Calendar Races

I was wondering what happened to October, looked at the calendar, and nearly fell off my chair.

Two days from December! How did THAT happen?

And now I get to catch you up on everything. Buckle up.

If you haven't already visited this cool new website that I'm writing for, please do!

SunburstWomen.com is a wellness and lifestyle site for women, and we're looking for writers!

Check out the Writer's Guidelines link at the bottom of the site's homepage.

If you wander around the website a while you'll learn about innovations in medicine, healthy eating tips (this month Hannah McCartney does a comparison of peanut butters...mmmm!), adoption issues, and gutsy women (see my story about New York comedian Mary Dimino).

We have book reviews, too! (Elizabeth Miller has a great one about a book detailing the serious issues facing women in third-world countries).

Everyone who has visited the site says it's filled with good, informative, interesting articles. Please stop by!

If you've known me a while, you know I used to work for Vision Cable of Pinellas. A very talented student who came on staff as a high school intern is now a very talented video/movie producer with his own production company. Michael Rocha, of Good Karma Pictures, writes and produces movies, is on the crew for the Olympics, produces infomercials, and has done really well with 48-Hour Video Project competitions. He invited me to be on his team, so from Friday evening, Dec. 4, to Sunday evening, Dec. 6, I'll be sequestered with a team of creative maniacs who are going to produce a short MOVIE in less time than it takes most people to write a decent letter!

More good news: You know I'm a part-time storyteller, right? Well ... on Saturday, Jan. 30, I'll be telling traditional and original stories as part of the Pinellas Folk Festival. I'm on stage from 12:00 Noon till 12:45 p.m. and 2:00 p.m. till 2:45 p.m. I hope you'll stop by to hear me share some of my Sal stories, as well as folk tales from Florida and beyond.

I know I keep promising to share my "back to nature" experiences, but there haven't been any yet. I haven't been back to Starke to see my sister since my last post, and since then her chickens are laying eggs for some tasty omelettes, her bloodhound has taken one of the chickens out of the production line, and the temps have dipped into the 30s! We'll see how I do with composting when I can't even turn over the frozen ground ...

OH--and for those of you who have little children on your gift lists, please let me know if you'd like to add any of the Sal books to someone's Christmas stocking or Hanukkah presents.

Just drop an e-mail to salauthor@yahoo.com. There are 3 titles: Sal's Balloon Adventure ($4.95), Sal and the Entrepreneurial Spirits, and Sal and the Scientific Method (both $5.95). ($12 if you buy all 3!) Be sure to send the name(s) of the children so I can personalize their books. If I hear from you by Dec. 10, I'll be able to get the books to you before Dec. 20.

(deeeeep breath) I think I've just typed myself out, so here's hoping all of you reading this had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday, and that your preparations for the upcoming holidays don't run you right out of energy. Take care, my friends!

Hugs and laughter,

Billie

Toes Go In First

Three weeks since The BillieGram's maiden voyage, and so far no fallout.

Having leapt with wild abandon into Twitter, FaceBook, and LinkedIn, I've backed off a little and am now dipping my toes in to test the waters more sensibly.

It took me four hours to decide Twitter is just too much contact with too many people all at once. I'm glad to reconnect with an old friend from high school, but I think plain ol' e-mail is easier.

LinkedIn has been great for making business connections, but it's FaceBook that provided the best surprise.

I found the first friend I had in the whole world!

Better yet, we've been writing and even though we've been out of touch for waaaay too long, we're picking right up and making friends again. Is technology great, or what?

I'm excited, too, because the very talented Boo Ehrsam, who illustrated my "Sal" books, is also on FaceBook, and it's a great way to show off her polymer clay jewelry and other art. I've always said that the best way to support the arts is to buy some, and the Internet makes it easy to find artists you'd never meet otherwise, and just as easy to find exceptionally fine one-of-a-kind creations for gift-giving.

And guess who else? Shana Smith, aka Shana Banana! Shana has some of the BEST children's music. She used to perform at CAMS, the coffeehouse I ran in Pinellas Park in the early 1990s. Of course, she was performing her grown-up music then (which is also exceptional), but these days she mostly goes on tour as Shana Banana and has a devoted fan base.

I hope some of you will search for Boo and Shana online and be just as enchanted by their talents.

Now, I need to get my own website going so I can start building the buzz for my series of "Sal" books. Any web designers out there? I need you!

Hugs and laughter,

Billie

Jumping in at the deep end ...

Just joined Skype and Twitter, and here's my first blog! Too much tech today--need a bike ride and a swim!

I'm gonna make this a free-range blog--snippets from life in the freelance lane (a full time writer for hire!), progress reports on the Sal series of children's books that I'm writing, my experiences learning American Sign Language and experiencing Deaf culture, and tales of hilarity and horror as I spend more time in rural Starke, FL, where my sister lives.

So far, I've hand-fed an orphaned, newborn kitten (she's 2 now, and loves me!); schlepped through mud and ant hills to feed horses, cats, geese, and chickens; faced my fear of feathered fiends to save a goose from a marauding bloodhound; and returned 7 escaped chickens to captivity. Hear me roar.

We'll see how it goes ...

Hugs and laughter,

Billie