Anchor Point Cover

Tentative Cover for Anchor Point: Anchor point is an archery term for a point of reference on the face that the archer consistently returns to when attempting to shoot an arrow. Without a constant anchor point, an archer will never develop good form and accuracy. The wood planks have a purpose in the story, too.

Life Beyond a Log-In

I love my computer and the world of information I can access online. I don't think I can function without it now. I have 80+ log-ins and passwords in my business, social, and personal cyber world. For most of them, I signed up one time to get one thing and then abandoned them. But for others, I need to get better about re-visiting them occasionally if for nothing else than to show proof of life, as my son recently said in one of his posts.

He was the one that said I needed a MySpace page for my books, so we created one and then I promptly forgot about it. I'm sure there are cobwebs growing in the corners now. I signed up for a Facebook page because everybody under the sun has a Facebook page and I kept getting invitations from friends. I also wanted to see pictures of my kids, so I signed up and asked to be their friend. That immediately jerked me back emotionally into junior high when I noticed my very popular nephew has 1,058 friends, and I have only 38. Then my middle-age rational self tells me I should be thankful that I'm not that connected-- I do good to get through my email accounts each day. I really don't have time to read everyone's posts on Facebook. I'd never get off the computer, and I sure wouldn't have time to write. How in the world do you do it, Lance?

I signed up for GoodReads, and it's simply embarrassing for a librarian to show proof of how little she reads (I did read ten books over the summer-- most of them from my middle school library). And I do read a lot in bits and pieces when it comes to researching for my novels. But when my book shelf only shows 28 books versus a friend's 315 books (and he only recently signed up), then I'm revealing way too much about myself.

I found where one of my librarian friends posted reviews of my books on Library Thing (thank you, Sarah LeighAnn!), so I felt obligated to sign up so I could add a picture to my profile. I need to add a written profile, too, sometime. Some day...

I haven't touched my web site in over a year. I've only added a few posts to my blog. My Amazon.com sales are embarrassing due to neglect in the marketing department. I'd be content to lock myself in an attic to only write, but that doesn't help people discover my books. I need to create and maintain a presence online, but my real life gets in the way of my virtual life. And for the most part, I'm glad about that. But I do believe that my books have something to say and in a very satisfying way, so I need to change my virtual ways in order to make them known.

I need to prioritize my network connections and try to keep a few of the important ones updated. I'm getting better about updating my blog regularly. The photos I'm using on my web page are three years old, so I'm determined to update those soon, too. At one of the library conferences, I attended a session presented by an attractive young librarian, according to her picture in the catalog. I arrived a little early and watched a tired-looking, gray-headed woman setting everything up for the presenter. When the session started, I was shocked to learn she WAS the speaker. Her picture had to have been taken twenty or thirty years before. I'm determined to not let my photos get that old before I update them.

I'll be heading back to school in a week, and things will get crazy for a while. But it will be much calmer than last year. In the summer of 2008, I worked the first month on the collection for the new library I would be opening. The second month I got my house ready to sell, and it sold in nine days. During teachers inservice week in August, I was unpacking boxes of books and taking the boxes home at night to fill them up again. I moved out of my house and into my daughter's home the same week I was getting the new library ready to open. For two months I lived with my kids and looked for a house for my parents and me to buy. In October, we closed on a beautiful old Victorian home, and I moved in. We moved my parents in the following month. I had surgery in December, and finally started on book four in January. I actually didn't write for seven months during 2008, but all of that real-life stuff needed to be done, and I eventually finished Anchor Point.

My life is fractured-- part concrete, part abstract; part tangible, part intangible; part real-life, part imaginary. The key is balance. We all have a need to make connections with each other, and it's so much easier to make them from behind a computer monitor. But we still need to get out there and live a life that doesn't involve log-ins and passwords. We have two porches on our house, and neither one requires a log-in to visit.

Anchor Point Update

Anchor Point is the fourth book in the Taylor Family saga, but it happens in present day—a contemporary story. One of the main characters, Taylor Abbott, is a descendant of the original Taylor family through Justin and Allie Taylor’s line. Over a century’s time the family ranch near Dalton, Texas, has dwindled down from six thousand acres to only one hundred acres and a dilapidated home that hasn’t been lived in for thirty-five years. Taylor’s dream is to restore the old family home to its original glory and preserve the family history, but she and her husband Tom have three children in college and are struggling to make ends meet.

A country western superstar, Beau Hunter, has bought up all the land surrounding the last hundred acres of the Abbott ranch, and he wants their property, too. That would give him the land on both sides of the Nueces River and a substantial buffer against the interstate highway and obsessive fans, stalkers, and paparazzi. He invites the Abbotts to a casual get-together at his ranch headquarters across the river and tries to use his charm to convince Taylor to sell him their land or at least lease the land from them. An impromptu visit to the old house surprises unwelcome trespassers, and Taylor and Beau are abducted and taken to a remote hunting camp. They’re locked in a secure storage room where they are abandoned, and hunting season is months away…

The media has a feeding frenzy speculating on what might have happened to one of People magazine’s sexiest men alive. The first rumors to appear nationally claim he has run off with a local woman, which fits his reputation as a playboy. But when photos begin to surface of a middle-aged, overweight elementary school teacher, talk shows and entertainment news media have a field day ripping apart Taylor Abbott and her family with all the jokes and innuendos. The small, South Texas town of Dalton is turned upside down as the media descend on it for the latest sensation-grabbing headlines.

Anchor Point will be available in October 2009