Happy book birthday to me!

Heather Vogel Frederick Truly Madly Sheeply

It’s here, it’s here, it’s finally here!

Altogether now, “Happy book birthday to me!”

Book birthdays are a big deal to an author. After months and sometimes years of writing, and then months and months of waiting, publication day is the day the finished product finally hits bookstores and libraries, and from there, the hands of readers. And if we’ve done our job well, those readers will be happy with what we’ve created.

Truly, Madly, Sheeply is dear to my heart. It’s the fourth and likely final in my Pumpkin Falls mystery series, and it features some of my favorite things: sheep and knitting and October in New England. Plus, it was an absolute joy to write from start to finish. Why, you ask? Well, for one thing, I switched up my process. (Process is what writers call the way in which they choose to write.) Time was, I could devote every day to writing stories–and I did. For a while now, however, I’ve had a full-time “day job” (that’s what writers call any paid work besides writing) at Longyear Museum in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. I absolutely love it, and will share more on that in a future post. Meanwhile, however, those work responsibilities meant I needed to change my usual process when it came to writing stories. And so I did. Truly, Madly, Sheeply was written over the course of a year, on Saturday mornings. Yes, only on Saturday mornings! That’s all the time I had to devote to it. Well, plus a week-long push at the end when I was knitting all the chapters together and polishing it up. You know what? I had FUN. Somehow, corralling my writing into once-a-week sessions and not worrying about the consequences (because there was no point in worrying–it was simply what I had to do) uncorked a sense of joy that I didn’t even know I was missing. I didn’t worry about meeting a deadline–I knew that would happen. I didn’t worry about making everything perfect–I knew it eventually would be. I just wrote for the sheer joy of it for those few hours, every week. 

So it turns out you can teach an old dog new tricks! I just assumed that once a writer had an established process–writing every day–they stuck with it–or were stuck with it–forever. Nope. It’s nice to know that I’m the captain of my writing ship, and can change course as needed.

Back to Truly, Madly, Sheeply and this picture. The sharp-eyed among you will notice what’s behind me. That’s my knitting cabinet. Just looking at it makes me happy! It’s full of wool and sheep and dreams of beautiful hand-knitted things to wear and to give to friends and family. Whether I’m knitting or writing, I’m always thinking of the person or reader who will enjoy the end product.

I hope you all enjoy Truly, Madly Sheeply!

 

Maple Month

Parkers Maple Barn Sugarhouse

One of my favorite holidays isn’t really a holiday at all.

It’s Maple Month.

For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, Maple Month happens every March here in New England, and it is a Very Big Deal indeed. I’m sure it’s celebrated in other places as well, wherever maple producers do their thing. Here where I live, as soon as the conditions are right (cold nights, warmer days), which usually happens come March, maple producers take to the woods to tap their trees, open their sugarhouses, fire up their evaporators – and let the magic happen. Sap flows, sap is collected and boiled down, and voila! Maple magic. Maple syrup, maple sugar, maple cream, maple – well, you get the picture. In a word, maple everything! Yum!

Sugarhouse at Parker’s Maple Barn in New Hampshire

Maybe it’s my Canadian roots (is the Canadian maple leaf flag not a thing of beauty?), but I’m pretty sure that maple syrup runs through my veins.

O Canada!

Give me a choice of anything in the world to put on pancakes or waffles, and it’s always going to be maple syrup. REAL maple syrup, that is – none of that fake stuff. Give me a choice between fudge and maple sugar candy and it’s going to be maple sugar candy any day of the week. Ice cream? Maple walnut, of course.

Readers often ask me where I get my story ideas. When it comes to my Pumpkin Falls mysteries, you don’t have to look any farther than my own lifelong love of maple for the maple-inspired theme at the heart of Yours Truly.

And when I say “lifelong” I’m not exaggerating. Take a look at this picture:

That’s my mom and me, a long time ago, on a wintry day in New Hampshire. Isn’t she glamorous, with her sunglasses and scarf? (She’s the Canadian one, by the way.) I’m a little over a year old in this picture, and I swear I can remember the sweet smell of steam wafting from that sugarhouse behind us. Mmmm mmmm.

Last weekend, my husband and I had hoped to drive up to visit Parker’s Maple Barn, our favorite sugarhouse in southern New Hampshire, but the cross-border pandemic travel restrictions kept us closer to home. So instead of pancakes and waffles drenched in made-on-the-spot maple syrup, we went off to find the next best thing: maple walnut ice cream.

It’s never too cold for ice cream here in New England!