100 YEARS FROM NOW by Michael Steeden

The sky will last foreverThe clouds are temporaryIn a 100 years from nowWhat remains will be a poisoned seaSome will call it tragicWhen the sea puts …

100 YEARS FROM NOW

To Newsletter or Not

That does seem to be the question—at least among authors, both independently and traditionally published. And in both camps, the answer is usually a resounding “yes!”

I balked at starting one for the longest time, but finally caved in and created The Happy Valley Gazette earlier this year. I wasn’t all that excited about it, but I began to get a few subscribers and that was good. Still, the newsletter didn’t have nearly the range that my Facebook author page did…(cue the menacing soundtrack)

…and then my reasonably successful Facebook account was hacked, suspended, and ultimately kicked off the face of the earth, and there I was—stranded, with most of my followers gone and no way to reconnect with them.

Except, I now had a newsletter. Thank goodness. The mailing list allowed me to touch base with many of my Facebook followers, and while I’m still not back to normal, whatever normal looks like, I have grown the following more quickly than I might have without those newsletter connections.

As for newsletter content, I’m still working on that. But I think this month’s offering is particularly good. I added a bit of flash fiction—a sweet little prequel to the Happy Valley series.

If you’ve got a hankering to receive the newsletter, you can sign up on my website at leslienoyesbooks.com. And honestly, I don’t know if you’ll have access to previous newsletters, but I’ll plan on resending the current edition to new subscribers later this month.

Peace, people!

Finally, Election Day

The noise ends today. Please exercise your right to vote; bring friends. There’s no excuse to sit this one out. There will be attempts to …

Finally, Election Day

Change is Good. Right?

I’ve had the same author account on Facebook for the past two and a half years. And while I didn’t have millions of followers on my Leslie Noyes, Author page I did have almost 2,500. But now, it’s gone. With the wind.

Starting over is no fun, but I’d tried sobbing hysterically, then beating my head against a metaphorical brick wall, and neither of those worked.

So, I’ve started a new account: The Happy Valley Motor Inn and Resort and More. Yes, it’s a mouthful, but I wanted my readers to be able to find me.

I do have a website: https://www.leslienoyesbooks.com with a newsletter that’ll be emailed to subscribers tomorrow.

I also have a meager and cringe-worthy TikTok presence @leslienoyesauthor. It’s pretty awful with brief flashes of brilliance. I stick around because I love the filters that make me appear glamorous.

In other matters, currently I’m watching Emily in Paris, and that makes everything better.

Peace, people!

Frustrated with Facebook (aka META)

A few months ago, my Facebook account was hacked. Or cloned. Or something. I fell for a scam, responding to a video that appeared to be from a relative in need of my assistance. And in mere seconds my account was being used to lure people into used car scams.

Since then I’ve beaten my head against the wall on a daily basis. How could I have been so stupid?

I managed to get my account back. Sort of. But now at least once a month I get a notification from Facebook saying the account has been suspended for posting inappropriate material. (It’s legitimate. I’ve learned how to tell the difference between FB notifications and a scammer’s notifications. For what it’s worth: Yay, me.)

I jump through the hoops they put forward and then wait patiently until I’m allowed back into the account. At some point I figure my luck will run out and I’ll be permanently locked out. Maybe this time, since I’m currently locked out. And I’m anxious.

The thing is, Facebook is where I advertise. It’s where I’ve formed relationships with a whole bunch of readers. It’s my main conduit for selling my books.

And Facebook/META just doesn’t care. Why should they? I’m small potatoes in the grand scheme of things.

Sigh. Thanks for listening to my rant. How’s your day going?

Peace, people.

Sara Paretsky

I’m a big fan of Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshswski series. I highly recommend them. Set in Chicago, the books make me nostalgic for the city I really came to love back when we lived in Illinois. We lived about three hours south of Chicago, but I never passed on an opportunity to visit.

I follow Ms. Paretsky on Facebook. She’s wonderful. Witty and caring and so on top of things. I don’t have many heroes, but she’s definitely one of them. This is all to say that I geeked out a little when she commented on something on my Facebook feed.

I can die happy now. Wait, I want a cheesy pizza first—Chicago style, please. THEN I can die happy.

Peace, people!

Ten Years!

Today is my tenth anniversary on WordPress. Hard to believe. I don’t post much anymore. I’m too busy working on my novels and marketing them and trying to get my newsletter going. That last one’s been a pain.

One would think that coming up with content for a monthly newsletter would be easy. After all, I wrote a daily blog for almost eight years. But every time I log into my newsletter, I go blank. Totally blank.

The problem is that I don’t want to reveal secrets that are key to my books. And not knowing which of my newsletter subscribers have read which book(s), I might easily include a spoiler.

Oh, and the platform I use for my newsletters is way more sophisticated than I am. Sigh. I spend almost as much time trying to make things work as I do crafting a chapter.

But the books are doing well. I now have six novels in a women’s action/cozy mystery series and one stand-alone, somewhat spicy romance. My Facebook page has pretty much taken the place of this blog.

I considered not renewing my subscription to WP, but I’ve met so many nice folks here and learned so much that I wanted to maintain those connections. So I’ll continue to lurk in the shadows. I might not comment much, but I’m reading!

As always, peace, people!

Oompa Loompa Hair at the Erma Bombeck Writers Workshop

Note: The following piece was published on the University of Dayton blog on April 24, 2023.

I was twelve or so when I began reading Erma Bombeck’s column in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. I’d grab the paper as soon as Mom or Dad had their way with it and go directly to the editorial pages where Erma’s column generally sat right above Art Buchwald’s just below the fold.

I’d inhale Erma’s wit and wisdom, then Art’s, with even greater gusto than that I’d always reserved for the funny pages. How I miss the tingle of anticipation I’d indulge in while scanning the paper to get my fix.

So you might imagine my excitement when I made plans to attend the workshop that bears Erma’s name. All the clichés rang true: Over the Moon! Jumping for Joy! Growing a Mess of Curly Hair!

Never heard that last adage? Neither had I, but sometime between registering for the conference and packing my Jeep for the drive to Dayton, Ohio, my perennially straight hair decided to grow in curly. I’m sixty seven years old with no hairstyling skills to speak of. What the absolute heck was going on? It had to be a case of overactive anticipation at work.

But I hadn’t read Erma all those years for nothing. No siree. I packed up approximately nine billion dollars in hair styling products designed to tame curly hair and hauled them to Dayton where they made exactly no difference in how closely I resembled an oversized Oompa Loompa.

The great thing, though, was that I laughed so long, learned so much, and met so many terrific people at the conference that I almost forgot about my World of Willy Wonka look—until I got a peek at the photos from the weekend. All I needed was green hair dye and a pair of white overalls to complete the look.

Still, it’s safe to say that I’ve embraced my new curls.

In a choke hold.

Peace, people.

—Leslie Noyes

Leslie Noyes is the author of Mayhem at the Happy Valley Motor Inn and Resort, along with five other books in the Happy Valley series. She and her husband live in the Florida panhandle where writing keeps her out of trouble. Most of the time.

Mourning a Fictional Character

The sixth installment in my Happy Valley series went live yesterday. Greed at the Happy Valley Motor Inn and Resort is the first book in which I killed off a character, and I struggled with that, even though the death affects a minor character and takes place off the page.

When the final scene was written, I contemplated a total rewrite before sending the manuscript to my editor. Even after she’d made her recommendations, I came close to scrapping half the book. In the end, though, I left it.

But I’m not sure I’ll ever do it again. Fictional deaths take a lot out of me, even when I’m the one orchestrating them. Can we have a moment of silence?

Peace, people.

Part Time Vagabonds

Traveling the backroads has its perks: Less traffic, scenic vistas, quaint little towns.

But, it’s not all sunshine and lollipops, especially on Christmas Day. Literally nothing was open in many of those quaint little towns. Finding a convenience store gas station that could accommodate our motorhome and towed jeep was a bit tricky. So we ended up driving a little farther than we’d intended and then couldn’t find a rest area to park in overnight.

And that’s how I got to experience my first night sleeping In a brightly lit truck stop parking lot.

Christmas miracle! I had the best night in years. Maybe decades. We turned in around 7:30 because David was bushed. I frowned at him and said, “you know, with these bright lights shining in every window, I’ll never be able to sleep.”

Eight hours later I woke up, looked at the clock, and asked “is it 3:30 a.m. or p.m.?” And promptly fell back to sleep until 5.

We threw on some clothes. Grabbed cups of truck stop coffee and hit the road. We’re planning on making it all the home today, but that means Interstate highway travel. With its own sets of perks and drawbacks.

But we’re vagabonds. At least part time. We can handle just about anything.

Peace, people!