A Month of Renewal

by Fran McNabb

As I thought about my topic for this month’s Classic and Cozy, I kept coming back to the idea that we’re already to the end of April, the fourth month of the year. This month has always been a favorite of mine and can elicit a smile just thinking about it. (I know, that sounds silly, but it’s true.) In my mind, April is a happy month.

No one knows for sure where the name of the month originated, but some believe it came from the Latin word “aperire” meaning “to open,” such as in the opening of so many flowers in spring. 

The traditional birth flowers for April are the sweet pea and daisy, and, yes, both of these flowers happen to be my favorite. I call sweet peas “old fashioned” flowers. My mother used to have them running up one of her side fences. The sweet fragrance filled the air during the summer months. She’d let me go out to pick a bouquet to put in a vase in our house or to take to some of the older ladies in the neighborhood. I don’t see many of these plants today, but when I do, I think of Mom and her green thumb. The other flower of the month is the daisy. I wasn’t married in April, but I used daisies for my wedding. I just love the simplicity of the flower.

April is frequently the month that Christians celebrate Easter, this year celebrated on April 21. As a child I remember always getting a new pair of shoes and a hat to go with a new dress that Mom usually made. We didn’t have much growing up, but Easter was always special to us. This year the day was cloudless and the temperature warm. After church my husband took me and two other ladies in the neighborhood on a boat ride. What a wonderful way to celebrate Easter!

Lots of other days in April are set aside for special (and some not-so-special) days. The month starts off with April Fools’ Day on April 1 and ends on the remembrance of George Washington becoming our first President on April 30. In between, there are days that many dread, such as tax day on April 15, and some fun days such as National Grilled Cheese Day on April 12. In 1973 the first mobile phone call was made by Martin Cooper in New York City. What would we do without our cell phones today?

April has many other days of celebration or recognition, but to most of us it simply means that winter is ending and warmer days are ahead. It actually is the “aperire,” the opening of something new and exciting—a renewal. As a writer I am reminded this is a good time to renew my enthusiasm for writing. It's easy for long-time authors to burn out. If you find yourself lagging in enthusiasm, find a way to renew that interest. Maybe stepping away from your computer and enjoying other things for a little while will help. Enjoy your family. Read other authors. Relax. Do whatever it takes to renew yourself and your writing life.

Whatever April means to you, I hope you enjoy the last few days of this month.

FRAN MCNABB lives on the Gulf Coast and loves the warmer days of spring and summer so she can enjoy the beaches and water with her husband and family. Using this setting (as well as a couple others) she has published nine sweet romances, mostly dealing with characters trying to start over with their lives. Check her out at www.FranMcNabb.com or at mcnabbf@bellsouth.net

April Showers Bring...

...Mud, and moss, and mess, oh my. But also spring flowers!!! I want flowers. I want grass. Nope. I've got moss. It's pretty. Beautiful in fact, but it ain't flowers. This seems a simple enough goal, but then, you don't know my gardening history. :( The phrase, "shrinking violets"applies to a plant's reaction to seeing me in a garden center. I think the violets can smell the death.

It all began harmlessly enough. My goal: Clean up the patio so I could sit and read a cozy mystery or a sweet romance novel in relative comfort on our on-again-off-again temperate spring days. I live in Virginia and Wednesday saw a 30 degree temperature change in about three hours. Next week? Who knows? Maybe 90s? So I’ve got to take advantage of the temperate days while we’ve got them.

So I started tackling the seating area in the back. It’s like the children’s story, “If you Give a Mouse a Cookie”. Do you know it? Well, this mouse starts out just wanting a cookie, then wanting milk, then wanting to draw a picture for the front of the fridge, etc., etc.

I started raking leaves, which led to tripping on the patio pavers, which led to pulling them all up, which led to grading, re-paving, decorating, planting plants, creating a focal point, which led to tearing down an unsightly tree house, to finally looking back at my patio, remembering my purpose here and…

Today, it’s raining. Oh well, why don’t you check out one of our Classic and Cozy writers, and enjoy them outside while the temperate spring days last. I sure wish I could.

Why I Unplug

I may have posted this here before, but I think it’s important enough to bear repeating.

Spring is almost upon us, and the season brings thunderstorms with it in most of the U.S.  Thunderstorms mean lighting. Do you know how dangerous lightning is to your electronics? Do you unplug your computers, televisions, stereo systems and any other electronic devices before a storm?

If not, why not?

Let me tell you a true story.

Some fifteen years ago, my family and I went to a concert in a city about fifty miles away. It was a great concert and we all had a good time. We noticed on the drive back that there were increasingly large puddles on the ground as we neared home, but didn’t think much more about it. It was late and we were all exhausted, so we went directly to bed.

My youngest daughter, who has always been an early riser, was the first one up the next morning. Her favorite thing to do at that time was to listen to the radio or a CD on the stereo (with earphones) and rock in the rocking chair. She was dismayed when she turned on the stereo and found it didn’t work.

Instead she tried to turn on the television, but it wasn’t working either. Since the lights were on, she knew the electricity was functioning, but apparently not much else was. As a last resort, she decided to turn on the computer and play games. You guessed it. Computer wasn’t working either.
At that point she was still the only person awake, so she grabbed a book and tried to read, but she was understandably distraught.

Once the rest of us got up, we went through the house, checking everything to see what worked and what didn’t. We didn’t know until later, when we talked to neighbors, that there had been a very bad thunderstorm the night before.

There’s no way to know for sure, of course, but we have to assume that lightning hit either our house or one of the power lines very near it. The final tally of destruction: stereo receiver, VCR, television, and computer. We were fortunate that the television and computer were both older and about due for replacement anyway.

We learned our lesson. Now when there’s a thunderstorm approaching, we unplug everything, not just from the electrical lines, but from the cable and phone lines as well. If we’re going out of town for a day, we check the weather forecast. If we’re leaving for longer, we unplug everything just for safety.

Yes, it’s a bit inconvenient, but it would be more than just inconvenient to replace our electronic equipment these days. And since I’m an author and web designer, the loss of a computer would be more than just inconvenient. It wouldn’t kill my business because I back up relentlessly, including using an automated offline back up service. But I would likely lose several days of work time, replacing hardware and restoring software and data. I’d rather lose an hour of work time than risk losing days’ worth.

In a previous career I was a computer software programmer/analyst.  I worked for a company that sold turnkey systems – hardware and software bundled together, installed and modified for the client’s needs.  I did that for fifteen years.  In that time I had two clients whose computers were completely destroyed by lightning strikes on power lines.

We always set up backup systems for our clients so they didn’t lose their custom software or their databases, but it still cost them time and money to replace the hardware and restore all their software to a functioning condition. In one of the cases, the computer was supposedly protected by a heavy duty surge protector.

A side note about surge protectors – they’re a good idea. Really. They do help protect your expensive electronics against routine power spikes. But the dirty little secret of surge protectors is that the affordable ones you buy in the stores are not always fast enough to protect your equipment from a direct lightning strike.

I unplug all my electronics when the weather turns nasty. Unless you live in a place that isn’t prone to thunderstorms, I strongly suggest you do so as well.

Note: if your computer is hard-wired into a network, usually by an Ethernet cable to a modem or router, you need to unplug that as well.  Electricity can follow your cable line into the house as well as the electrical wires. And if you have a multi-function printer, that is probably plugged into a phone line, which is also a conduit. The wisest move is to unplug everything!

Birds, Birdhouses, and Writing

By Fran McNabb

Classic and Cozy Blog is primarily a writers’ blog so when you read an entry, I’m sure you expect some reference to writing and books. My topic today is “Birds, Birdhouses, and Writing.” I really wanted to write about our martin birdhouse because after nine years of watching an empty house, we have martins! I’ll figure out a way to include writing.

Before Hurricane Katrina we always had martins in the old birdhouse that was positioned on our pier. We lost both the pier and the birdhouse in the storm so after we settled into our new house, my husband ordered a brand new, really cute birdhouse. We were so proud of it, but when martins came into the area, they flew to ours, checked it out, then went to our neighbor’s house where they laid their eggs and raised their little ones.

Year after year this happened. It finally got to be a joke in the neighborhood because our

sparkling clean house stood empty while our neighbor’s old, dilapidated house attracted the birds. Not so this year. When the martins came into the area, we held our breath as bird after bird checked out our house and actually returned. Today we have six or seven nesting birds. Why this year? Who knows? The wind did shift the house slightly. Maybe they didn’t like the direction before it turned. We’re not questioning the why. We’re simply enjoying their presence.

Now how do I connect this to writing? It’s easy. In the mornings I sit on my chaise lounge in the sun room not far from the martin house. For the last week I have loved, loved, loved the sound of chirping as I work on my manuscript. Their constant chatter makes me happy.

I love living on the bayou harbor especially in the spring when life returns and everything seems to be active. This year is even more wonderful because of those cute little birds and their happy songs. No matter where you live, I’m sure there are birds that liven up your spring. Listen to them and let their singing help you tap away at your keyboard.

Fran McNabb lives on the Gulf Coast and uses the coast setting in many of her light romances. Her publishing credits include eight light romances, two entries in non-fiction anthologies, and several magazine/newspaper articles. As a former English and journalism teacher, she loves giving writing workshops. Visit her at www.FranMcNabb.com  and mcnabbf@bellsouth.net

Spring on My Mind

Spring has sprung
The grass has riz
I wonder where the flowers is?
-Variant of an old poem, origin unknown though frequently attributed to Ogden Nash

Spring has sprung, at least it has here in North Carolina. The daffodils have come and mostly gone. Tulips, azaleas, dogwoods, quince, cherries and other fruit trees are in their glorious seasonal finery. Temperatures are moderate, but wildly changeable, a sure sign of spring.

Spring reminds me of fresh starts and new things. Trees leafing out, dry brown winter grass turning green again, plants surging up from the ground showing new life. Longer days and warmer temperatures mean more time outside and upcoming vacations. I’m eager to get out in the garden and start planting so I can see all those promising shoots appearing.

And in life, too, turning seasons bring new things happening. Over the past few years that’s meant a few new grandchildren, deaths of parents, people around me changing jobs, moving, retiring, and a host of other smaller changes.

Career changes have been happening to me as well.  I’ve slowly cut down on the number of website design and development projects I’ve been taking on, to make more time for writing. I’ve got so many things I want to write.  Ideas are clamoring for brain space and several partially completed projects are urging me to get back to work on them.

And as the seasons change, so has the publishing industry.  When my first book was published, in 1990, I wrote the book, sent it to my editor, revised per her instructions, then a year or more later, the book came out and that was that. I might do a few readings or signings but it was generally agreed a writer couldn’t do much more than that. Following a few adventures with other publishers, I sold to my first epublisher in 2000 and worked with several of those. It was a whole new world. Being on the internet meant lots of networking and promo. Then came social media and self-publishing.

The publishing industry today looks nothing like what it was in 1990. Amazon bought out my first publisher, Avalon Books, and several of the small press publishers I’ve worked were bought out or went out of business. One of my more recent publishers, Five Star/Cengage, has just axed its mystery line, leaving my Market Center Mysteries orphaned with the first book published a few years ago and the second book still in the editing phase.

I’m not completely new to self-publishing.  I’ve been retrieving rights to my older books and republishing them myself for the last several years.  But this feels much different. It’s a book that’s never been published before.  I’m having to get it edited, then copy-edited, have covers made, think about creating blurbs and publicity, and… Yikes!

I hope to have Wired for Murder, the second book in my Market Center Mysteries series that began with A Gift for Murder, ready to release on July 1st, but it depends on how quickly the editing and cover design get done.

Stay tuned.  I’ll post more about the process and my entry into this brave new world this spring.

Spring Cleaning

There is more to the season than cleaning cobwebs from corners, although that is an excellent metaphor for what many of us are doing with regard to our personal and professional time at this time of year.

When my family lived in Maine, Spring weather arrived several weeks later than the rest of the country. As evidenced by this year’s snow fall on the ‘technical’ first day of Spring, the state of Maine, most northerly of the lower 48, has a long winter. Once in a while, that long winter can be from first snow in October to first thaw in April.

My home town under snow, a typical Maine winter.

In one such year, the house was closed up with snow covering the ground floor windows. The front path was dug out to the road and the snow piled six feet high on both sides. My elder brother used the surplus to build an igloo over the slope leading down to the sidewalk. He dug openings at the top and at the bottom where it opened to the road.

At that time of year, there was no real danger of any child ending up under the wheels of a passing car on Lincoln Street, but the thrill of shooting through the igloo and onto the icy road kept us outdoors and sledding for weeks. Since I was never keen on snow, this was a boon to my mother who preferred all  play to be restricted to the outside, no matter what the weather.

This particular winter, the back parlor had been used earlier for our Christmas celebrations. The wood-burning kitchen stove was used to heat the upstairs bedrooms through ducts into open grills in the floor.  Ducts were closed to the back parlor to keep other rooms warmer.

Spring cleaning meant that all the windows in the house could be opened as soon as the patches of grass were at least eight inches wide and more numerous than the piles of snow. Several doors to rooms on the ground floor had not been open since the first signs of winter and others had been closed since Christmas.

My mother began her cleaning and airing out from the attic. The kitchen was the center of family life and had already been cleaned but it was mid-April before she reached the back parlor. Our Christmas tree stood in the corner, all ornaments and lights intact, four months to the day after it had been decorated. Under the tree, instead of presents, was a thick pile of reddish brown needles.


My mother had better things to do with her time than cleaning house. 

Never too Late by Fran McNabb

 

            Springtime is a time of renewal and change. If you’ve been thinking about doing something

different, maybe this is the time to start.

            Maybe your job is at a dead end. Maybe you’d like to play a musical instrument or take art lessons. Maybe you have an idea for a book or a song. Whatever it is that you’d like to do, sometimes taking the first step is the hardest especially when you are aware that time is not on your side.

            But don’t give up hope. I am living proof that it’s never too late to take on a dream or even to reinvent your dreams!

            Right now I call myself an author, but that’s not how it always was. I wrote for years before I saw the fruits of my works published. I started writing in the 1980’s, got a few rejections, thought I was being silly to think I could get published, and put the dream of publication back in the far corner of my life—but I never stopped writing. If you’re a writer, you write. It’s that simple. I wrote, played around with stories, and one day I realized I had quite a few manuscripts in different stages of completion. One day, I told myself, I’ll do something with all of them.

           That day came earlier than I anticipated. Before I was ready, I had to take a medical retirement from teaching. Boredom immediately set in. One day I pulled out those boxes of old manuscripts (I didn’t own a computer then) and the writing bug bit me once again. I joined an RWA chapter, attended as many conferences and workshops as possible, and I eventually had my dream come true.  It was one day before my 58^th birthday that I received The Call.

Fifty-eight years old might seem ancient to those who are younger, but I think age depends on attitude. If you’re young enough to dream a dream, then you’re young enough to try to discover it. If you’re willing to do the work learning how something is done, then the world is open to you.

            I will have my seventh book published at the end of next month, and when it comes out I will smile and pat myself on the back because I didn’t lie down and quit when I had to find a new life. I’m enjoying my time in the publishing world, just as you can enjoy your time doing whatever it is you might want to do.

Even if you're not a "spring chicken," your dream can still come true because it's never too late to start fresh.

Fran McNabb taught high school English until she had to take an early medical retirement. Now she spends her time writing, reading, and enjoying the time she and her husband spend on the water. Her seventh book, SAVING THE CHILDREN, will be released on April 29. Visit her at  mcnabbf@bellsouth.net  or at www.FranMcNabb.com.