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Dear Reader,
I'm enjoying a vacation and author Emilie Richards is filling in for me today. Emilie is sitting at her computer, waiting to answer your mail so send her an email at: info@emilierichards.com Be sure to read below for details on how to win a free book. Thank you so very much Emilie.--Suzanne Beecher
From author Emilie Richards...
I always enjoy Suzanne's keen eye for finding meaning in the smallest things. I thought of that today as I dug for gold.
I'll confess I'm enchanted by thoughts of buried treasure. Novelists are a romantic lot. My practical friends see tumbledown houses and vacant lots, and they think about septic fields and new construction. I see stories buried in the rubble. Beside that spindly willow? A chest with great-grandmother's pearls and a photo of the man she lost, protected against the ages in a heart-shaped locket. Under those decaying steps? Letters from a long dead president, explaining why he did or didn't go to war, and how the decision haunted him.
With that in mind, with thoughts of a hundred possibilities, today I dug in my own front yard. Not for gold coins. Not gold jewelry. Yukon gold potatoes. Buried last spring where sensible people would have planted shrubs. Buried with hope and ceremony and tender, loving care.
Years ago, during my first sojourn here in Virginia, I also grew potatoes. I planted them on St. Patrick's day and thought of my Irish ancestors, wondering proudly what they would think of my green thumb. Unfortunately, nostalgia and pride do not a garden make. In keeping with the theme, my yield mimicked the Great Famine. Had I depended on my harvest, I would have been the last of my line.
This year I was determined to succeed. Again on St. Patrick's day, I dug holes and placed my starchy hopes at the bottom. And as the plants sprouted and grew, I covered them with soil and mulch and optimism. I calculated when to dig my buried treasure and imagined the dishes I would cook.
My result? Nine potatoes. Not one as large as a dainty lady's fist. Some just a smidgen larger than my thumb.
Treasure is like that. Sometimes the long awaited prize is far different from what we anticipated when we began the hunt. Writing can be that way, too. Sometimes a completed novel is not what we envisioned. A book, like a potato patch, takes on a life of its own and becomes a fat family saga, or a slimmer, more intimate volume. The result might be potato salad instead of potatoes au gratin, a simpler story, earthier, perhaps even tastier.
This year, despite my best efforts, my potato patch was only a short story. But what a succulent bowl of potato salad those nine potatoes will make. At month's end, as I launch into my latest book, I'll remember them and proudly smack my lips. Once again I'll be immersed in anticipation and possibilities. And when the last word is written, I'll be proud of the result and delighted my imagination and hard work carried me to that place.
Emilie Richards is the USA Today bestselling author of more than sixty women's fiction, romance and mystery novels. Her latest, Happiness Key, the story of four unlikely friends in a rundown Florida beach community, debuted in July. Email Emilie at: info@emilierichards.com Her website and blog can be found at www.emilierichards.com If you visit her blog be sure to post a comment that mentions DearReader.com and you'll be entered in a drawing to win one of three books Emilie is giving away.
KIDSBUZZ: This week, fascinating books about ballerinas, witches, explorers and angels from: Susan Kuklin, Beautiful Ballerina; Carolyn MacCullough, Once a Witch; Kathleen Benner Duble, Quest; and Suza Scalora, Evidence of Angels. Go to: http://www.authorbuzz.com/kidsbuzz
I tell you what I would do with those potatoes. Scrub them and eat them raw. Oh, I used to love to eat them like that fresh out of the garden, washed off with the hose. Yummy, at least to me! lol
Posted by: Cindy | October 21, 2009 at 08:39 PM