Magers and Quinn

What a delightful evening, this past Monday, at Magers & Quinn in Uptown, Minneapolis. Thanks, everybody, who came! It was fun.

Here are some amazing and brilliant young women who are members of a book club at Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic School in Minnetonka. Thanks, Pamela Klinger-Horn for bringing them and helping get this set up!

Magers and Quinn is a delightful, Independent Bookstore in Uptown (near Calhoun Square) if you've never been there. It's everything a bookstore should be!

Magers and Quinn tonight!

I stayed up too late watching the recorded Tour de France, and then of course I didn't sleep very well. I never do if I have a big book event the next day.

It's exciting to be invited to Magers and Quinn to read from and talk about Chasing AllieCat tonight. 7:30.

3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN 55408-2614 (612) 822-4611

Yesterday was my mom's birthday. She would have been 91--I'm not sure she would have liked being 91, so maybe it's a gift that she died at 82 when she was still driving and fully capable of life. I missed my family, though--and a birthday party for my nephew-in-law. I had to stay home and work--too much going on this week to be gone an entire day, and I have to finish this edit of the next novel. I also had to cut down maturing cockleburs before they're dry enough to infest Freya's fur. I have about a 5-foot stack of dead cockleburs to burn in my yard right now.

That said, I'd better get to work. Now.

In honor of my dad

Thinking a lot about reading. How what we read affects us. Affects how we think. Affects how we view the world.

I just realized that all my main characters in the books I write are readers. Maybe that's because I don't really understand the inner workings of people who don't read. Maybe it's because I best understand people who do read.

At any rate, Grant--the protagonist--in the novel I'm working on now, is an avid reader. He's also a baseball player who wants to make it to the big leagues. When I started working on this story, he wasn't such a reader. He was too "active" to want to read.

Then I sat talking with my Aunt Ruby--my dad's sister--who told me that my dad, Orland Fjelland--always had his "nose in a book" when he was growing up--that he read constantly. I knew my dad loved to read, but I'd never thought about him as a reading kid. I'd heard stories about using barrel staves as skis, sledding the hills in the timber in winter, swimming in the creek, riding bucking horses, riding the draft horses home from the fields, about sneaking away as a young man to ride in the rodeo...but I never thought about him as a voracious reader.

So in tribute to my dad, my character is now a voracious reader. And it's been fun to figure out which books he would be reading in the mid-1930s.

Just wish my dad were still around. I think he might like this book. At least, I sure hope so. I guess I have my "ideal reader" for this one.

New Ulm Public Library July 15

Tomorrow, July 15! New Ulm, here we come!

Sadie, Allie, Joe, and I (well, they're alive and well on the pages of Chasing AllieCat, so they're certainly coming with me) will be at the New Ulm Public Library on July 15.

At 3 p.m., I'm meeting the teen reading group.

Public reading and book signing 5:15-6:15.

Check out the cool New Ulm Public Library website.

Everybody's welcome.

Books available for purchase, of course.

And, um, bicycles are welcome, too, of course!

Riding, writing

Yesterday, my friend's dog peed on my living room carpet--quite out of character, but enough to push me over the edge: YES, I need to rip up the carpet NOW, and have a nice wooden floor--or at least a clean wooden floor--with rug(s) before Alec comes to visit and crawl around on it.

So, in the next days: I need to mow (before the next rains come), finish second and third drafts of Slider's Son (the pen and paper version is second, translated into computer for third), rip up carpet (doesn't that sound fun?), do a reading/signing at the New Ulm Public Library (5:15 Friday the 15th if you're interested and that will be fun), ride every day (finally feeling almost like my old self on the bike--why does it take half the summer!?), and watch the Tour (cause I'm addicted). Good news: I can watch the Tour and rip up carpet at the same time!

Oh, I have been riding in the mornings or mid-day most of the summer. Yesterday, I stole a 20-mile ride right before dusk, and saw two deer (in my path on the downhill--had to brake to avoid them) and a raccoon (on my path on an uphill so he saw me in plenty of time). Might need to ride later in the day more often to check the wildlife! Not sure if the raccoon's extra time to get out of the way was an indication of his speed or mine uphill. Ha.

Oh, and my man Voeckler is still riding in the yellow jersey today. Haven't seen the results today yet.

Back to work.

More summer stuff

When I planted "Mini Bell" peppers, I wasn't expecting this! Barely bite-size, but sweet and good. The hot banana peppers have heat this year. Eight varieties of peppers are growing and blooming and starting to produce. Tomatoes are blooming to beat the band; onions and garlic are prolific; cilantro exploding....hopefully that means a giant batch of salsa and then pepper jelly later this summer.

Yesterday--I bought worms. Meal worms. Never in my wildest dreams thought I would purchase worms. But the bluebird babies are growing and bluebirds supposedly love meal worms. So I put some out. Opened the box, and jumped. Had to put on latex gloves to touch them. Couldn't bring myself to pick one up with bare fingers.

For now: I HAVE to stay in and edit like a S.O.B. all week. And try to resist the pull of being outside more than in.

I also have to sneak peeks at the Tour de France. Thomas Voeckler is in Yellow now and on my TDF fantasy team. Whooee!

I also have to ride. And get the rest of the matts out of Freya's fur.

Better get crackin'. Over and out.

Saturday, July 9

Some happinesses of July: sunshine, long bike rides, ripe raspberries, and blooming hollyhocks.

Today was supposed to be our annual canoe trip down the Blue Earth River, but due to 1. thunderstorm warnings and 2. Tom being on call 24-7 because of the state shut-down, we're not going. Postponed until August sometime. Much of the Compound population is still going, though.

Got the galleys for Girl Meets Boy. I'm proud of my story in there, "Mars at Night," and happy to be included in that anthology! Pub date: January 2012. Now I have to sell something more so I have something coming out in 2013. I finished the first draft of Slider's Son. Editing, editing, editing. I wish I could just write a story right the first or second time.

So shut up, quit blogging, and edit. Okay.