…The Day I Was Almost Arrested for Shoplifting.

 After weeks of recuperating from surgery for ingrown toenails I could finally slip my tender feet into normal shoes and decided to go shopping. My sister-in-law had a birthday coming up in a week and I needed to get a gift in the mail for her. I'd also previously purchased some warm pants at my favorite department store, and wanted to buy another pair.

Luckily the store still had my size and color in the pants. I draped the pants over my arm to free my hands for further shopping and glanced around.  I found a table of nice ladies' sweaters already wrapped and took my purchases to the checkout counter. Why do they make those counters so tall? I had difficulty hearing the saleslady behind the counter height because of its height, but finally paid and left the store.

By then my feet were hurting and I decided to end my shopping and go straight to my car.

As I crossed the parking lot as heard someone call, "Lady," but didn't look around. The calls continued and I finally did look. At first I couldn't see anyone. Then I saw a young Hispanic man who seemed to be calling me.

"Yes?" I said.

"Would you return to the store with me?" he said, so serious I felt my first concern.

He paused inside and asked, "Did you pay for those pants?"

"Yes." As I glanced down at the sack holding my purchases, I saw the pants still draped over my arm!

"Come with me," he said, his look stern. He led me through the store to a crowded room I'd never noticed before and seated me at a cluttered desk where a man sat studying the computer screen before him.

"I caught her," my nemesis said.

After a moment the other man looked up at me. "Can you tell me what happened?" he said.

"I came here to buy these pants and a gift, but forgot the pants were still on my arm and walked right out of the store without paying for them, but I'll gladly do that now."

"You can't." He tossed them on a pile on the floor.  Then he recorded my name and address and took my photograph! "You can go," he said, "but don't shop in this store again for at least a month."

Breathing a sigh of relief, I hurried home to lick my wounds and I didn't return store for over a year. Although the department store has since changed names I still cringe when I walk through those doors and can't help wondering if my face is being run through facial recognition software in a back room.

That's right, the dreaded writer's block.


Last fall, feeling burned out and drained after self-publishing a three-book series in six months, I decided to take a mini-sabbatical from writing to weed and landscape my backyard sanctuary.

Don't ever do this. I'm having a difficult time getting the words to flow from my fingertips again.

I've just finished reading Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, and like the raft the three plane-crash survivors float across the ocean in, I've hit the doldrums with my writing. Suddenly, I have dozens of ideas vying for attention in my head, but the words simply won't come. Floundering,  I've been searching for something different to light my fire.

...Something new. Anything new and different that might reopen the pathway to my clogged brain and let an onshore breeze sweep away my cobwebs.

In the past I've done my best plotting while pulling weeds, but now my desire to keep on gardening now far outweighs the urge to write, and the recent winter rain in Southern California has my weeds knee-high again.

I joined a Book Club at the local library and have read a number of good books I otherwise would not have read, but my words still refuse to flow.

Today I'm going to write a Valentine's Day blog.  Wish me luck. 

    

I think I can.

After being hospitalized overnight with a TIA that affected my short term memory and vocabulary, I discovered I was unnerved by the idea of speaking in public for the first time in my life, so prior to attending a writer's conference I re-read Norman Vincent Peale's book You Can If You Think You Can to boost my self-confidence.  

Before each of my agent/editor appointments at the conference I chanted Peale's mantra I had adapted to fit my needs: I can if I think I can, and came away from those interviews with three requests for full manuscripts. 


 Now, whenever my negative genie tries to whisper in my ear You can't write that! I chant Yes, I can, and I do.

Former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt put it another way: 
           "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
 
Thinking I wish I could write a romantic suspense doesn't do it.
Saying  Someday I'd like to write a romantic suspense won't do it either.
Sitting down and plotting a dynamite love story with a scary subplot will.What's holding you back? Fear? Your inner critic?

Find a way to shut her up. 


Before I started writing Lawbreakers and Lovemakers  I read an article on writing mysteries to get me started. "Use short sentences when the going get's tough," the author wrote. When I did, my story took off. By the time I finished writing the book I felt as if I'd been on an extended rollercoaster ride.
 

Law breakers and Love makers is now available in print from:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Toni+Noel
or
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/Toni-Noel?tore=allproducts&keyword=Toni+Noel

30 years in the making and it's finally here! Check out all it has to offer.

The city of San Diego recently opened a new downtown public library, a real show place, so put a visit to our new library on your list of things to do the next time you come to town.

The modern, nine-story building includes an indoor theater with seating for 300, a classroom where the computer-illiterate are taught in a friendly, supportive environment to use the 600 computers scattered throughout the building, a quiet space for students to do homework, even a charter school. An entire section of one floor is devoted to genealogy, there's an inviting adult reading room beneath the glass dome on the upper lever, even a place to reserve for weddings and other events. Comfortable seating is scattered throughout the floors and a collection of antique typewriters encourage visitors to reminisce. There's even an extensive collection of videos and music on CD's to check out and enjoy at your leisure.
Learn more here: 
http://www.sandiego.gov/public-library/about-the-library/projects/newcentral.shtml

This library was in the works for far too long, but is well worth the wait, and it looks like the enlarging of the branch library in my neighborhood will be next on the City Council's list. Our community desperately needs those two planned meeting rooms and the additional square feet that will more than double the usable space, and looks forward to the extended hours promised for all the city's libraries in next year's budget.

What have you checked out lately?             

             The following true story from 1938 is taken from my memoir, Why Not Me?

On their anniversary Daddy surprised Mama with a battery powered radio and she placed it on top of the bookcase. For a while we used Daddy's car battery for power, which meant he had to hook it back up to the car before he left for work.

            Shaped like a cathedral covered in smooth veneer the radio soon became the center of family activity on winter nights. Daddy liked to listen to the news, and if President Roosevelt came on with one of his Fireside Chats promising an end to the Depression we were instructed, "Don't talk. Listen."

            I don't know how Daddy came up with the money but within a year, the radio had a battery of its own we had to regularly remember to have it charged. 

            "Not everyone can afford the magic of radio," Mama told us, so most Sunday nights we invited the relatives to laugh with Amos and Andy, Fibber McGee, and Gracie Allen. And when my older siblings came home from evening church services we'd all get a taste of the cake or pie one of my aunts had baked to show their thanks.

            I was too young to understand everything that came from the radio, but I'd laugh every time Daddy or Mama did. I liked all the shows except 'I Love a Mystery' and 'The Thin Man'. The background music on those shows frightened me.

            One Sunday night in late October of 1938 Mama, Daddy and I took our places around the radio, ready to enjoy whatever it might say.

            The program began with soft music and when the announcer started talking in a boring voice, I lowered my head onto Mama's lap. Then a frightened voice said, "We interrupt this program to bring you a newsflash from Grovers Mill, New Jersey."

            I felt Mama stiffen. Where had her soft lap gone?

            I tried to ask, "What's wrong?" but Daddy shushed me, sounding mad. He did that sometimes. I shushed.

            Later, the same announcer said something about "forty bodies lying in a field." Mama drew in a sharp breath. The announcer's tone scared me and I covered my ears. His next words sounded like he was being chased up a hill, which scared me even more. Reaching out, Mama took Daddy's hand. I buried my face between her breasts, but didn't make a sound. I didn't want to get sent off to bed all by myself.

            A knock suddenly sounded at our front door. Daddy said one of those words under his breath that Mama forbid Little Robert to use and jumped up to answer the door. He hurried back with Uncle Bernie and all the other Valley View men.

            "Were you listening..." I heard one whisper, then Daddy ask, "Where do you think they'll attack next?"

            He sounded frightened, too, and I burrowed against Mama soft breast, my hands pressed tight over my ears. I no longer cared to hear their conversation or the radio. Even the music was scary, and the announcer's voice--

            "Where are the older children? Don’t you think they ought to hear this?" Ralph asked.

            "At Training Union," Daddy said, sounding impatient, and I could tell that unlike me, he didn't want to miss a word the announcer said.

            "If the world really is coming to an end, I want my family at my side," Uncle Bernie said.

            "You think I should go get them, Sugar?" Daddy asked.

            "Bernie's right," Mama said. "Whatever happens, I'll feel better if we are all together when it does."

            Daddy pulled his cap down on his head. "I won't be long," he said, giving Mama a fierce hug.

            I begged to go with him. I didn't mind missing the rest of the broadcast. The announcer terrified me and from the way Daddy looked, even he was scared.

            We drove the three miles to Dawson Baptist Church in no time and Daddy climbed out of the car in a big rush. Some men gathered on the church steps beneath the light shed by a bare bulb stopped Daddy to talk.

            "What brings you back so soon, Bob?" Daddy's bald friend asked.

            "Some unknown force is attacking the east coast and I've come to take my children home."

            "Oh, didn't you hear? That was all a hoax," the man said.

            "Yeah, someone else was just here," another added. "Said what you heard was a re-enactment put on by some guy named Orson Wells. He called it 'The War of the Worlds.' You must have left home right before he explained the program was a special Halloween broadcast.  It just ended."

            I could see that Daddy felt foolish, letting a silly radio program scare him, but since he was already at the church he collected my brother and sisters, and on the way home told them what we'd heard and why he'd come for them. They were upset they'd missed all the excitement, Little Robert especially. He thrived on talk of war and guns.

            When we reached home, all the relatives were still there talking about how the broadcast had made them feel.

            "What did you think about those sound effects? The realistic sound of those tanks rumbling down the street?"

            "Yes, and folks cut off in mid-scream? Even the announcer's voice cut off in the middle of describing an attack."

            "It was like we were right there," Ralph said, slapping Daddy on the back. "I even looked out the door to see if the sky was red, so I'd know how soon those invaders would be here."

            Not one of them thought Mr. Wells' Halloween prank was funny and when we gathered for the family feast on Thanksgiving, my uncles were still talking about that broadcast.

       Seventy-five years later I still remember our fear.  

Not many of the residents who helped get the San Carlos Branch Library built still live in San Carlos, so when the Friends of the Library Historian published a request for help collecting date for the upcoming 4oth Anniversary of the library celebration I sent the following information to her.  

"Late in 1969 or early in 1970 I was appointed Library Chairman of the San Carlos Community Council, the predecessor to the current community planning group, after a local mother of Patrick Henry students appeared at a SCCC Board meeting and demanded to know what was being done to get the promised library built in San Carlos.

She was one of the many frustrated local residents who bought their homes on the assurance the growing community would have schools, a fire station and a library. Developers even showed potential buyers a plot mad showing the proposed library. The fire station was built on that site and bulldozers were continually flattening the most desirable spots for apartments. Soon there would be no suitable site left.

I learned from City Librarian Clara Breed that unless we brought pressure on the City Council to purchase property and build a library in San Carlos that mother and others residents would continue having to drive their students to the Benjamin Library in Allied Gardens to do their research.

She told me how to get the Council's attention and I applied a week ahead for my name to be placed on the docket for the following week's Council meeting. The Council members listened attentively, then admitted they were sorely uninformed about our community's needs and asked someone to look into the matter and bring it to the attention of the City Planning Commission.

When the subject came up on the Planning Commission's  docket a large group of San Carlos residents drove in a caravan to the meeting and several other members of our group spoke before I made an impassioned plea for the Council to select a site for the proposed library before the best sites were all snapped up for service stations. The interest of our residents turned Council heads, and a week later the Clara called and asked if I would show her around the area. The site I thought best, next to our new fire station, had just been sold for a service station so I drove her around the neighborhood in my VW bus, pointing out other likely sites. She preferred a location near a shopping center, and the City soon purchased the present site on Jackson Drive.

Because of my work to secure a library site Alan Hitch, the Councilman for our District, invited me to turn the second shovel of dirt at the ground breaking ceremony for the new library.  For a year prior to the opening of our library local residents had been donating books for the proposed library and I had stacks of books in my garage for the library. Prior to the opening the Librarian sent a truck to pick up the books which were sold by the first Friends of Library organization at the downtown library and the resulting funds used to purchase additional new books for the San Carlos Library." 

A local committee will soon launch a fund-raising campaign to supplement City funds for the much-needed expansion of our library and since I firmly believe search engines can never replace printed books,  I plan to help.

 

Welcome to the Cowboys and Lawmen Blog Hop!
Leave your email address with your comment for a chance to win an eBook time travel download complete with a Pinkerton man. There's also a $100 gift card of your choice going to a lucky name drawn from all the commenters. 
 
Cowboys, lawmen and bad boys, oh, my.

I've met one real cowboy, a few peace officers and more than my share of bad boys in my lifetime, but for some reason I have a penchant for writing about cowboys and lawmen, good or bad.

In Rising Above, a time travel released by Desert Breeze Publishing, Hal Grantham, the hero, is an undercover Pinkerton Agent tracking stagecoach robbers in a silver mining town in the mountains above Death Valley, California. He's the tall, silent type who keeps his angst-riddled past to himself and passes himself off as a misplaced cowboy working the mines who sometimes follows the trail of crooks.

The last thing this widowed lawman wants to do is marry again, but luck is not with him.  Wilda Stone's hot air balloon crashes, dashing her hope of winning the race to Death Valley and dumping her back in 1874 and smack on the hero's back.

Although he rescues Wilda, fate still has it in for Hal. The high wind that forced her balloon down blows up a sand storm and Hal seeks shelter for them in a cave, where Wilda spends two nights in the cave with his horse and Hal before the wind finally dies.

To Hal's way of thinking he has compromised her reputation and the outspoken woman must marry him, but strong-willed Wilda wants no part of a marriage without love. She's planning to return to her empty house and empty life in Riverside as soon as she figures out how to get back to 2012.

The arrival of the stately newcomer in Cerro Gordo creates quite a stir among the love starved miners who see her as fair game, forcing Hal to prematurely announce their betrothal. Wilda endures the novelty of Hal coming courting while she waits to return to her time. However his first kiss changes everything. A tomboy who grew up to work with a Caltrans road crew without ever being asked out on a date, quickly falls in love with Hal.

It's said the course of true love never runs smooth. Their marriage hits a few snags. Wilda can't cook, but much of the newlyweds' time is spent in bed, and they continue to take their meals at the American Hotel. Then, while Hal is off trailing the latest stagecoach robbers, a villain from Hal's past kidnaps Wilda, counting on her husband to come to the abandoned mine shaft where he's keeping her. Then the villain will kill Hal.

Wilda has no way to warn him, but she has her trusty pocketknife, the same knife she used to beat Hal at mumblety-peg while confined to the cave after the balloon crash. Her aim is true. The gutsy heroine buries the blade in the villain's chest and Wilda and Hal escape unharmed.

No, their lives still do not run smooth. Hal lost his first wife and young son when diphtheria swept their town while he was away protecting railroad shipments for Pinkerton, so when a diphtheria epidemic hits Cerro Gordo, he panics. Wilda insists childhood immunizations given her by Twentieth Century doctors will protect her from the diseases prevalent in 1874. Still fearing for her safety, Hal repairs her balloon and sends her back to her own time in tears.

Like a lucky penny Wilda returns, allowing Rising Above to have a happy ending. True to his promise to never again leave his wife unprotected Hal accepts employment as sheriff in a small town in the Owens Valley where he can keep close watch over his buxom bride.

LINKS:

Here's a buy link where you can read more about Restored Dreams

http://www.desertbreezepublishing.com/noel-toni/or

Or here:  Amazon.com    http://amzn.to/HdUpj1

Or here:  Barnes and Noble:   http://bit.ly/13prbVm

Toni hangs out here:

http://pinterest.com/toninoelwriter 

http://twitter.com/toninoelwriter   

http://www.facebook.com/AuthorToniNoel 

http://www.ToniNoelAuthor.com/blog.html  

www.ToniNoelAuthor.com 

Don't forget to leave a comment for the chance to win the grand  prize or a download of Rising Above.

Ready to return to Cowboy Charm? Here's the link:

http://cowboycharm.blogspot.com/


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On my 2013 calendar, the wallpaper for the entire month of February is a big red heart. Rather appropriate for a romance writer, don't you think?

In addition to Valentine's Day I've also circled my husband of sixty-plus years' birthday, so between the birthday, spreading love around by sending Valentines to my extended family, and selecting a meaningful gifts to commemorate these special occasions for my DH, it's little wonder I consider February the love month. I've been so busy spreading love around I didn't get this blog posted when I'd planned.

Love has been in the air all month, every store window and even the TV commercials have reminded us it's the love month. Even the Super Bowl ads got in on the act. So is the love month over-commercialized, or does it truly act as a jump start for flagging romances?

When we were younger, dinner reservations for February 14th were a must, and my husband soon learned if he failed to confirm our plans by the first of February, he was pretty much out of luck to find a place for us to eat out. Our favorite restaurants would be all booked. One year a local Italian restaurant advertised their special menu ahead, and we were one of the lucky couples to share a romantic dinner by candlelight and a thoughtful nosegay for the ladies to take home.

Only the pricey restaurants do that now, and since we no longer drive at night, my husband grilled tender fillet mignon for me, and wild salmon for himself, and I found this preferable to a questionable restaurant meal.

Each year I receive a Valentine from a secret admirer, and though he tries to hide his identity by sending his bundle of Valentines addressed to all his lady friends to someone in another city for mailing, we all know who he is: a romantic at heart who believes we all should mail a stack of Valentines to our friends to commemorate love month, and keep the tradition alive.

This romantic is all for that, and I do my part.

On a related subject, I just finished reading an historical romance, Sabrina Jeffries' delightful novel A Lady Never Surrenders. In it, Lady Celia, the gutsy heroine, insists: "A lady never surrenders. Except where love is concerned. I've come to realize that in matters of love, a clever lady always surrenders." Right on!

Of course it took the heroine until the end of the novel to finally come to this conclusion, which is half the fun of reading romance, don't you think? Good job, Sabrina.

My publisher, Desert Breeze Publishing, has a new website, and if you've been wanting to read eBooks, but don't own a reader, Why ePub? on the publisher's website has instructions for downloading eBooks to any device.

Here's a link:

http://www.desertbreezepublishing.com/why-epub/

And here the link where you can download my books:

http://www.desertbreezepublishing.com/noel-toni/

and here:

http://amzn.to/HdUpj1

 

Ann Siracusa tagged me for RWA-SD's Blog Hop and asked that I answer these Ten Interview Questions and Answers for the Next Big Thing in my writing career. Here goes:

What is your working title of your book?

Homeward Bound

Where did the idea come from for the book?

I love to watch shows on HDTV about Stagers, and the ways they can quickly change a room.

What genre does your book fall under?

Contemporary romance

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

I haven't the faintest.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Some are born with a silver spoon, others with a heart of gold.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Neither, though not yet completed, I've already sold it to my publisher, Desert Breeze.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

I'm still working on that, and I have to turn it in to the publisher for edits on April 1, but I typed THE END to the first draft on New Year's Eve. YEAH!

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

The shows about staging empty New York City apartments on HGTV. I knew wealthy homeowners were hiring stagers to help their homes sell quickly because of the down economy, and decided to write about an experienced by trained stager, the product of foster care, and her wealthy client, a man whose Rancho Santa Fe home means nothing to him.

What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?

The heroine takes time out of her busy schedule to listen to friends and even gives some a helping hand.

I tagged Rachel Davila and Jackie Allen. Watch for their blogs.

Here are a couple of examples of the Next Big Thing blog:

http://lauradrakebooks.com/myblog.php?s=the-next-big-thing-what-im-working-on-next

http://www.orlykoniglopez.com/blog.html

You can read more Next Big Things written by the person who tagged me, Ann Siracusa, and another member she tagged,  Shirley Wilder.

http://rwasd.wordpress.com/2012/12/14/the-next-big-thing-featuring-r-ann-siracusa/

http://rwasd.wordpress.com/2012/12/26/the-next-big-thing-with-shirley-wilder/