Book Signing: May 1, 4:00-6:00pm

Dr. Abigail Elizabeth Reynolds will be here this Saturday May 1st between 4:00 and 6:00pm for a reading of her newest release, The Reporter Wore Petticoats.
She'll be taking questions and autographing her novel.
Here's an excerpt -about the book- from her website:
"Amid the social and political constraints of the mid-nineteenth century, newspaper reporter Elizabeth Grace Fitzgerald shares her adventures throughout the eastern United States and Great Britain.
"Recounted with simplicity, tenderness, humor, and suspense, this fast-paced novel engages the reader in laughter, sympathy and outrage.
"Not another dull history book, this story of persons of high and low estate will fuel the reader’s desire to know more about the events of the Abolitionist and Suffrage movements, the Underground Railroad, and the Civil War."

Here's a link to another blog post that I found irresitable: "Well-Behaved Women Rarely Make History"

Very true, indeed.

More Random Picture

Here's a quick post in the spirit of trying to keep up with the blog even if it means posting old pictures:



These next ones are a little bit newer; the saws are a good representation of what is happening inside (I will post new inside pictures soon):






Here's where the wood scraps go:





The countertop comes next week and the espresso machine will be here the week of the 8th!

I've had an incredible response to the tiny 'Now Taking Applications' ad in the Mountain Stateman (Thank you!).

I also have a new sign that will go up this weekend with others soon to follow....

Freaking Out with Formatting Part2

If you've been visiting regularly, you'll have noticed the growing pains of the blog format.
My main objective was to make the change from a 2-column to a 3-column format. Blogger (google) does not provide a basic 3-column template, so the change involves editing the HTML. I know absolutely nothing about writing code and the thought of changing the code makes me break out into a cold sweat. However, you'll notice that I am now the proud author of a 3-column blog! Go me!
Okay - I really can't take all the credit. I searched for -and finally found- a set of brainless directions that allowed me to continue to happily know nothing about writing code and still change the HTML code to get what I wanted.
I started this experiment with the Taylor County Blog. That transition was very easy. It was so easy, in fact, that it made me brave enough to try switching things around over here. This one -the Rounders3 template- was a bit more challenging, but, with a bit of personal help, I finally figured it out.
How did I do it?
IDS over at the Blogger Guide Blog walked me though the entire process. His instructions are the only ones that worked without hair-pulling and tongue-lashing. He even answered my comment-questions promptly and sent me personal emails to coach me along! How great is that?
Here's the link that takes you to the main page of all the 3-column template guides he has available.
If you've been trying to figure out how to go 3-column, then this is definitely the guide to use.

Judge My Book for Publication!

This has very little to do with construction at The 123, but it DOES have to do with my writing:

I am a semi-finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest and I need your help!
Please click over to my other blog for details on how you can help!
Thank you!

Writing

I have neglected this blog for the past week in favor of other, older, writing projects.

Since I allowed it to prevent me from updating this blog, I figured it was appropriate to post that information here, because, even though it doesn't have anything to do with construction (or deconstruction), I actually do my writing -physically- at The 123.

My office is on the second floor and I spend as much time there as possible during the week when the kids are in school. It's been amazing how much writing I can actually get done without the distraction of laundry and dirty breakfast dishes; I always suspected I could, but now I have proof.
I love my office :)

Go here: MKStover.com for my website. I don't have much content up at this time, but I do keep it updated. I post information about current writing projects and I will continue to add to it.

This past week, I have been working on this: Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.

I was on the internet looking for the NaNoWriMo website (more about this in a minute) and this Amazon Novel contest appeared. So, knowing that this was something I should do, I signed-up, got a registration number, and was given 7 days to submit a manuscript.
That's a tall order, isn't it?

Good thing I already had the novel written.

I wrote Vultures in bits and pieces (with occasional phases of mania) over the course of a couple of years. It's been collecting dust now for at least the last 18 months, maybe even closer to 2 years. I had worked on it for a very long time and I was just not sure of the overall effect. I queried an agent once about it, but she was not interested (at least she responded) and I just pushed it out of my way and went on to other things. Not very persevering, huh?

So last week I opened the Vulture zip folder on my hard drive, pulled the printed copy out of the file drawer and sat down to read it for the first time in a very long time.

I'm glad I waited that long. The time away from it gave me a new perspective; I was able to approach it as a reader and not the writer. That helped tremendously (and the time gap helped sever the emotional attachment -but maybe that's too much information).

Anyway- for the last 7 days I have been (maniacally) proofreading (again) and cutting (again) and editing (again) this old manuscript. I was surprised to find that there really wasn't all that much wrong with it: basic grammar issues and a couple of small chronology problems.

*Thanks to my family for helping with the week's volatile overtime work schedule*

I will post more information about this as it progresses.

As for the NaNoWriMo: that's short for National Novel Writing Month. The idea is to crank out 50,000 words in November. I've known about this Novel writer's craze for several years, but I think this year I will participate to get a jump on my next novel. I'll post links to this, too, as Novemeber approaches.