A Day in the Life- #IndieAuthorDay

International Indie Author Day happened Saturday, October 14th. It was a day for Indie Authors around the world to get together.

I'm proud to say myself and poet Kate Marsh visited with our local Harney County Library and set up an author day at the library. We invited authors and writers from the area to join us for a two hour discussion of writing, publishing, and being creative.

We had nearly 20 people present, which I feel was a good number considering the small community of Burns, Oregon. Authors brought books to set up and sell.The books ranged from Children's, YA, Mystery, Sci-fi, Romance, Poems, and Nonfiction. 

We had refreshments of pumpkin and sugar cookies, coffee, tea, and juice.

The authors were asked in an email who would like to be part of a panel. We had Kate, myself, and four other authors as part of the panel. Most were Indie authors. Three had been published before going Indie. One had never published a book but wrote screenplays, and one was Indie all the way.

The event started with everyone present who considered themselves a writer to stand up, say their name and what they wrote.  It was fun to meet some people I'd only heard their names and see the passion in everyone of them for the story they were writing.

Good questions were asked and discussions were engaging and enlightening. Everyone was patient with those who took longer to tell their writing journey and when the event ended at 4, most people lingered to talk more. We were finally kicked out by the library staff because the library had been closed for half an hour!

Everyone who participated in the day had a good time and enjoyed talking with other writers and learning about the struggles and the triumphs.  It was wonderful to see young people as well as the geriatric set there to talk writing and learn from one another.

The one thing I came away with is the need to have a writing workshop of some kind at the library possibly every other month. I'll be headed into the library to talk with the director of the library and see what we can do.

If you are an author, did you participate in any events for Indie Author Day? If a reader, do you like to hear how an author struggles not only with getting words on paper but the business of writing, or do you just like reading the books for enjoyment without wondering about how the story went from a writer's  brain to the book page? 

A Day in the Life

This week has been a little slower but not much. I finished a book last week and am starting into a new one this week. I have it fleshed out, the pre-writing steps taken, and  started to put the story onto the document. Only struggling with the first 500 words, I realized I was telling the wrong story and now, my fingers are flying and I'm excited about the book. That is how the process works for me.

This installment of A Day in the Life happened last Thursday.

We awoke and were eating breakfast when I asked my usual question of my hubby. "What are your plans today?"

He said, "We're going to get some bluegrass hay."

George

That meant I wasn't going to get to my chores for a bit. We finished eating and while I cleaned up the dishes he made sure the back of his pickup was empty.  I walked down and fed the horses before we all (dogs included) climbed in the pickup. The hay was only about five miles from our house. we loaded the twenty bales onto the back of the pickup and brought it home. Then we had to re-stack a small hay stack that had started to tilt. After it was back in place, we unloaded and stacked the bluegrass. After all the problems with our daughter's pony, it was finally diagnosed as needing a low calorie, low carb diet which means we scrounge up bluegrass straw hay for him and it is doing George some good being on the same diet. ;)


When the hay was all stacked I asked, hubby if he needed me for anything else. He replied, no.  I spent the rest of the morning working on the book I finished until he arrived and said it was time to go to town.  I'd mentioned the day before I wanted to attend a meeting of the Historical Society. It was a luncheon. Hubby dropped me off. I attended the meeting. Some of it was interesting and some wasn't. I've found so far that these luncheons are never about what I thought they would be from the write up int he newspaper.

I also had an appointment with another writer and the head of the Harney County Library to set up an Indie Author Day at the Library in October. Between the luncheon and the meeting I had some time to kill and used it browsing through the local quilt shop that is closing and has their fabric for half off. I picked up some fun pieces and then headed to the library.  The meeting went well. We are sending out invitations to local writers to be on a panel to talk with the public. It should be a fun day!

We returned from town with a few groceries. I made dinner and hubby said, he needed my help after dinner. While in town he'd picked up new nozzles for one of the dairy irrigation pivots. He needed to change the nozzles and needed me to read the numbers and pick out the ones he asked for and hand them to him.  The dogs hopped in the work truck and we went out to the North Pivot.

Dogs hoping a rodent will be drowned out of its hole

Putting in the new nozzle

Hubby turned the water off and we walked through knee high wet alfalfa as we walked along the pivot changing out the nozzles. Mikey was racing around through the wet plants having fun cooling off.  Tink jumped back in the pickup. She is a diva and didn't like getting all wet.

Mikey all wet after his run through the alfalfa

When the nozzles were done, the sun was setting and the sky was turning a fire season orange.

The sprinkler ready to go.

We went home, took showers, and settled in for a couple hours of TV before going to bed. We live a laid back lifestyle and I like it!