I’m back from snowy Colorado where I had a terrific time meeting with a book group in Boulder – it was a small but lively group, and they had lots of interesting questions. Thank you, Shana, for arranging it and Amy for being such a great hostess!

Don’t forget – I’m always eager to talk to book clubs. If I can’t do it in person, I’ll phone in and TALK VERY LOUD on a speaker phone. So email me if your book group wants to read and discuss my novel.

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O.K., I have a really good excuse for having neglected my blog. First, I was in Texas visiting my mother, my sister Nancy and my brother Tom and talking about my book.

• I spoke to the Prestonwood Newcomers Book Group – they all read the book and told me they loved it (music to my ears).
• I spoke to the seniors who reside at the Preston Place Retirement Center and they were also a warm and attentive audience.
• Then I went to Marshall, Texas with my own personal entourage of eight people ranging in age from 82 years (my mom) to 8 months (a blue-eyed angel named Lily) to talk to the Pulpwood Queens Book Club members about my book The Pulpwood Queens have made My Lost and Found Life an alternate pick for the month of April.

So you can see, I’ve been busy.

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One of my New Year’s resolutions is to write in my blog more often. For a writer, I seem to have an awful lot of trouble writing, but then, a blog isn’t about someone else, it’s about me. And that’s much harder than writing about someone else or someone I imagined.

Anyway, I’ve decided that maybe it would be easier if I approach it like I’m writing a letter to my good friend Kay…so, if you keep reading, be warned that I write Kay a lot of minutia.

Lately I’ve been struggling to keep warm in the unusually cold San Francisco weather – brrrrr, we’re really having a real winter. I’ve also been trying to exercise at the health club and even went to a yoga class; afterwards I was so tired I took a nap. Aside from working, I run errands, watch movies and then there’s my Solitaire addiction. Yep, I’ve become an addict. It started with playing one game while I waited for my annoyingly slow computer to load. But game by game, the number of “hands” I played began to creep up and now I want to play all the time. I’ve found myself at the keyboard playing solitaire at one or two in the morning …and even for a night owl like me, that’s insane. It’s just like cappuccino (my other addiction),  I never get enough. Now I understand how people can spend so much time on computer games. I’m actually afraid to try a game that’s more fun…imagine how much time I might waste.

Movies, movies, I love movies. I celebrated my birthday (yes, I’m a Capricorn)  by going with my friend Lorraine to see three movies on New Year’s Day. First we saw THE GOOD GERMAN which we liked the best. What’s not to like? George Clooney in a black-and-white post-World War II noir-ish mystery. I did get a little tired of George’s character getting beaten up in almost every scene. After the third time he was roughed up, I began to think that he must be pretty dumb not to anticipate some trouble..com’on, get a clue, pal. The second movie was CHILDREN OF MEN and, though I like Clive Owen, I found the film very bleak and sad. The last movie was THE GOOD SHEPHERD and it was long and slow.

I’m also reading, but I’ll add a list of the recent good books I’ve read another time. Right now I’m more interested in my own book. After some false starts, I’m working away on my new novel and I’m quite excited about it. In fact, I wander around with my head lost…no, not in the clouds, but lost in the imaginary world of Tattie, the new book’s main character. If that name sounds familiar, Tattie, short for Tatiana, was a minor character in MY LOST AND FOUND LIFE.  She’s a so-called “bad” girl and her behavior can be outrageous, but she intrigues me and I feel compelled to tell her story. I’ll keep you posted on how it’s going.

Nothing is better than hearing from readers and getting feedback on your writing – especially positive feedback, let’s be honest. So far my book has been read and praised by three book groups (that I know of).
 
The first book group was in San Rafael, California. On a Thursday evening I sat in a straight-back chair surrounded by eight women who bombarded me with questions about the book and the writing process. It was great. As you might suspect, this group was particularly interested in the problems of bringing up children/teenagers in an affluent suburb. Like most mothers, they understood the desire to give your kids everything, and how hard it is to say “No” when you want to make them happy. I freely admit that I still have trouble saying “No” even though I’ve never embezzled anything. 
 
Next my writer-friend Kemble Scott sent MY LOST AND FOUND LIFE to his mother in Massachusetts. She read it, loved it and recommended it to her book group. They loved it. It was wonderful to hear readers all the way across the country liked my ” California” book. Thank you, Kemble, and Kemble’s mom. (Unfortunately, I didn’t get to travel to New England for this meeting, darn!).
 
The third group to read and discuss my book was the Book Babes Book Club in Auburn, California. I used to live in Auburn and I used to be a member of the Book Babes, so it was fun to go back and hear all my old friends talk about my book. Of course, they’re my friends, so they probably wouldn’t have said anything bad about the novel, especially in front of me. But they all swore that they really really REALLY liked my book. We met in the private room of a Roseville restaurant and I talked and talked and they said truly wonderful things like “You should be on Oprah!” and “I hope you’re writing a sequel.” Thank you Sue, Leslie, Beth, Kay, Joey, Dawnielle, Lorraine, Elizabeth, and all the other book babes. I floated home, buoyed by your compliments.
 
So what’s next? More meetings with book group, I hope. If you know of a book group who might want to read my book, tell them that I’ll try my best to come in person or phone in for the meeting. Just send me an email and we’ll make it happen. And don’t worry, I can take criticism too. If you think the book should have ended differently, let’s talk about it.
 

I’m happy to report that a teen reviewer at TeensReadToo.com liked the novel.