NOT AN EVERY DAY KIND OF BLOG
NOON AT TIFFANY'S
IN THE SUMMER OF 1888, Clara Wolcott, a daring young artist from Ohio, walked into Louis Tiffany's Manhattan office to interview for a job as a designer. For the next 21 years, her pivotal role in his multi-million dollar empire remained one of Tiffany's most closely guarded Read More
Logo: a symbol or small design adopted by an organization to identify its products.
Before I could even think of logos, I had to come up with a company name.
Fueled by liquid refreshments, my friends and I came up with a long list of clever, bizarre, and downright hilarious possibilities, among them: A Red Heron Press (after the infamous 'a red herring'), Heron Dippity Books, Stork Raven Mad Press, and so on. None of them were quite right until Heron Quill Press came to me (as do most of my ideas) at 4 one balmy morning.
Next, the logo. This was when I realized it is a very good thing to have a name that is also a noun. I came up with a drawing of a heron and sent it out to my friends and family for their votes. What I didn't know was that among my nephews there was a very talented professional graphics artist. Instead of a vote, Dan Magil sent his version of the perfect logo. And to my eye, so it is. Read More
For quite a few years now, I, and a whole slew of other previously published authors, have been knocking on the doors of the publishing houses, our new work in hand. And, for quite a few years, many of us found those doors firmly locked. It didn't matter how many readers we had asking for our work, or how many bestsellers we'd had - the Big Boys weren't answering the door.
I won't bore you with the reasons why the traditional publishing industry is circling the drain, but about 10 months ago I finally saw the DNR order on the wall. As any seasoned ER nurse might, I terminated resuscitation efforts on getting my work published by the Big Boys. It wasn't going to happen, but I refused to let my writing career go down the tubes with them.
So - I opened a new door and entered the world of indie publishing. Independent Press. Do It Yourself. Or, in other words, I began my own publishing company, HERON QUILL PRESS.
I am about to publish four new books - one at a time. They are all different genres: historical, biographical fiction, nonfiction nursing (a sequel to Tending Lives), an epistolary novel (women's fiction), and, a nonfiction cat book (yes, finally, the one about Mooshie.)
And that isn't all. I will soon be reissuing in all the ebook formats: CONDITION CRITICAL, MERCY, and the Adele Monsarrat mystery series - PULSE, PANIC, PARADOX and FATAL DIAGNOSIS.
As you can see, I have not been idle. The doors are about to open. Read More
As a rule of thumb, I don't follow the rules - not when I dress, shoot photos, and especially not when I write. When I was eleven, my sixth grade teacher told me that one should NEVER begin a sentence with a conjunction. And here I am, all these decades later, still breaking the rules.
The most valuable advice my mother gave me about being a creative soul was that it was best to break rules, colour outside the lines, and never allow others' opinions to interfere with what I thought was good. Thus, I might wear white shoes in February or take a photo of a toe adorned with sea bubbles, or...a giant thumb.
Breaking rules is especially good when writing. Early in my writing career, I was told that humor and bad language had no place in books about life behind the sacred closed doors of hospital critical care units. Cherry Ames, Student Nurse, I am not, so excuse me while I guffaw and swear a little.
Now, according to the publishers, I'm bending rules by breaking out of the 'niche writer' box and writing in other genres. When I finally figure out how to get my new work out to the readers, I'm hoping the transition will be smooth. My husband, upon reading this blog, assured me that 90% of all people alive today will have no idea who the hell Cherry Ames is - maybe things are looking up after all. Read More
75 degrees, deep blue sky. Splashing through the surf clear as day and warm as bath water. Dolphins playing toss so close I want to grab a dorsal fin and fly. Hey....it's one way to beat Raynaud's.
