ramblings from an arkansas farm girl
(source: Buzzfeed)
What would Gracie Lee do? With Halloween only days away, she would spend all afternoon scheming up a costume using items in her closet. A hobo? A witch? Maybe a gypsy?
Gracie Lee has a colorful imagination and uses it to entertain herself. Sometimes it gets her out of tight spots. Sometimes, like that one certain Halloween, her imagination causes big trouble.Continue Reading
As a nine-almost-ten-year-old, Gracie Lee didn’t have much money but when she managed to save a little, she liked to buy a new record or two at Savage Tunes on Main Street. Most of the time, though, she was forced to listen for her favorite songs to be played on the radio. WHBQ in Memphis played the best music—mostly top forty—and unless it was stormy, clear reception traveled across the Mississippi River to her corner of Northeast Arkansas.
She liked country music, too. Daddy blasted everyone out of bed before sunrise with the music of Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson, so those songs grew on her.Continue Reading
Yesterday I worked farmer’s hours editing The Accidental Salvation of Gracie Lee. 5:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. That’s a long day with 117,822 words. I took a quick break for lunch at my desk, walked the dogs at least twice, and in the afternoon, I raked leaves for thirty minutes to clear my mind. This morning I’m giving a shout out to the editors who have worked on my book—a good editor is more than worth her weight in gold or good bourbon or homemade pizza or whatever deemed valuable. Editors find needle-in-haystack errors, as well as huge problems, like plot nonsense and timeline confusion.
One thing this process has taught me is that my knowledge of punctuation isn’t as strong as I thought. Continue Reading
