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Blogs by Velda E Brotherton
How Many Blogs Should I have? 12/1/2008 2:33:40 PM
Since setting up blogs in other locations, I fear I've sorely neglected this one, which I fully intended to keep up when I started it. Perhaps there are too many social networks online for us busy writers and we should concentrate on only a choice few. Since I've had this site for years, it should be one I keep up.
So, here's a blog I'll vow to continue at least once a week from now on.
Since I recently signed a contract for a nonfiction book, let's talk about that today, especially how it came about. For years I've been a proponent of networking. All my books have come from meetings at conferences or other type writer's gatherings. Yes, ALL, from the first to the latest.
The newest one will harken back, in a way, to the very first publication, Wandering In The Shadows of Time: An Ozarks Odyssey. This one, as yet not officially titled, but about the lost communities of the Boston Mountains of the Arkansas Ozarks will tell similar tales, but in much more depth.
For years I've interviewed folks about the way life was in the "good old days." This book will go back to the very first settlers and how they lived, worked, played, worshiped and grieved. Yes, there will be locations that no longer exist, old cemeteries that I've stumbled across or learned about long after they were abandoned. But mostly it'll be about the people.
Research will help a lot, for there are stories recorded in obscure places that are too precious to lose. Tales that might be forgotten if not recorded again, brought up to date, presented in a new light and a new voice. All those things.
The stories I've found so far are unique. We won't see each family facing the same struggles, but rather the unusual ways each family found for solving their problems, for embracing their joys, for shedding their tears.
After pitching the idea to Old American Publishing at Women Writing the West Conference in San Antonio, I received a contract within weeks. This pleases me as I've wanted to write this book for years, but couldn't find a publisher. Now I have one, and am hard at work and enjoying every minute of it.
I was in San Antonio, as you all know, accepting the WILLA finalist award for Fly With The Mourning Dove. I also met another publisher there who is very interested in another project I'm working on. Let's not jinx that, though, for now it'll be my secret. Once I have a go-ahead will be time to rejoice.
Those of you who have followed my writing career know of the stumbling of late because of the mid-list crisis in New York. I firmly believe that small publishers are quickly filling the void New York has left by publishing only what they consider best sellers or Big Books. And I'm grateful to all those small publishers all over the country who are bold enough to publish our books in these hard times.
