KEEP LEARNING!

 By Caroline Clemmons

Hello, Dear Friends,

Our August theme is Sizzling Days, Sultry Nights. No, we're not responsible for the weather, which has been both sizzling and sultry in North Central Texas. I'm looking forward to fall and winter. 

How has your summer been so far? Taking into account our unusual circumstances during the pandemic, mine has been pretty good. In many parts of the country school has started or will next week. In my mind, this marks the end of summer—even though officially summer ends on September 21. 

Are you doing anything new to occupy time you would have gone out in previous summers? During our time at home, I’ve been signing up for webinars and participating in Zoom meetings. I want to keep learning, stretching the brain to keep my mind as sharp as possible. I’m grateful for the internet and the ability to learn and to keep up with friends through social media and email.

For those who don’t want a webinar, there are Ted Talks covering almost every subject. Hero and I have watched many of those. I’m amazed that some are even humorous as well as informative. I admit Neil deGrasse Tyson is one of my favorites because he explains complicated theories in terms everyone can understand.

For clean, down home humor, I watch Jeanne Robertson’s YouTube videos. Our daughters and I saw her performance in person a couple of years ago. Since she isn’t traveling to speak right now, she has a “back porch” discussion on YouTube. I’m not a fan of those, but the videos of her performances are fun. My favorite is her discussion of sending her husband to the store, which has become a classic. If her sort of humor is not for you. there are many other entertainers on YouTube. Dry Bar Cafe offers a variety of comics.

Reading has saved the sanity of multitudes. You can understand why we authors at Romance Gems (and elsewhere) love readers! We are readers as well as writers and I’ve been working in extra reading lately. I just finished The Secret Orphan, which I recommend. Yesterday I started Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, which was recommended by our librarian daughter. Probably it’s a young adult or new adult book, but it is fascinating and hard to put down and get to work. It's going to be a movie soon.

If you’re looking for something to read, we have the perfect solution, LAST CHANCE BEACH: Summer’s End, which is only 99 cents for fourteen new stories! This box set is only available for a limited time, so grab it while you can. My contribution is The Man in Gull Cottage. Writing a short story was difficult. I had to revise and cut characters or my story would have been too long. I’m pretty pleased with the end result. Maddie James created the cover for The Man in Gull Cottage. I loved reading the entire set—there’s something for everyone.

As you can see by the graphic below, our Comment to Win is back. If you want to enter, just leave a comment that includes your email (with spaces so spammers don’t grab it). You can enter every day.

Until next month, stay safe, be optimistic, and be kind.

Oh How I Hate to Get Up In the Morning! by Hannah Rowan #RomanceGems

Early to bed and early to rise makes me very, very tired and cranky.

Sure, there are times when I get up at the crack of dawn, but it’s usually because we’re headed to the airport for a very early flight.  And really, since I generally stay up all night packing before a trip, “getting up” is really nothing more than ending the little nap I take before heading to the plane, where I sleep through the flight.

On a recent quick trip down the shore for our anniversary, my husband woke me with great excitement, talking about the sun coming up and the beautiful sunrise and all that.  Our room had a lovely balcony facing the ocean and I would have delighted in sleeping in the sunshine streaming through the window.

Yes, the sun came up.  That’s exactly what it’s supposed to do.  If it doesn’t happen, go ahead and wake me up.

I’ve been a night owl all my life.  Even as a baby I sat in the crib looking around far into the wee hours.  I did the old cliché reading under the covers with a flashlight until I couldn’t see the print anymore because my eyes were so tired.

I missed more school buses because I overslept than any kid in history, but I can honestly tell my children I walked miles to school up very steep hills.  Truthfully, I ran most of the way so I wouldn’t be late.

No matter how hard I try, I can’t change my biological clock.  I’ve managed to get up for work in the morning for many years, but I can’t seem to manage the other end—going to sleep at what most people would consider a reasonable hour.  Thus, I fall asleep with my nose in the newspaper or my head on the keyboard very often.

What I don’t understand is why it’s considered virtuous to get up before the sun.  My body can get out of bed, but my brain doesn’t follow until much later in the day.

So many writing-advice books tell us to get up an hour early to get our writing kickstarted for the day. I can’t even imagine what sort of writing I’d produce under such a system.  I’m sure it would make no sense at all.

Night own or morning lark.  Which are you?  And have you been forced to change your natural tendency because of some circumstance in your life?

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Every Day is Treat Day in October. To be entered in the random drawing for a $5 Amazon gift card, leave a comment with your email address written out (not as a hot link). The deadline for doing this is 2 days from now. I’ll draw the winners name on October 11, 2019 and notify the winner by email and by leaving a comment on this post.

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