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NaNo continues, in public, at The OtherLand Chronicles blog. In today’s episode, our fair heroine is a bit bratty and sneaks out against her mother’s orders:
Then I was free, running down the sidewalk to get out of the park as fast as I could. One of the streetlights were out and a chill flowed down my back as I moved through the inky darkness, staying focused on the next light, only a little further on. A fox dashed across the grass, fluffy tail an arrow behind him, and my heart raced. Was Bartholomew around?
A figure stepped out of the shadows.
The OtherLand Chronicles, Day 3
“Butterflies swirled through my belly, but I shrugged out of my jacket and sat down. Natalie gave me the cello, a measuring expression on her face, but just then, I couldn’t even think about anything but the music. I adjusted the bow and the cello, and took a breath…”
The Otherland Chronicles continue….
When I got home, my grandmother was slumped in her chair, fast asleep in front of the television. Her nurse, Trina, sat knitting on the couch beside her. She lifted her chin at me, big round glasses reflecting the sitcom.
http://theotherlandchronicles.com/2011/11/chapter-1-scene-2/
Anyone who has read here for any length of time knows that I like having a Sunday book bubbling away on a back burner, a book I play with when I’m in the mood. Over the past year or so, The OtherLand Chronicles have been following me around, and I’ve decided to make the book into my NaNoWriMo project.
And you, dear reader, can play along with me. Because I’m writing it on a blog, day by day. I had hoped to go live with the website first thing this morning, but we ran into a glitch that delayed it.
I can now announce that it’s LIVE! The Otherland Chronicles
My promise is to finish the book, even if there is only one reader, so don’t be afraid that you’ll become invested and then I won’t finish. You have my word that I will, posting every day until it is done. I don’t promise to be perfect. I don’t promise to never make a mistake. I have a beta reader to help keep me on track, but I hope if you play along, you’ll go with an open mind.
To get the RSS feed, go here. To read the blog, go here.
The opening paragraph is:
CHAPTER ONE
Alia
I was walking my dog through the parkways when it happened again. Someone called me by the wrong name.
It has been happening ever since we moved here—a boy at the grocery store, a teacher-ish lady one night at my mom’s restaurant. Last week, two girls at the mall were so sure I was pretending not to be this Micayla person that they pulled me into the bathroom and offered me a cigarette. They were not happy when they realized I wasn’t kidding.
Let the games begin!
 One of the most astonishing sights I have ever seen was a graveyard high on a moody mountaintop in Truchas, New Mexico. It was the 5th of November, and the entire cemetery exploded with marigolds and pinwheels, with fresh toys and garlands made of red tinsel. Clouds hung close over the moutains, intensifying all the colors, and I cried out, “Stop the car! Stop!”
We were alone, with a sullen little village in the distance, and barely one car an hour passing by, so we let ourselves in through the gate and wandered through the carnival of celebration—bits of food still on a plate, pictures, and plastic flowers and everywhere the marigolds, bright orange, and pink tissue paper wrapping posts and tied to flags. All of it flapping in the wind blowing across the mountaintop. READ MORE at the Goddess Blogs….
Who would you honor on a day of the dead altar? Come tell us.
Also, a soup recipe from The Lost Recipe for Happiness that would be appropriate for such a celebration: http://www.barbaraoneal.com/extras/recipes/abuela-maria-elenas-posole/
In exactly one week, Tuesday, November 1, at 3 am my time, I will have a little surprise for you. Nothing like I’ve done before, but devoted to the spirit of play and experimentation that is changing the face of our publishing world. Some of you will love it. Some of you might not. I have a feeling that I’m going to have a blast. And that’s all I’m going to say for now. Stay tuned. Countdown
 Here it is, arriving suddenly. On Thursday, it was still Indian summer, sunny and hot. Today is Saturday and that season has fled. This is a wet snow, and won’t stick. Next week, it will be warm again—but instead of collecting a few more roses, another couple of squashes, I will put the garden to bed for the winter. Cut down the frozen stalks of corn, compost the wilted squash, the frost killed tomatillo, so prolific that I am secretly glad I won’t have to figure out how to use 10,000 more of them.
When I first looked out this morning, on the wilted, frozen plants that have been my companions all summer, I felt melancholy. The summer is gone for certain now. Another swift move of the calendar, this very particular summer, this sweet year of my new garden–gone.
And yet…I knew the freeze was on the way, so I found this little greenhouse at the local big box gardening spot. (I had planned to buy PVC pipe and build one—this is ever so much better, and only a tiny bit more expensive.) It’s lightweight, and easy enough to assemble that I did everything but the cover by myself in about 2 hours. It would have been less, but I mixed up two parts and had to redo them. It’s not all battened down just yet—I had hoped to do that today, but it will wait until Monday or Tuesday now, when the weather will be warmer again.
Stepping into that protected world last night, where the tomatoes are growing, and some more potatoes, I felt a sense of deep quiet. Here, I can extend the season, both now and in the spring. Here, I can have a secret stash of fresh, home-grown tomatoes and herbs. It’s too late this year to do it, but in the future, I can plan what the greenhouse bed will hold and provide myself with more herbs and fresh edibles, and create a place of puttering solace for the winter, at least part of it.
Gazing out at the snug little greenhouse, I felt sweet anticipation creeping beneath the melancholy, edging it out of the way. After a break of more than two months, the girls in the basement woke up and peered over my shoulders, yawning and scrubbing their eyes. “Hooray!” they cried. “It’s the writing season! Make some cinnamon tea while we get dressed. We have lots of stories to tell you.”
Another season begins—fresh and unmarked. So it is.
Double Delight is the name. The petals are photo-sensitive and the blossoms are highly fragrant and smell heavily of oranges. Ordinary and yet, so not. As is often the case with roses, and many other things.
Posted at Writer Unboxed this morning
 As I write this, it is the last morning of summer. My yearling kittens are crouched in the garden, watching a squirrel on the fence make his way through the face of a sunflower, methodically plucking out striped seeds with his tiny hands, cracking their shells, devouring the kernels. There are piles of hulls, here and there, through the garden, where I have tied the flower heads to the fence or a branch or a gate. Light angles at a long angle, illuminating the withering squash, the tired corn. As I drink my tea, I’m a little melancholy, knowing that this season is turning. It is such a particular summer.
They all are.
One of the things that has come up in formatting my old books for publication in e-format is the recognition that they are fruits of the years in which they were born. This might seem a simple, clean observation—well, of course they are, you might say. In 1993, the peaches were good and there was a lot of rain, and there were certain political events that influenced my views and ideas. Music always shapes and influences my work, so the popular tunes of the time will add spice and flavor.
When I began the work of going through these books, written from about 1990 through 2000 or so, I never planned to rewrite them in any meaningful way. I have so much work flowing through me currently that that spending time on finished, whole work seemed a bad use of time. It is important to me to update glaring tech issues that date the material in negative ways—changing Walkmans to Ipods, for example, and updating language to reflect the moment.
But even reading to do that much is almost impossible, I find, because they hold too much of me, of my life. It is as if the fruit of those months or years of writing has been bottled and turned to wine that now carries the most powerful notes of that period in a way that I almost cannot bear. READ MORE>>>>>>
Three of my most beloved novels from my contemporary romance days are now available in ebook format.
A full length contemporary romance.
Weary and battered after a stint in prison for killing her abusive husband, Tanya has been dreaming of the day she could renew her relationship with the son she lost. Now cooking at a ranch for troubled boys, she takes the first, tentative steps toward her son…and to his adopted father, Ramon, a man so real and true he might be able to teach Tanya how to trust…and live…again.
Story behind the story:
There was a string of domestic violence cases in Colorado one year. One woman left behind notes to her young sons, and as a mother of young sons at the time, I couldn’t bear it. Another woman was gunned down at Taco Bell right across the street from the domestic violence shelter. Finally, one Easter morning, my street was closed at both ends while an army of police tried to track down the man trying to kill his wife across the street. She had escaped with her daughter out the back door, but my youngest was outside playing when it all happened. I’d finally had enough and decided to write about a woman and child who made it out.
This book won The Janet Dailey Award, a $10,000 cash prize awarded to a romance that best explores a social issue. It was also a RITA finalist, and remains a big reader favorite.
Jezebel’s Blues
Amazon Kindle
Barnes and Noble Nook
Smashwords
Jezebel’s Blues is a full length contemporary romantic novel.
When the Jezebel River overflows her banks and tries to swallow the small town of Gideon in East Texas, Celia Moon is alone and frightened in the farmhouse she inherited from her grandmother. When a mesmerizing and troubled drifter washed up on her porch, she has no choice but to take him in. As the river rises, the pair retreat to the attic to ride out the storm—and discover a compelling attraction.
The daughter of two artists who were besotted with each other, Celia has always felt the odd woman out. She yearns to find a place she can call her own, a family of her own, a life that has some stability and meaning. Her grandmother’s farmhouse in Gideon has always represented that.
Eric fled his grim childhood in Gideon to find a life as an acclaimed blues guitarist, but that life has been taken from him, too, and he’s back in Gideon with a chip on his shoulder that hides the vast, hunger he, too, feels to find his place, his home, his life. Waiting out the storm with sunny, optimistic Celia, he wonders if maybe there’s a place in Gideon for him after all, in the arms of a woman who might know more than she thinks about acceptance.
A novel as rich and deep as a river, Jezebel’s Blues is both a haunting love story and a tale of finding your way to accepting yourself.
Story behind the story
This is one of my personal favorites. It was my first RITA finalist, and the conference that year was in St. Louis, which was flooding that summer. Mainly, I just loved it, and it helped me explore ideas that would lead to In the Midnight Rain, and to another tale set loosely in the same town during WWII (more as I am able to say).
Breaking the Rules
Amazon Kindle
Barnes and Noble Nook
Smashwords
Mattie O’Neal was on the run. She’d stolen a car, cut off her hair, changed her name and was slinging hash in a small Arizona town. She thought she was safe – until Zeke Shephard walked through the door. His rugged, muscled body set every woman’s heart aflutter – but his probing questions made Mattie weak for another reason.
Still, when the bad guys caught up with her, it was Zeke who rescued Mattie and took her to his own retreat. Zeke who comforted her . . . protected her . . . and loved her. Although Zeke insisted he was just a guy for the moment, could Mattie persuade him to make that moment last a lifetime?
Story behind the story:
I have a weakness for road books. What happens when you disappear and start over–what can you find out about yourself, the world, and a great love? Zeke is a bad-boy with a broken heart, and Mattie is a woman who can heal and transform, both herself and her world.
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Barbara Samuel O'Neal is the author of more than thirty award-winning novels, including Rita Award Winning THE LOST RECIPE FOR HAPPINESS and THE SECRET OF EVERYTHING. Her newest book HOW TO BAKE A PERFECT LIFE is available NOW! 
A native of Colorado, Barbara loves teaching, travel, reading, writing, yoga, walking, food, cooking, photography and...okay, reality television.
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