of a dream book signing.  Petersburg has made me feel like an authentic author, giving me the impetus to write my next book!

If I don’t comment on this blog right away, it means I can’t get to an Internet during my time on the boat.  I’ll get back to you as soon as I reach civilization.  Happy Summer!  Rolynn

TO AUDIO OR NOT TO AUDIO by Rolynn Anderson

Scene: Condo Fitness Center in Mauna Lani, the Big Island.  I’m puffing away on a stairmaster when a guy comes in, hops on the treadmill next to me, says hello, downs liquid energy from a tiny bottle and starts walking.  Turns out he’s a talk-show radio man (great voice!) from Seattle.  I blurt: “You do audio books?”  Turns out he’s retiring and wants to read for audio books among other projects.  “I’ll be cheap,” he says.

So I have this guy’s phone number and I don’t know what to do with it.  Tell me, my author friends.  How many of you are shelling out money for audio books?  At what point in a writer’s career is this a smart move?  How much does it cost for a high-priced reader?  What might I pay for a ‘cheap’ reader?

Is there a whole new set of social networking avenues for selling audio books (meaning I’ll have to double my promo efforts)?

Help me out, buds!

Sidenote:  LIE CATCHERS released worldwide this month, in all formats.  Yippee!  Here are the Amazon and Wild Rose Press buy sites:

http://amzn.com/B00HJDS1LG

http://www.wildrosepublishing.com/maincatalog_v151/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=235_236&products_id=5607

BLURB:

Two unsolved murders will tear apart an Alaska fishing town unless a writer and a government agent reveal their secret obsessions.

Treasury agent Parker Browne is working undercover in Petersburg, Alaska to investigate a money scam and a murder. His prime suspect, Liv Hanson, is a freelance writer struggling to save her family’s business. Free spirited, full of life, and with a talent for catching liars, she fascinates Parker.

Trying to prove she’s a legitimate writer who cares about Petersburg’s issues, Liv pens a series of newspaper articles about an old, unsolved murder. When her cold case ties in with Parker’s investigation, bullets start to fly.

Parker understands money trails, and Liv knows the town residents. But he gave up on love two years ago, and she trusts no one, especially with her carefully guarded secret. If they mesh their skills to find the killers, will they survive the fallout?