Blog

Local Bookshops: Your Holiday Shopping Homebase

musings / reader suggestions

Local Bookshops: Your Holiday Shopping Homebase

If the frenzy of holidays grabs you and shakes you hard, you can make your life easier by shopping at your local independent bookstore. For me stepping into the cozy shop, surrounded by books and friendly sales persons is a treat. The size or color or shape of books isn’t important. There is something for every interest. And, if you don’t see it, they will order it for you. Some bookshops even wrap your purchases for you! Simplify your shopping. Support a local bookstore. Enjoy the hours of free time you’ll create by this one-stop shopping amid an extravaganza of...

getaways / writing

The Writing Retreat

As a writer I fill my morning and early afternoons writing or editing or marketing. Once in a while I have the opportunity to slip away to a special retreat where I can write and think and leave the day-to-day cares, chores, and phone calls to people back home. Recently I traveled to the beautiful  second home of a writing friend. She’d assembled a group of fellow writers and invited me to join them. I left my rain and blustery western Washington weather, I thought, for cooler temps and a few snow flurries. Turns out the around the retreat weather...

musings

Feedback: Praise and Criticism

Feedback is a two-edged sword: we may hear compliments and/or we may hear criticism. Both are valuable. Sincere praise reassures us that we are on the right track. It sends us forward to brainstorm with new contacts and old. It means we’re contributing to their well-being and encourages us to keep on keeping on, to create new materials, to gather and share information. Then there is criticism. Even the word had a different timbre. Criticism often shakes us up. ‘What? You mean not everyone like what I said? or, “Some people didn’t gain anything from what I shared. Oh my!”...

musings

What’s on My Bookshelves?

I’ve just rearranged my shelves and it feels good to have some organization to my piles of books. (What I  really need is more shelves!) In our living room I have one bookshelf for my favorite books and books by friends as well as an antique set of classics, my picture books that I read with third graders, and a few college texts that I couldn’t part with even after all these years.  They share space with a dancer painting, my ballet trilogy and a couple of prized knickknacks. The rest of my books are housed on a large bookshelf...

Unusual Book Styles

book reviewing / details in writing / musings / reading / writing process

Unusual Book Styles

You may read a lot and have found many of these unusual ways authors share their stories. If not, be aware that all books are not straight forward. Here are a few tricks that may entice you or, if you are unaware of what is being done, these methods may cause you to close the books or even toss them across the room in mild anger. **  Books with no paragraph separation **  Entire books in poetic form (E Hopkins) **  Books with excessive punctuation (E.E.Cummings) **  Books without quotation marks to alert you to who is speaking (C. McCarthy)...

Ways to Support Authors

book reviewing / reader suggestions

Ways to Support Authors

Author’s are chatty people. I’m no exception. The following  suggestions are ideas on how you can support us as we strive to introduce ourselves to ever-widening circles of readers.  Invite us to: * speak at your local bookstore *  speak at your local library *  speak at a school in your area *  join your book club meeting *  attend a meet and greet in your home or at an informal luncheon *  speak with a professional organization where you’re a member We are often available *  in person *  via Skype, FaceTime, or other interactive internet resources You can...

Coming Soon!

book reviewing / Letters to Follow / marketing / reading

Coming Soon!

Letters to Follow-A Dancer’s Adventure, my last book in the ballet trilogy, is being shipped. That means I’ll soon hold it in my hands and then start planning how to get out the word about it. It’s much like anything new we start: the anticipation keeps us up nights, the event arrives, and then we must get busy by putting on the finishing touches; in this case sharing/marketing the book. My favorite way to work is events or chances to talk with readers directly. I can read from the book, answer their questions, and talk about whatever people want to...

Excerpt from Letters to Follow-Dance On

Letters to Follow / new works

Excerpt from Letters to Follow-Dance On

The following is a sneak peak into the opening of Letters to Follow-A Dancer’s Adventure; book 3 in the ballet trilogy. Let me know what you think!   If you wish to order a copy of the book, contact me through www.http://paddy@paddyeger.com or call me at 425-420-5161 and I’ll get a copy to you ASAP.

What Do Author’s Do After They Finish a Book?

84 Ribbons

What Do Author’s Do After They Finish a Book?

While I wait for my recently completed books to arrive, I often take a writing break and work on tasks I’ve let go while I was focused on my deadline. Things like: I wander around, wondering what to do with myself without pages to edit. I clean closets and drawers and sort through the papers and books that I may or may not need now that the book is completed. I enjoy lunch with my friends, make overdue phone calls, and scout out belated-and-need-to-be-mailed birthday gifts. I wonder what’s missing from my days. (It’s writing!) I start a new writing...

Update: Letters to Follow – A Dancer’s Adventure

Letters to Follow / musings / new works

Update: Letters to Follow – A Dancer’s Adventure

The only things better than finishing writing a book is having it arrive at my door as a real book! When that UPS truck backs up and opens the back of the truck and my name appears on several neatly stacked boxes, I realize that I’ve done it! I’ve taken  ideas, written and rewritten them, and edited those words until I feel I could recite the entire book with my eyes closed. Now I can hold it in my hands, turn the pages, checkout all the special touches the publisher/creative artist Karin Hoffman has added, and know my followers will...