Hello, Posse!
I hope you had a great weekend! It was an odd one for us here. We got word on Friday that our landlady had passed away. We were at a loss as to what to do for her husband. He is a very quiet, kind man and we want to do what we can to support him. They actually live below us, so we saw them both often. We made him an apple coffee cake this weekend and let him know we are here if he needs us. If you are the praying sort, and I assume most if not all of my followers are, you might want to add a kind thought for our landlord tonight.
If you have been chomping at the bit for me to hurry up and finish the next book, I have some good news. I am about halfway through the rough edits. I wanted to be sending it off to the professional editor today, but things happened this last week that kept interrupting my work. I was supposed to have a full week of vacation from my usual daily chores so I could focus on my books, but that got whittled down to one day and that just didn't give me enough time to finish everything.
I hope to finish the rough edits tonight and be able to send it off to my beta readers. Cross your fingers . . . and your eyes . . . and your arms . . . heck, cross everything you can! I think I need all the luck I can get.
People often wonder why novellas take so long to write. When you get past the fact that I am writing historical fiction and all the research that goes with that to make sure I am are being accurate for the time period, it can take a long time to actually get ready to publish a story. It starts with writing, then editing and rewrites. Those things just get the story on the page. There is also the marketing side as an indie author to try to get an audience to notice and buy your books.
I have no marketing budget to pay someone to market my books for me, so I have to do everything myself. I design the book covers, do the layouts, format everything to the correct specifications for the different print platforms, create and design all the ads, manage and maintain all the websites and social media including these blogs, create and design the promotional materials, and I am still working to set up a sound booth and recording area to make audiobooks. Actually writing the stories is the least amount of work that goes into getting these books out. I am literally working on something for the books just about every free moment of my day and staying up until about 3 am most nights.
Now, do not get me wrong here, I am not complaining about any of that. I love doing it all. I just want to explain why things take forever to get done at times. I do try to hustle, but sometimes, like today, life throws me a curveball that just kills my schedule. I should have had this blog written hours ago but instead of writing, I spent the morning dealing with my one credit card and my bank. I made an online payment to my card for $25 and they tried to take $2,500 out of my bank. Luckily (kind of), I do not have that much money in my bank so they could not wipe me out. But then there are overdraft fees and return payment fees and a huge financial mess that I spent the morning on the phone with both places trying to sort out.
So now, here it is 4PM and I am finally writing the blog, then I'll make dinner, and if I am lucky, I can finish the edits tonight before 3AM. Tomorrow I am going with P.R. to the doctors. P.R. is set to get the 2nd vaccine shot. We have both been going to these appointments together even though only one of us is getting the shots. We both have issues with allergic reactions so we go to look after each other in case of a reaction. But this means my morning will be shot as far as working on the books.
Just know, I am always working whenever I can, to get these out there to you. I love sharing these stories and I am so grateful for each and every one of you who stick with me through all of this. I can never say thank you enough!
But enough of my yamerin'! It's time for the next John Wayne Birthday month celebration Movie! El Dorado!
El Dorado was released in 1966. It is an American western produced and directed by Howard Hawks. The movie is said to be loosely based on a novel by Harry Brown titled The Stars in Their Courses. The movie stars John Wayne and Robert Mitchum with a supporting cast that includes other well known actors including James Caan, Charlene Holt, Ed Asner, Paul Fix, Christopher George, Arthur Hunnicutt, and Michele Carey.
The story follows a drucken sheriff (Mitchum) and his friend, and hired gun, Cole Thornton (Wayne). A local tycoon (Asner) has put out an offer for hired guns. It turns out the job is to come help him force the honest and hardworking MacDonald family off their land so he can claim it for himself. The sheriff is spending all his time drunk and proves of no help to the MacDonald family. His friend Thorton finds out about the situation and goes to El Dorado to try to help his friend sober up and clean up his town.
I love this movie for a few reasons. The first being it has John Wayne, of course, but also because you get to see Wayne and Mitchum in a movie with a young James Caan. It almost has a feeling of the passing of the torch in a way from classic Hollywood movie stars to the more modern generation, at least to me. Plus, I love seeing Ed Asner as the villian in this movie before going on to be the grumpy boss on The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970). Not to mention, what western movie fan doesn't love Arthur Hunnicutt, I mean . . . come on, he's GOLD in any western! It is so worth the time to watch!
Movie Snack Recipe
Taking a cue from the movie title today, the snack recipe suggestion for today is Taste of Home's, Chili Con Queso El Dorado (<---click for recipe). Warm up a few tortilla chips, crackers, pretzel chips or even some veggies like celery or broccoli to dip into this ooey, gooey, cheesy goodness.
This recipe makes a wonderful warm and spicy movie snack. If you have any left over after the movie, it is amazing poured over bake potatoes as a side dish or even as a meal. In our house, you can never go wrong if there is enough cheese in the recipe.
So now it's that time again, Posse! Grab your snacks and settle in for another great western movie!
Enjoy,
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