Have you ever noticed that people like to put things into categories? It’s just human nature I think to want to classify stuff into known categories. Everything needs to go into a box, or a file, or on a shelf. Ever look at something and wonder what the heck it is? If someone tells you it’s a new-fangled object designed to do thus and such, your brain automatically wants to file that information into a group of knowns. That’s usually when people say something like, “Oh, it’s sort of like a thingamajig?” We ask because we have an inherent need to relate the new thing to an old thing. (more…)
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That’s right folks, I could very well be a winner in not one, but two contests. A couple of months ago, I entered my book On Common Ground in the Willa Contest. What is the Willa Contest you ask? I’ve never heard of it, you say. Well, neither had I. Here’s the blurb from the Women Writing the West (WWW) website: 
Spring is finally here with warm gentle breezes and blooming flowers everywhere. While the Mighty Mississippi River is still REALLY high here in Vicksburg, things are starting to feel cheery and optimistic. The winter doldrums are waning. Birds are building nests, bees are pollinating and life in general looks bright. 
You ever have one of those days when it feels like nothing is going right? You know the days I’m talking about, you get up on the wrong side of the bed or the planets don’t line up or whatever. This past weekend I had one of those days. It was more like two of those days in a row, but it just felt like I should crawl back into bed and stay there until, oh I don’t know, summer. 
So I’ve been spending a LOT of time lately learning how to market my book. For those of you who are not writers, let me just say that when you write “the end,” you’re only about a third of the way done with that story. Next comes rounds of editing and proofreading to get it exactly right and then comes the selling part. This is the hardest, yet most important part. After all, what good is a really good book with an amazing cover if nobody knows how to get their hands on it? 
